Posted by utopizen on October 27, 2008, at 2:13:03
In reply to Re: Exotic Meds for Treatment Resistant Depression, posted by Sigismund on October 24, 2008, at 23:08:25
> This is what my psych said about ECT to me, more or less.
>
> 'I was taught that the one treatment that was successful for depression was ECT, and when I was a registrar I ordered it for some patients, and when I taught, I taught the same thing. And it was only later that I realised that I had *never* seen the results I had been told of and told others about.'
>
Clinically speaking, this seems interesting, but, only more of a reason to consider visiting a hospital with a reputable, ethical policy that happens to have a unit specializing in ECT.McLean Hospital happens to have quite good success with it, and they have doctors who perform the stuff. As for the data, it's been out since the 1940's.
It's true docs these days are unlikely to do much more than refer a patient to a specialist... but the data that is published has to be peer-reviewed, and if he has some particular issue with the data, he ought to submit competing data and let that be known to his peers in a paper.
a lot of my concern, again, is not whether ECT is not advertised as super safe and all (all treatments incur a risk), but that it's not even brought up and approached in treatment-refractory cases to begin with. It may not be a perfect option, but it's still an option, and any discussion is healthy to have, as we are having hear.
I'm a student, so in my case, I'm not sure what exactly the risk of memory loss, if it did occur, would have. Most of my peers seem to not have memory to begin with...
I routinely find things I shared in witnessing rather vividly--
basic, fundamental things, like, my very attendance at a 3-hour meeting, where I introduce myself to everyone there and there's only 7 members present.
A week later, 2 of the 7 argue whether I appeared, in front of me, to the others who were at the meeting with me. People with poor memory don't even seem to quite question the validity of it, even. So, memory is a very, very relative standard. Especially recent memory recall.
I'm not a cop. Even if I had ECT, and had memory loss, no one's going to jail over my memory. I think we are more sensitive to such things, because we take ourselves so seriously. And that has to do with the fact we tend to be more serious types. Nothing wrong with that.
But, seriously, no one's life is on the line if I can't recall something recently, if I were to experience that side effect at all. I'm not that important at moment, or ever quite have been. I took myself too seriously.
poster:utopizen
thread:854329
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081016/msgs/859453.html