Posted by bleauberry on January 28, 2012, at 8:44:23
In reply to ect ?, posted by cee on January 26, 2012, at 18:02:32
I dunno. I had ECT. Not only did it fail me, it failed every single person in the group I was with. The memory/cognitive damage was more than you would expect. Mine was, hmm, memory not that good....I think about 6 years ago.
Maybe ECT has made technical progress since then? Dunno. I didn't see the Oz show but people told me about it. I like Dr Oz but I kind of have to take issue with him on that topic. I don't know what studies he looked at or what stats he used, but I can tell you most of them are flawed, biased, or twisted in multiple ways. So I'm a bit surprised.
To the best of my knowledge and experience, ECT has about the same track record as meds, not better; and that even when it does work it relapses relatively quickly.; and that it does not eliminate the need to stay on the med merrygoround.
Maybe things have improved, I don't know. My gut instinct says to tread carefully on this procedure.
No one ever talks about the expense. My own co-pay was over $1000. My insurance at the time paid........$28,000! For 12 shocks? Wow. It might be a fair price if you actually got a reborn life out of it. I think that does happen sometimes, just not very often. It did not feel good spending more on depression than a really nice brand new car and yet getting absolutely nothing out of it except brain damage and chunks of life memories gone forever.
Anyway, I am an ECT survivor, studied it a lot also, and am generally a critic. I guess I might be more open to review if someone would show me the data Dr Oz looked at to form his opinions.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1008478
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120120/msgs/1008618.html