Posted by bleauberry on October 4, 2012, at 18:16:27
In reply to Does ect do more harm than good?, posted by ChicagoKat on October 4, 2012, at 14:09:32
I've been through ect. Things were suddenly much better, but not until right at the end, and then it turned out to be only a one day wonder. A couple days later I was threatening suicide and carried off in an ambulance. So ect obviously did not work. It's weird how it has impacted my memory and cognition. It has done so in a random nonsensical pattern. Random chunks of memory gone. One thing is clear as a bell and another thing is nonexistent never happened. Names, same thing. Lots of damage in the name recall department. Math quite a bit slower. But perfectly functioning and no one would know. I used to be a natural straight A student. I think now I would probably be about a B instead.
It didn't work, it did do damage. Simple as that. And very expensive even with insurance.
To be fair there might be some positive notes. For me, ect was like a turning point. It was the end of a bad chapter and the beginning of a new one. Now, the new one didn't start off any better either, but at least it was a new chapter and it had a long way to go, lots of things could happen. But in the old chapter there was no hope. Post ect had me, by so called coincidence (actually a God thing), end up in a church playing my guitar after not playing for years. And it was fabulous. I felt like crap, but what was going on around me was better than my couch. The help of certain herbs, antibiotics, and occasional meds plus high attention to food choices, all these have helped a lot more than meds or meds alone. But without having gone through the failure of ect, maybe none of this would have happened?
Overall, I think it should remain an option for patients who request it. Because once in a while I have heard from people that were helped enough by ect that they were glad they did it, but I do not think it should be recommended or prescribed or marketed or advertised. I was sold on it because I was in the psychiatric ward of the hospital for a week depressed as hell and on the wall the whole time was a poster advertising the option of ect. I mean, that's not cool. The patient is highly vulnerable and not in their right mind to make such big decisions. Ya know? Or at least that's how it was with me.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1027584
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121001/msgs/1027621.html