Hi folks,

Am back after the first treatment today and just checking in to let you guys know how it went. And I'm fine, although I wouldn't characterize my first experience as a good one. Had nothing to do with the ECT, but was a real screw-up as far as anesthesia was concerned. Like I mentioned earlier, they give you two drugs - one is a fast acting sedative, and one is a fast acting paralysis agent. Unfortunately they didn't give me enough of the sedative this time, which meant that I woke up while the paralysis agent was still active. What that meant to me was that I had a VERY SCARY episode in which I thought I was suffocating to death and could not breathe and was desperately trying to tell someone about it. Once we got past that it was fine, but I have to be honest about the fact that it was very frightening!

Other than that I'm just very sleepy and have a few sore muscles - no biggie.

Am most definitely going to talk to them about the anesthesia problem on Wednesday and they are going to have to assure me that they will not let that happen again.

One other note here. As luck would have it, I began to experience significant pain relief in my knee a couple of days ago. That's not what I would have preferred here. Going into the ECT treatments I would have preferred that the pain be at least at normal levels - if not flaring above that. But it's already substantially down right now so we'll just have to see where this goes.

Hi Janism!
I sure can relate to waking up during surgery. I had to have an emergency c section done on my youngest son(He is now 28 yrs. old) I woke up, I tried to tell someone, anyone,"Hey I'm awake"!! I then heard the docs say, no.. pull him out this way(So, I knew I was having another son, by them saying, he) I too felt like I was suffocating!! I then felt pressure, my son was out, I was then knocked back out! When I was up and the anesthesia wore off, I told my doctor, was I dreaming? I was up for a while and heard voices, doctors talking, nurses. He said that he was so sorry that I woke up and that the reason being, my son was so small, that they had to give me light anesthesia. To this day, I am afraid of being knocked out. I tell my anestholigst this every single time. Even when I was haveing those stelliate ganglion blocks. They all reasure me that this won't happen. So, yes, make sure to tell them what happened. It seems like your awake for a long time, when, it's only for a few seconds, as they can see you move a little. Still, speak up and I am sure this will not happen to you again. I sure am happy that your fine now. Wishing you all the best! ~Love, Desi

I wouldn't let the mishap with anesthesia stop me here and hope that others don't either - that was my fear in posting that part of the experience, but just felt it was best to be truthful. It can happen, but very rarely does and in this case the anesthetics are so very short-acting that it's probably not too surprising.

Anyway, they told me I might experience some muscle soreness, and yesterday I did so I just took an NSAID and let it go at that. But today I woke up so sore that I couldn't get out of bed without help. Am taking both a muscle relaxer and NSAIDs today and finally getting a bit of relief. I suspect that it's pretty severe in my case because I've been pretty disabled for the last 3 years and unable to do anything in the way of exercise or fitness.

But it's still severe enought that I've left word with the ECT folks that I won't be able to make the treatment for tomorrow (Wed.). Am hoping to get back on track by Friday.

I just wanted to say that I do hope this works for you and maybe as you go along with the treatments it will get easier since you know what to expect now.

I'm glad that you are coming on to keep us up on how they are going. The more we know, the more we grow.

Hope you start feeling better soon.

Ada

It's now pretty obvious that the muscle soreness and swelling I've had today is not normal. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even raise myself off the bed earlier today. Apparently I've had a bad reaction to one of the drugs - the succhinyl choline specifically. We have a call into the doctor's office and plan to sit down with anesthesia folks to figure out what to do next here. In the meantime all I can do is to wait for it to wear off ...

Good news here is that this has nothing to do with the ECT and is just an independent reaction to one of the drugs being used.

Having talked with anesthesia I understand what happened now and why. The paralytic drug being used succinyl choline (or "sux" as it's often referred to) does have a known side effect of muscle soreness. Those of us who are or were athletes can expect to have that effect compounded by the fact that we have more muscle tissue and its denser as well. The RSD represents yet another level of compounded effect when it further magnifies a new pain signal. So you end up with a more severe case of muscle soreness than other folks will under both of those conditions, but it's not anything that is ever going to escalate into a potentially life-threatening anaphylactic reaction (which was my fear here).

Bottom line is that instead of going 3 times per week I'll probably only be able to go twice or maybe even once a week to give my body enough time to recover in between sessions. So I'll head back in Friday AM for my next treatment.

I am happy to report that I have indeed experienced a significant level of pain relief (however temporary it may be at the moment?). We'll see how long this lasts but its a welcome break from the kind of mind-jarring pain I'd been having for a long time prior to all this. It's way too early to be drawing any conclusions here - am just happy to have a rare break and time will tell if it's significant or not.

I"m so happy that it seems to be working at least at the moment! I am also happy that you got the soreness figured out!

I have been talking to the hospital were I live, and they are VERY interested in the ECT and RSD thing. They are talking to me alot and we are swapping info back and forth. So I am hoping that maybe if I get them interested enough they might just do a study on it, or something like that. So we will see were I end up with that. YAY!!!! I can't help but be very excited at the prospect of being able to get thins done.

That's terrific! I'm so happy for you!!

You might want to take them (hospital folks you're talking to) a copy of Michael's article and the others he has offered in PDF format. It's a pretty compelling series. Hope this helps.