Shown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Enigma on March 14, 2006, at 11:50:01
1) I've hadd10 sessions of ECT about 2 months ago.
I guess they had a moderate amount of success, as I'm not currectly taking any psych-related medication, minus Klonopin, rarely, and I'm almost able to function normally, but not ready to handle working again.I have sufferent from short term memory loss, and ONGOING memory loss. Sometimes I can't remember a movie a watched, just the day before.
Will this stay with my forever, or will this side-effect slowly fade away?? Is there anything I can do about it.2) I was on Nardil (forgot the dose, but a "moderate" dose from what I can remember. It had pretty decent effectiveness, MINUS the common side effects from this drug. After ECT, I stopped taking Nardil, without doctors permission (my doctor is blanking-joke, and didn't care that I took myself off the med, as has been the case for the last 3-4 psych-docs. I put 0 faith in their abilities (p-docs), to say the least!. I tapered off the drug over a weeks time.
Quesiton - does this drug cause any withdrawal effects. I went though MONTHS of withdrawal from Effexor, for the record.3) I hear the "anti-depression patch" has been FDA approved. Is it now being prescribed? It is helping anyone? How bad are the side effects? Hwo is it being prescribed for?
Background:
I have severe depression, and have been out on disability for almost a year. I have another year left with my work's-medical insurance carrier's disability benefits for mental illness. They will terminate my employment though, in about a month, and cancel my medical insurance. After that, cured or not, I'm on my own.
I mainly suffer from depression, some hypomanical, suicidal tendencies, fantasies, etc., and have tried over 20+++ different meds over the past few years, where not one, minus Nardil (too many side effects) was the only was that was partially effective.
Currently, I'm obsessed with worry, last few days anyway, loneliness, (enough though I have a wife and 3 kinds), fear of never being able to a productive member of society again, never being able to go back to work (software engineer), destroyed self-confidence in my abilities (thanks for my last manager and HR dept, etc, etc)
If anyone could answer/comment on anything I've written, I'd greatly appreciate it. Been a PB member for years, and I try to help out others where I can.
Posted by JaclinHyde on March 14, 2006, at 12:59:34
In reply to 3 questions - ECT - Nardil Withdrawal - MAOI patch, posted by Enigma on March 14, 2006, at 11:50:01
Hiya Enigma! Having never had ECT I am not really sure but I would think that your memory would come back with time. So you are saying that you stopped Nardil cold turkey? How long were you on it before stopping? I was forced to stop Marplan (another MAOI) cold turkey because I was traveling at the time and just ran out and the side effects I had were very weird dreams that almost verged on sleepwalking and a kind of tingling in my head. But ymmv of course. The MAOI patch should be available in April I believe.
Hope this helps :-)
JH
Posted by Enigma on March 14, 2006, at 20:40:30
In reply to Re: 3 questions - ECT - Nardil Withdrawal - MAOI patch, posted by JaclinHyde on March 14, 2006, at 12:59:34
Ooops, I was going to mention that. I took about 1-1.5 weeks to taper myself off of Nardil. Cold turkey would have probably been a big mistake for me. :)
Thanks for the info. April isn't too far away. Let's just hope this "joke" of a doctor I see, will prescribe it for me. I'm tried soooo many other drugs with no success.
Anyway, I do recommend ECT for anyone with severe depression that has been difficult to treat. I had my reservations, but I had little choice. I tried almost everything on the market with little to no success.
Posted by Phillipa on March 14, 2006, at 20:43:56
In reply to Re: 3 questions - ECT - Nardil Withdrawal - MAOI p, posted by Enigma on March 14, 2006, at 20:40:30
I've heard memory returns in a few months. Fondly, Phillipa
Posted by denise1966 on March 17, 2006, at 15:54:52
In reply to 3 questions - ECT - Nardil Withdrawal - MAOI patch, posted by Enigma on March 14, 2006, at 11:50:01
Hi Enigma,
Did you have unilateral ECT or Bilateral? As I've heard that Bilateral can cause the most severe memory problems. Also have you been to ect.org site as there a lot of people on there who've had it and may be able to advise you.
Having said that there are a lot of people on that board who are very anti-ECT and might scare you with their stories.I had two Unilateral treatments which wasn't enough to know if it would have worked but I don't have any memory problems.
Can you tell me how many treatments you had to have before you noticed any benefits?
Thanks....Denise
Posted by Enigma on March 17, 2006, at 17:23:32
In reply to To Enigma, posted by denise1966 on March 17, 2006, at 15:54:52
Hi. My memory of the events isn't the best, but.. as far as I can recall, I had 1-2 unilateral treatments which didn't seem to have too much effect, so they switched me to bilateral.
Ok, just checked with the wife.. I was supposed to have 12 treatments total - 3 times a week for 4 weeks. There were a couple of bad weather days, so they cancelled a couple. So, I had 2-3 a week for 4 weeks.
I lowered my dose on my nardil (on my own) to see if the ect was having any effect (which the doc did agree to before my treatments started), and the arrogant !@#^@! of a doctor then changed his mind, then got mad at me for tapering off, and tried to "punish" me by not giving me the last 5 treatments. I called them up and bitched the hell out of them, more like a guilt trip, so they met me 1/2 way and gave me 3 more treatments to total 10.
