Electro-Convulsive Therapy Day 2 AM

I didn't sleep much so I made this video.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• electro-convulsive
• therapy
• mental
• illness
• bipolar
• major
• depression
• shizophrenia

[Bettygauge]

Bless you, my brother. Thank you for bravely taking the time to share your experience with others; whether ECT is a viable treatment for them or not. A dear friend of mine is undergoing ECT therapy inpatient right now, and my curiosity has thus been intensified. I wish for you and all suffering in this world, swift and lasting healing, love, comfort and peace. Be well, and safe journeys to you.

Your friend, fellow human being and sister,

Betty-SLC, Utah

Peace, brother.

[daleshankins]

@Bettygauge Thank you for your kind words.

[daleshankins]

Good news about your memory. Hope things work out for you. Feel free to write any time.

[JeffRotull43]

I'm not having long term memory loss; only the short term around the time of the treatments and for several weeks after, but it was a factor in my decision not to have maintenance treatments as I found it disturbing.

My memory seems to ok now.

Thanks for your help.

[daleshankins]

I did not experience long term memory loss. I know that some people do. I hope yours gets better.

Don't worry about taking up too much space. I love the attention!!

[daleshankins]

I only take one medication now - a daily patch, EMSAM that contains 6mg of an MAOI inhibitor. I require no other medication.

I had some initial memory loss but no long term memory loss that I am aware of...in fact I wrote an autobiography that contains details of my childhood and past that I had forgotten while in the grips of suicidal depression.

[daleshankins]

Hey Jeff...thanks for watching and commenting. I will try to answer your questions.

Re: Initial series of treatments. To the best of my knowledge I have had 40 or so individual treatments...generally in sets of 9-12 treatments per series. These videos were of my most recent ( and to date last) series in October of 2007.

I took monthly maintenance treatments for a time but discontinued them after it became apparent that I no longer needed them.

[JeffRotull43]

...I know this is mainly me though. From what I can tell, it doesn't seem to bother others as much. The things I was forgetting were pretty trivial - conversations with people, a TV show I might have watched; but it still felt like a loss of my faculties to some extent. Anyway, just wondered what your thoughts are on these matters.

Sorry for taking up so much space.

Glenn

[JeffRotull43]

an easy experience to go through, though I appear to have gotten something out of it, as I am functioning better now (though not anywhere as much as I would like to be). You stated that you found the meds to have been worse for you than the treatments. Has the ECT allowed you to stay off meds (I'm still on several).

I'm alarmed at how clear-headed you seem to be. When I was in the midst of my treatments, I was so foggy. I also found the memory loss quite unpleasant...