Posted by Chloe on September 21, 2002, at 11:46:07
In reply to Re:ECT update, posted by Dave1 on September 20, 2002, at 21:45:09
> HI Chloe:
>
> I'm glad things worked out for you. I have a couple of questions that maybe you could answer.
>
> I tried some bilateral treatments but hated the way I woke up. Was waking up from the unilaterals alot easier than the bilaterals or did you not notice much difference?Hi Dave,
I did not notice any difference between unilateral and bilatereal. I imagine the difficulty you are having is from the anesthesia, not the shock itself. My hospital uses Propofol which is relatively easy to wake up from. Though it can make peoples' seizure threshold go up, which has been a problem for some patients... I think only once did I have a bad reaction, and woke up pulling and struggling in a confused state. The nurses are all very helpful though, and got me settled down fast. If you tend to wake up confused, the anesthesiolgist should be aware of this ahead of time. This way they can give you something with the meds to put you to sleep, that will prevent the post treatment agitation. For example, with me, I always have TERRIBLE headaches when I wake up. So they put Toridol in my IV everytime with the anesthesias. My headaches are much easier to manage now.> Also, What are you doing for maintainance to prevent relapse or is it too earlier for that?
Next Wednesday I am going to begin maintanence treatments where I will go for a treatment once a week. This seems like a very good idea for me. Since I get adverse reactions to the smallest of doses of medications. I have stayed on 300 mgs of Li, 60 mgs of Doxepin, 1.5 mgs of Celexa and valium here and there, and those are working well for me. If I could maintain this good mood and abililty to cope I would be thrilled. I haven't been this happy, spontaneous, ambitious, etc in years! I feel so lucky!
I hope you won't be afraid to retry ECT because of how you felt back then. The docs and nurses and modern pharmacology can really make this experience as pleasant as possible. And ECT is extremely effective.
Good luck to you,
Chloe> Thanks,
> Dave
poster:Chloe
thread:115145
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020914/msgs/120612.html