anybody tried electro shock for depression?

Question:

i've had depression issues for probably the majority of my life, drugs have helped a bit, raising my status from going insane to not quite going insane, but obviously i'd like to improve more. so let me know if you've had ECT.

Answers:
While I have not personally experienced it, I've learned about it from my work in the medical field. Typically, it is not done with "electro shock" but done with medication - often with insulin to temporarily induce a diabetic reaction. The patient is sedated before hand and does not feel anything and is not aware of what is going on. After the patient is sedated, the medication to induce the seizure is given. The time period of the seizure is usually fairly brief, perhaps 2 minutes.

When the patient wakes up, he may be groggy, a little disoriented, dizzy, possibly headaches, etc, and those symptoms are usually resolved shortly. The idea behind using this type of therapy is that sometimes with things like depression, the patterns of brain functioning may not always reapond well to medication. Sometimes a seizure can help the electrical patterns in the brain "jump start" and over time can help improve depression.

The major concern with this treatment is that it may also disrupt other areas of the brain, especially short term memory. I believe this treatment is most often given in cycles of 6 treatments, with the patient re-evaluated at every 6th treatment. There is a limit to how many can be done. Usually this treatment is a "last resort" method of treatment. Although it is no where near the old horror stories of electro shock therepy, it is still very serious and usually only performed when almost all other treatment options have been tried and have not been successful.

Hope that helps, I wish you the best in this.

Other Answers:
Do they still do that?OMg

Instead of electro-shock, I recommend pouring your energy into a worthwhile hobby! You would be surprised how much better a hobby can make you feel about yourself and about the world. It is a safe method but only should be used as a last resort, they give you anesthesia. I've never had it but i learned about it in my Psych class. The only side affect is memory loss (is sometimes temporary memory loss, for about a week before and week after the proceeder (or it might be a year, I forgot)

No I haven't that is just wrong.

I agree with Jason. Nobody really knows how it works, some think it reboots some neurons in your brain and they start firing better. I've seen it done, not very invasive. One of my patients had it done for OCD, she said that people that knew her well saw a difference in her personality. They basically induce minor seizure activity, the put you to sleep and like Jason said a side effect is mild memory loss.
Mike RN

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anybody tried electro shock for depression?

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