Posted by Dave1 on August 10, 2002, at 15:29:36
In reply to Are there ECT specialists???, posted by Chloe on August 9, 2002, at 19:25:07
Hi Chloe,
Its Dave again. I don't want to upset you or scare you, but when you go to these ECT specialists, you should remember a few things. This is a business for them. They probably do 10 ECTs a day before 8am, and then see patients all day long after that. Thus, they probably won't spend a particularly large amount of time on your case. You have to be aware of the important ECT stuff yourself, and be sure you talk to the doctor about it. When I had treatments 5 years ago, I knew nothing about ECT, and thus several things were done improperly. I was taking way to much ativan to get adequate seizures, and after the treatments I was not given any maintenance to prevent relapse (and thus I relapsed).
Please remember that you can't have more than 3mg ativan a day (or equiv). Also, for maintenance all the current studies suggest using nortriptyline and lithium as well as maintenance ECTs. You could go to PUBMED and type in ECT for subject and just read over some abstracts. When you go to you ECT doctor again, it might be helpful to bring up some of the points I mentioned, some pubmed stuff that seems important, and some DR-BOB stuff that seems important. If the doctor thinks you are well versed on ECT information, he will likely pay more attention to your case while you are getting treatments.
Dave
poster:Dave1
thread:115145
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020807/msgs/115953.html