ECT treatment

I just wanted to let you know what my experience has been with getting ECT. I know people who are sceptical about the treatment. Personally I have found ECT to be amazing. It has been nothing but positive for me and I am feeling GREAT!! It took until the Fourth treatment to notice a change, and also a change to bilateral ECT, but now that I have I am very happy with the result.

I want to ensure people that I underwent the procedure voluntarily and that had I not done so, I’d probably be dead by now. Now the only good thing about rock bottom is that once you’re there, the only place you can go is up.  The first thing you should know about ECT is that it’s a last resort treatment. It’s a procedure you’ll qualify for only if you’ve exhausted all other options

Basically I currently feel 80% better. I don’t know if this is going to decrease and I have heard that it can, but I would have no hesitation in undergoing more treatments in the future if so. So far I have  had twelve treatments in total.

There are some side effects that I need to mention. I have noticed some difficulty with my memory. I try to keep in mind that my memory was pretty bad already just with the depression  but I have noticed sometimes I am trying to find an answer to something that I am sure I would know and I just can’t get to the answer which is so frustrating especially when trying to give advice, which I used to be good at.

I wasn’t put off by the fact that it wasn’t working up to my fourth treatment however i was just starting to worry a little bit that it might not work for me.

After meeting with a doctor and having bloodwork done, I was given the official OK to start ECT. I was told that I would be going in for treatment three times a week. On the day of the treatment there is anaesthetist and a nurse as well as a doctor. When your in the treatment room I would lie down on a bed while the anaesthetist put in the needle in my arm and then they would get me to turn on my side while they put the oxygen mask on and I would go under. The doctors and nurse were always really sweet to me and made me feel comfortable.

A psychiatrist will stick some small pads onto your forehead and while you are asleep (under anaesthetic), emit an electrical current through the brain which causes the body to have a short seizure. (The body doesn’t actually move because you will have been given a muscle relaxant ). Somehow this seizure seems to cause changes in a persons brain chemistry and is able to improve depression. Usually it takes a few treatments to see a change, I had twelve.

The next thing I would wake up in the room next door with another nurse who would give me reassurance, especially because of my short term memory loss.

There has been so much positives from having the ECT especially getting my life and mind back. I’m doing so much better, im definitely more stable now and I think of it as my life saver, you could say I’m more sane.

That said, I believe it’s extremely important to be as transparent as possible, so I’ll be straightforward and say that ECT did not cure me of my depression and it did not magically make me happy, either. What it did do was take me from the verge of death and bring me back to 0. I went from suicidal to neutral. I still think of suicide everyday and I’m fearful of rejection but I guess that’s normal. At least for now I want to live and my mind is my own. ECT has been a life changer and I hope that people who are close to me know how much I have changed for the better.

For me, that was more than I ever could’ve hoped for — it really was a second chance at life. ECT was a reset button if there ever was one and I truly believe I owe my life to all of those early morning procedures. Since then, I’ve been able to manage my depression through medication alone, but I know that if I ever hit rock bottom again, I can count on ECT to bring me back to a place of control.

I’m still bipolar but my mind is my own and that’s all I wanted. I want to help and give out good advice even though I’m still learning because of my memory problems and it comes across so wrong but I’ll get there some day, I hope people will stick by me and understand.

I’m getting better each day and my hope for the future is to be a good person, and for people to look past my faults.

If anyone is thinking of ECT then I say go for it. I have been told I might need more in the future and that’s ok.