Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:44 am
Don't know if many people have heard of this therapy. As the subject says it is called TMS.
Has been around since 1984 but they just started doing it in the city that I live in.
I have tried the drug stuff, talk therapy, CBT, and also ECT (electro-convulsive therapy previously known as shock therapy). The only thing that seemed to make the depression easier to handle was my first round of ECT in 2007.
It really seemed to make a difference. For the first time, in about 20 years the depression actually seemed to fade to the background. I was able to come off some of my meds and started to be a person again.
Things got very bad in 2011 and I had around round of ECT. Unfortunately that time it didn't work so I have kind of been floundering since then.
A few months ago my pdoc suggested this different kind of therapy. He figured that it couldn't do any harm and maybe it might give me back my life.
I must admit that I am rather skeptical of this procedure. Involved mapping out my brain, sitting in a dentist like chair still for 23 minutes while they cycle this magnetic energy at a particular part of my brain that they think influences the depressive feelings. I call it my wood-pecker treatment.
I go everyday, 5 times a week. The good thing about it is that it isn't as invasive as the ECT. It requires no anesthetic so I can get up and leave the office right after the treatment.
Friends seem to thing that it has made a difference, a good one. On the other hand I think that I have just become a very angry person. I will yell at pretty well anyone (something that I never did before, always very meek) that gets on my nerves. I also never used to swear. That behavior has pretty well gone by the boards also.
I am wondering if anyone else has gone through this process. Like I said I was very skeptical from the start, even though it is supposed to make a difference in 60% of the people that do this.
I am just worried that I am going to go over the deep end and have to get my family to bail me out of jail for mouthing off at the wrong person.
Thanks
Has been around since 1984 but they just started doing it in the city that I live in.
I have tried the drug stuff, talk therapy, CBT, and also ECT (electro-convulsive therapy previously known as shock therapy). The only thing that seemed to make the depression easier to handle was my first round of ECT in 2007.
It really seemed to make a difference. For the first time, in about 20 years the depression actually seemed to fade to the background. I was able to come off some of my meds and started to be a person again.
Things got very bad in 2011 and I had around round of ECT. Unfortunately that time it didn't work so I have kind of been floundering since then.
A few months ago my pdoc suggested this different kind of therapy. He figured that it couldn't do any harm and maybe it might give me back my life.
I must admit that I am rather skeptical of this procedure. Involved mapping out my brain, sitting in a dentist like chair still for 23 minutes while they cycle this magnetic energy at a particular part of my brain that they think influences the depressive feelings. I call it my wood-pecker treatment.
I go everyday, 5 times a week. The good thing about it is that it isn't as invasive as the ECT. It requires no anesthetic so I can get up and leave the office right after the treatment.
Friends seem to thing that it has made a difference, a good one. On the other hand I think that I have just become a very angry person. I will yell at pretty well anyone (something that I never did before, always very meek) that gets on my nerves. I also never used to swear. That behavior has pretty well gone by the boards also.
I am wondering if anyone else has gone through this process. Like I said I was very skeptical from the start, even though it is supposed to make a difference in 60% of the people that do this.
I am just worried that I am going to go over the deep end and have to get my family to bail me out of jail for mouthing off at the wrong person.
Thanks