[Rezakhalfan]

My psych asked me to get ect done for my depression . I'm really confused now

[Mark in Idaho]

Personally, I would not go near ECT after suffering a brain injury. The goal of ECT is to cause a seizure to injury brain cells in hopes the recovering brain will function better.

I would try different anti-depressants before undergoing ECT.

[scrambled]

Don't do it. I realize some people benefit from ECT, but it can also cause brain damage. I know from first hand experience. Many of the actual side effects of ECT are identical to the symptoms of someone with TBI.

It's also important to know that you are at much higher risk of the ECT causing cognitive problems if you already struggle with any cognitive issues. The research shows this is a huge risk factor.

You also have to look at how effective ECT will really be. They say that it works for 80% of people. However, that is only true for the first 6 weeks after ECT. After that, the % of people it helps drops dramatically. I would have never taken the risk if I'd known it might only work for 6 weeks.

If you decide that ECT is your only option, there are things you can do to lower the chance of side effects. Let me know if that's information you'd like to have.

[Rezakhalfan]

Originally Posted by scrambled

Don't do it. I realize some people benefit from ECT, but it can also cause brain damage. I know from first hand experience. Many of the actual side effects of ECT are identical to the symptoms of someone with TBI.

It's also important to know that you are at much higher risk of the ECT causing cognitive problems if you already struggle with any cognitive issues. The research shows this is a huge risk factor.

You also have to look at how effective ECT will really be. They say that it works for 80% of people. However, that is only true for the first 6 weeks after ECT. After that, the % of people it helps drops dramatically. I would have never taken the risk if I'd known it might only work for 6 weeks.

If you decide that ECT is your only option, there are things you can do to lower the chance of side effects. Let me know if that's information you'd like to have.

From what my doctors say. They said ect just has cognitive issues temporarily like memory problems... What other side effects are you talking about? And why do you say it only works for 6 weeks mostly.? Does it mean there are higher chances of going back to the same position one was like before?

[LauraM]

My mother had shock treatments done and would go into"spells" where she would forget hours and days at a time. During one of them she had seen a pair of shoes a a local store she liked, sent me to to buy them and then the next day had no clue where they came from. She did not have that issue before the treatments.

[scrambled]

I'm not trying to dissuade you from ECT, but this is all info that I wish someone had told me before I made the decision (sorry it's so long). It's difficult to get this info since a lot of doc's aren't even aware. You have to really dig into the research to find out a lot of this info.

It's been 8 months since completing ECT & I'm still having these problems: slow cognitive processing, difficulty w/reading, sleep issues, decreased eye hand coordination & spatial ability, vision problems, difficulty w/cause & effect, distractibility/inattention, changes in hearing/ taste/smell, impulsivity, disinhibition, easily frustrated, mental fatigue, apathy, difficulty w/problem solving, language problems and anxiety

I had none of these symptoms before ECT & they say it's permanent.

This is not that uncommon. The FDA Advisory Committee on ECT (2011) gathered patient testimony & reported: reduced cognitive ability, difficulty learning/reading, unable to perform previous job skills, memory problems, brain damage, reduced quality of life, suicidality,worsening or onset of new psychiatric symptoms, loss of motor skills/coordination, damage to speech, sleep problems, visual/auditory problems, loss of creative ability, etc.
**

The info about the 6 weeks can be found in several places. One of them is a research article "Effectiveness of ECT in Community Settings" (Sackheim et al 2004) It found that patients' ratings of depression significantly worsened at 4 weeks after the completion of ECT. The 4th week was the turning point of relapse. By the end of the follow-up period at 24 wks, 64.3% of patients had relapsed. They estimated that by the 10th day after ECT, patients had lost 40% of the improvements they’d gained during ECT. In the end, there were only 23.4% of the patients that responded to the ECT and did not relapse in the first 6 months.

The American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report (1990) notes that patients with pre-existing cognitive impairment are at greater risk of cognitive side effects during a course of ECT.

You might want to look up info on "cognitive reserve." It basically says that everyone starts out with a certain amount of brain capacity to protect them from old age, dementia, etc. So with TBI, you're already at risk for developing these things sooner. But then if you add any other kind of injury to the brain, the side effects are compounded more than what you'd expect from that head injury alone.

[scrambled]

*admin edit*

The other thing that your dr may say is that there are a lot of extremists online that are against all forms of psychiatry (meds, ECT, etc). This is definitely true, especially when it comes to a controversial subject like ECT. But, prior to all this, I was a mental health counselor for over 15 years. I have a masters degree in Counseling Psychology and I've always been an advocate of mental health treatment.

But that's exactly why I accepted all the main stream info about ECT and dismissed what looked like the rantings of people that think all psychiatry is evil. A lot of the anti-ECT websites come across as extreme and not very valid, but the feedback from thousands of people who've had ECT is very real.