I think I started feeling better around the last few treatments, which continued (feeling better that is) until now (2 months since my last treatment), until I had a severely bad depression episode early this week. Worst one in months. I was bedridden. It "cleared up" in 2-3 days, thankfully. I'm currently not taking any meds, but still on disability, as I'm not quite "there" yet.
So, from my experience, I would try to get at least 5 treatments before giving up on ECT, not that it's up to you (each doctor has totally different opinions on ECT I have found). One doctor turned me down, saying ECT wouldn't work for me) so I had to find another doctor who thought ECT would benefit me, and another hosptial, 30-40 mins away, to get treated. The 1st hospital was only 10 mins away :(.
Also, at least for me, the bilateral treatments were much more effective, but yes, I suffered with memory loss. I forgot some small events completely, and I now have some additional memory retention problems, but, over the last few years, my memory has been getting worse and worse, odd for someone only 36 years old. I blame the depression, and all the 20+ odd meds I've been taking over the past 5+ years. Who really knows.
Not sure if this is related at all, but I was suffering severe headaches during ECT. The doctor kept swearing up and down that ECT would not cause this, but that seemed like a *very* strange opinion to me. Hooking electrodes to your temples, zapping you into convulsive shock, and that wouldn't cause headaches???
Anyway, turns out I picked up a sinus infection while in the hospital (somehow), and have been suffering from all kinds of "fun" symptoms for the last 8 weeks. I'm on my 3rd antibiotic. I'm probably suffering from some nardil withdrawal too. I tapered off, by tapered too quickly, I think.. only over 1/2 a week to a week. I should have known better after the withdrawal nightmare I had from effexor that lasted 6+ months.
Hope this info helps, even though I rambled quite a bit. ;)
> Hi Enigma,
>
> Did you have unilateral ECT or Bilateral? As I've heard that Bilateral can cause the most severe memory problems. Also have you been to ect.org site as there a lot of people on there who've had it and may be able to advise you.
> Having said that there are a lot of people on that board who are very anti-ECT and might scare you with their stories.
>
> I had two Unilateral treatments which wasn't enough to know if it would have worked but I don't have any memory problems.
>
> Can you tell me how many treatments you had to have before you noticed any benefits?
>
>
> Thanks....Denise
Posted by deniseuk on March 21, 2006, at 6:16:33
In reply to Re: To Enigma, posted by Enigma on March 17, 2006, at 17:23:32
Hi Enigma,
I think I'm going to push my psychiatrist into letting me try ECT again but I'll keep to Unilateral. Like you say though I'm not convinced he'll go for it, this psychiatrist is quite cautious and timid and I sometimes get the feeling he's just trying to cover his back most of the time.
The Zyprexa does really help me I have to say but I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this and really want ECT to get me back up to where I was over five years ago and on a permanent basis.
Thanks anyway for responding and I hope you continue to feel depression free.
Denise
Posted by Enigma on March 21, 2006, at 8:27:50
In reply to Re: To Enigma, posted by deniseuk on March 21, 2006, at 6:16:33
Hiya. Good luck with your doctor. Personally, I've had horrible luck with doctors, almost all of them (even non-psych docs). The p-doc's I've seen really confuse me - same exact field, yet they seem to have such differing opinions on mental health treaments. You gotta wonder what they teach in med schools these days. Hell, most I've seen don't have a clue, and I WISH I was exaggerating. I usually know more about depression treatments than they do, which still shocks and really angers me.
I did find a GREAT PCP doc, then he retired early! Just my luck.
Unfortunately, I'm not depression free. :( ECT did help me overall, since I was much worse before, but it was no cure for me, but wasn't really supposed to be. Maybe it is for some people, but this hospital's attitude towards ECT was that it *may* help you/improve your situation, but most patients will still need to stay on their AD's.
One thing that still gets me is how "they" don't even know how/why ECT helps some people.
While I am off meds now, I'm still on disability, and still unable to work. I can't even get the motivation to do things around the house, which is killing my wife, cause she's got a nice to-do list for me :).
I'm going to the doc next week (the one I think is useless), to hopefully get a prescription to the new MAOI patch. MAOI's caused me a lot of grief side-effect-wise, but were the only AD's I've tried (out of about 15+ others) that helped me at all.
I'm praying the patch works (which I'm not confident about), and allows me to stabilize enough so that I can work again and get my life back.
Post your results with ECT when you're done with your treatments, assuming you are able to get them.
I'm wondering if I'll have to go back to get maintenance treatments at some point.
Take care and good luck.
> Hi Enigma,
>
> I think I'm going to push my psychiatrist into letting me try ECT again but I'll keep to Unilateral. Like you say though I'm not convinced he'll go for it, this psychiatrist is quite cautious and timid and I sometimes get the feeling he's just trying to cover his back most of the time.
>
> The Zyprexa does really help me I have to say but I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this and really want ECT to get me back up to where I was over five years ago and on a permanent basis.
>
> Thanks anyway for responding and I hope you continue to feel depression free.
>
>
>
> Denise
>
This is the end of the thread.
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