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.