Posted by emmanuel98 on May 4, 2012, at 20:00:47
In reply to ECT: ultra-brief pulse cognitive side-effects, etc, posted by psychobot5000 on May 4, 2012, at 18:55:27
I've had ECT twice. The first time unilateral, the second time bilateral. It is not for the faint of heart. Even unilateral -- which can be done out=patient as long as you have friends willing to drive you, wait, drive you home, come home with you and make sure you are okay -- left me feeling vague and tired. After the fifth or sixth session, I started getting this deja-vu like feeling that there was something I needed to remember, but I couldn't think of what it was. It completely dominated my mind and made it impossible to do anything else. I stopped after ten sessions.
I then did bilateral. This has to be done inpatient because the recovery period takes hours. I barely remember being in the hospital, though I was there for three weeks. People came to visit and I have no recollection. For a month afterwards, I could not remember the names of people I knew well, could not remember street names, had no idea where places were that I went to all the time. I had no real long-term memory loss -- I still knew what I needed to know to do my work -- but the short-term memory loss was bad. It did get better. After a month I was back to normal.
The problem with both these experiences is that they didn't relieve my depression. ECT eats up your life while it's happening. It takes hours to recover from the anethesia, you need lots of tolerant friends with time on their hands to take you to and fro. The process itself takes a couple of hours because of the anesthesia, the preparation, the waiting, the parking, etc.
I would regard it as a last resort. It didn't work for me, but I have a friend who wrote a book about it and she swears by it, does regular maintenance therapy, etc.
poster:emmanuel98
thread:1017140
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120425/msgs/1017151.html