Years later, after she slowly regained her functioning (after numerous frightening mental “black-outs” when she couldn’t recognise anything - not even her own street and home!), she recounted some of it - of being strapped down to the bed, stuff stuffed in her mouth and being tortured with electrocution till every cell in her body and brain shook etc. Absolutely horrific. Very much like the movie. Sickening. Like torturing prisoners, except there’s no escape.

Whenever I hear anyone talk about it, it gives me goosebumps. If in any way it is reputed to “treat” depression - well I guess it’s hard to be depressed if you can’t even remember who you are!! How it hasn’t been banned yet, I’ll never know. Yeah… medicine etc - just like they used to treat people by bleeding their blood, leeches and maggots in the old days - we obviously haven’t progressed very far!!

I think any doctor, before administering it, should go through a course of ECT themselves, and see what it’s like!!! I’m sure it would make them re-evaluate!

I then started antidepressants and have tried at least 30. None were very effective, for very long. I was able to work until 1999 & was first hospitalized in 2000. I had ECT’s over the years as I just kept getting worse. Doctors were reluctant to try MAOI’s due to their dietary restrictions even after diagnosing Atypical Depression.

At first when I had ECT’s they helped. My memory and cognitive abilities returned except for the short period of time during and surrounding the ECT’s. In 2003, I was cleared to return to work and attended college for 5 months, an OJT and a gradual return to work to increase my confidence and chance of success.

I had a relapse in 2005 and had to stop working again. I had obtained a 99% average in college and excellent performance appraisals on my OJT and from my actual job, as I always have. Afterwards my self-esteem was destroyed because I had tried so hard to get back on track and had the posting at work that I always dreamed of.

My depression became severe at that time and I had more ECT’s & many hospitalizations. This resulted in my marriage being destroyed, conflict with my teenagers and eventually I was unable to care for them or even live in the same house. I am physically healthy and relatively young but cannot work. I often feel totally useless!

Now I cannot remember the material I learned in college in 2003, names of co-workers, some past, some current events, both positive and negative. I am not even sure most times whether or not I washed my hands, so just wash them again! I write everything down as I cannot rely on my memory and note that my math skills have decreased.

My psychiatrist says that my memory problems are not caused by ECT’s but are caused by severe depression and anxiety, a brain that never stops and possibly the fact that I have hypothyroidism and obsessive tendencies. I think ECT’s helped initially but their benefits don’t last long before more are needed. In the long run they do much more harm than good!

They have finally put me on MAOI’s, now that my life has already been destroyed, so although they are a little better than the other meds it is too little too late! Ever since I began treatment my condition has progressively worsened to the point that I have lost all faith in psychiatry and pharmacology.

Sorry for the heaviness but if you saw what goes on you would be outraged. Science has been used to rationalize all kinds of horrible treatment.

What happened to the heart as a guide to therapy?

Joseph
Joseph Bernard, Ph.D.
http://www.ExploreLifeBlog.com

Click through for more information on ECT and bipolar disorder…….

The only two large-scale studies ever published assessing cognitive function in post-ECT patients both found that ECT routinely causes long-term, permanent cognitive dysfunction. Both of these studies were published within the last two years. The cognitive dysfunction was found to be global, not just with autobiographical memory. Post-ECT patients six months and beyond were found to have problems thinking, remembering, processing, forming new memories, and had various slowed reaction times on neuropsychological testing. One of these studies was led by Harold Sackeim, one of the most well-known former advocates of ECT, and the other was led by a Glenda MacQueen from Canada who assessed cognitive function in post-ECT patients who had bipolar disorder.

In addition, in the article above the doctor points out that ECT has been associated with proliferation of brain cells, but this can actually be indicative of brain damage. For example, when a person cuts their hand increased proliferation of skin cells results in the area, same with a damaged liver, etc. Brain damage has not been routinely documented in humans who’ve undergone ECT because MRI and CAT scans do not reveal the type of mild, evenly diffuse brain damage that ECT causes. In order to reveal this type of damage, functional brain imaging techniques are necessary like fMRI, SPECT, or PET. In addition, neuropsychological testing is still the best measure of determining whether diffuse brain damage exists. MRI scans show damage on a “macro” scale like lesions, not damage on a “micro” scale like damage occurring at the cellular and subcellular levels as from ECT.

In addition, multiple studies have been published in the last few years showing that patients after ECT have abnormal PET scans and SPECT scans of the brain. One of the most recent from the summer of 2007 found that ECT leads to a profound decrease in regional cerebral blood flow, which the Israeli researchers conclude to be a quote, “finding of reduced brain function.” More than one PET scan study has documented abnormal, reduced metabolism of glucose in the brain in post-ECT patients.

Moreover, a recent 2005 Russian study using new and sophisticated techniques found definitive evidence in a rodent model that ECT causes substantial diffuse neural loss. According to the authors, as high as 10% loss of brain cells in certain areas.

As far as the efficacy of ECT for depression, in a new published review of the sham-ECT literature it was noted that not a single published study has found ECT to be more effective than sham-ECT one month after treatment, and that many trials even failed to demonstrate a benefit over sham(placebo) ECT even during the course of treatment.

ECT produces a temporary delirium similar to a slightly drunken state. Patients are initially slightly confused, have bad short-term memories, and impaired judgment. Within a few weeks, this delirium or fog begins to clear, the depression returns, and the only thing lasting about it is the permanent cognitive dysfunction it causes from the diffuse brain damage it inflicts. It is a well-known fact that closed-head injury victims with a history of depression often have a lifting of mood after their accident along with brain damage. Sometimes these closed head injury patients are not even aware of their own brain damage when they are recovering in the hospital, and at some point the doctor and the family agree on a time to tell the patient that he or she has suffered brain damage that likely will not fully heal. It is no different with post-ECT patients or the patients who had frontal lobotomies decades ago. These people often are not aware of their own deficits initially until it becomes obvious to them that they cannot remember random past events, and can no longer function at the same level at work or in challenging academic endeavors as they used to. This is confirmed through hundreds/thousands of personal testimonials from post-ECT patients who’ve posted their stories on the web. Most of these people complained to their doctors, and the one things almost all of them have in common is that their doctors never published a case report on their symptoms. Psychiatrists who give ECT can make salaries twice or in some cases even up to three times that salary of psychiatrists who do not perform ECT. This is the real reason why it’s not reported. Doctors are all too quick to report a little skin rash or problems getting an erection from a new prescription drug, but when a patient reports persistent organic brain dysfunction after ECT, they shove the patient out the door. This is evil, and it must stop.