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Things are really weird around here. Freakin trauma.

Wes is psychotic again. I called his pdoc this morning and he is suggesting electro shock therapy. It seems more like torture than treatment.

Has anybody had experience with ECT? or know somebody? I remember older threads about it, but I can't find them. (i am going off of three hours of sleep. Con was in the ER till 3am-may possibly be bleeding somewhere internally)

Needless to say, I am one worried momma.

Never a dull moment around here. Usually they take turns. This is a little more than hectic at the moment. :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs. Bear (Post 202678)

Hi,

I hope things go better for you. Things are not going so great for me. I need help and don't know where to go. No experience with ECT but would love to talk and lend support if I can. You look like a very happy couple.

Thanks,

Dan

I am so sorry, dear. Do you have a psychiatrist or a therapist? What is happening right now? Are you depressed? Are you safe?

You can private message me if you feel better and safer doing so. Just click on my name, it will take you to another screen and then click on the "private message" section. I will try to talk you through this and see if I can help get you somewhere you are safe.

ok?

Hi,

I know a little bit about ECT because I drove my work friend to a consult with an ECT pdoc abuut 3 years ago.

The pdoc wanted him to go three times a week for a month (12 treatments) and then once a month follow up for a while. He did this as an out patient but getting rides three days a week for a month was a hassle and he stopped after 12 or so. As far as I know, my friend said that the treatments did not help at all. But then, maybe the followups would have helped. I don't know.

My friend had to go off any anti-seizure meds he had -- in his case it was Klonopin. (They switched him to Xanax.) The ECT induces a short controlled seizure.

My friend had to get to the hospital early in the morning without having eaten or drunk anything the night before. There are about 3 different ways of doing the procedure -- they depend on where the wires to the head go. One way is the most effective but it also has slightly more side effects than the others. A pdoc who does this, will have his favorite way.

One side effects is memory loss during the treatment. This pdoc told people not to drive until the series was over. People get lost on the road.
Most people recover their memory loss but they still might not ever remember the time from around the treatments.

A few people completely loose memory of what happened before. I don't know the stats on this but I remember reading 2 situations on the Internet. One guy was glad he lost his memory because he had been so depressed his whole life.

The other side effect is headaches. Most go away after the treatment. Or if they don't go away, they can be medicated. A very very small number of people have headaches that last and that cannot be medicated. That statistic concerned me because headaches don't sound like fun.

I remember Highthatsize said one time that the best kind of ECT is done in a place where lots of ECT is going on. That's the kind of place that my friend went to -- I think there is like one big hospital that does it out patient in my area.

Here's the thing: I have not heard about ECT being effective for anything other than depression. But then, I am not up to date on this anyway.
I don't know if it works for mania, psychosis, or anxiety. I would ask the pdoc lots of questions about that.

I hope that some of this is helpful. I know that these are difficult decisions for you.

Mari

http://www.slate.com/id/2181158/
New book about history of ECT:
Shock Therapy by Edward Shorter and David Healy

Quote:

The history of ECT began in 1938, when Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti connected a pair of electrodes to the head of a schizophrenic mechanic and shocked him until he seized. Cerletti was building on earlier work showing that seizures caused by injecting insulin seemed to help certain mentally ill patients.

After several ECT treatments, Cerletti reported, the man's confusion and mutterings had resolved. Doctors did not know how ECT worked, although it was assumed that the seizure relieved symptoms by somehow "resetting" the nerve cells in the brain. But they were quite sure that it did work, not only for certain forms of schizophrenia but also for severe depression, a discovery made when Cerletti and others tried the technique on a broad range of patients.

As one psychiatrist wrote about treating depressed patients with ECT: "It was like a miracle. I always related it to Lazarus risen from the grave." This was the professional response, moreover, even though early ECT was primitive, causing uncontrolled seizures and fractured bones even as it treated disease.

Quote:

Beginning in the 1980s, a series of expert task forces reviewed the existing data and concluded that in certain cases of mental illness, ECT is not only an acceptable, but a highly advantageous treatment. Its use is again on the rise, helping to alleviate the symptoms of certain patients with severe psychiatric diseases.

How does ECT work?

Hi,
Here is a snippet about why it works:

http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/667442.aspx

Quote:

Hi--I'm the author. What is known now are the types of effects that ECT has on the brain but no one knows which one(s) treats depression successfully or why. Here is a summary of these physiological effects from a recent review article (11/8/07) in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"ECT increases cortical GABA concentrations and enhances serotonergic function. It also affects the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, normalizing the results of the dexamethasone suppression test. Functional brain activation is altered."

Thanks for your comments,
Barron Lerner

book: On the Sea of Memory: A journey from Forgetting to Remembering

http://www.slate.com/id/2127351/

On the Sea of Memory: A Journey From Forgetting to Remembering by Jonathan Cott

This author writes about losing 15 years of his memory --1985-2000 because of ECT.

This was the article I remember reading a few years ago.
I don't know that it is helpful or anything.

Mostly, you want to ask the pdoc good questions.

Mari

Dear Bear,
I am sorry that your boys are not well...it sounds awful stressful there.
Wish I could lighten your load....
Mebp? had ect treatments not that long ago....at the time she did not think they helped but you could PM her and now she has a VNS vegas nerve stimulator implanted to help with her depression, it has also been used for epileptics....but don't know that this is helping either but you could pm her about this too.
((((HUGS))))
bizi

:hug: Bear: :hug:

I wish I knew what to say to ease your fears. I would be scared too. Sometimes though when something is worrying me I'll get online and either research or reach out like your doing.

befuddled2

Pdoc second thought himself. Greatfully. He prescribed a injectable Geodon. Instant! Worked awesome. Now we wait and see how he does when it wears off.

Still waiting for the gastro to call about my "little" one. At least I know it's not fatal. Blood count was good.

Ugh. I am going to sleep now. Man, long days around here lately.

Thank you Mari. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Those articles were absolutely what I needed.

Bless you bizi. Bless your bufeddled. Thank you so much for your support. Scarey day.