I have been battling severe depression and anxiety since 2005. I tried many different medication combos and all failed to improve my symptoms. I underwent a treatment called electroconvulsive therapy which has a much higher success rate than any antidepressant. For the length of my treatment, I kept a video journal of my progress. Due to the lack of testimonies about ECT on RU-vid, I have decided to share my journal with the community. Thank you for taking the time to check out my channel. I hope you find my videos informative and helpful.
Hi Jenny, How is life? We miss your updates. It helps a lot to know your journey with its ups and downs. It gives us hope. Anyway, wishing you all the best and many blessings always...
Hello. I am exactly you. Perfectionism bla bla. Antidepressants stop working. I think you should screen for bipolar spectrum though. Anyways, does 1 ECT per 3 weeks makes someones memory or learning at university worse? Or it is only the big course in 1st 3 weeks. Thanks.
Been subscribed for years, just came across you again after quite awhile. How are you going now? Hope you're doing well. Not wanting to het out of bed is basically my life right now.
A couple of months after I had ECT I had a brain bleed. I hadn't had a fall or hit my head . The only thing concerning my head was the ECT! I also had a lot of memory loss short and long term. Even big events in my past I had no memory of!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience... videos like yours gave me and my wife a better understanding of what this option is. This was all new territory for me just a few weeks ago. My wife has responded well to ECT since the second treatment. She is out of the dark place she was after she tried the unthinkable. I understand from your video it will continue to be a journey. I would love for people to have easier access to healthcare they need and deserve. Wish you the best to you always!
I'm on the fence about it. Like most people, I'm scared of the memory loss. I'm also a teacher and can't afford to have that throwing me off in the classroom. If I do it, I hope my experience is like yours.
I've heard horrible memory loss and extreme depression residing Ect. I did TMS therapy last year and have had a big improvement in depression after. Be careful with ECT, I do think my voltage was pumped extra high because of my resistance to the treatment. By the way, my memory loss is almost completely short term. Like I forget the words as I know I'm typing them. 😆 Many years later about 4-5, my short term memory had gotten better.
I'm on the ECT waitlist and I've been doing a lot of um . .waiting . . Lol so it really helps to hear what you have to say about it. I'm also a runner and am hoping that this therapy doesn't set me back too far.
Hi Jenny! I cannot express how amazed I am by your courage. I am a 21y/o female struggling from anxious depression past 4 years and I’m about to have ECT. I am scared but I’m hoping it works!
I hope you did well with ECT. I’ve had 11 treatments so far and my memory is not doing great. Everyone else thinks I’m doing much better but I’m not feeling that much better. Please reply if you can.
The memory loss isn't nearly as bad for me as the loss of cognitive function! The ability to retain new information. It is awful. I was able to return to college and graduate summa cum laude at the age of 59, after having 8 ECT treatments 2 years prior. However, as I've returned to the workforce, my inability to retain new material is downright humiliating and embarrassing. I don't believe the success rate is 80% by any means. I was told 82% in 2017...but more recent research shows the success rate to be much lower. Ketamine, and getting on the right meds (for me), are the 2 things that have given me what hope I now have. This is only MY experience, everyone is different.
To me the memory loss would totally be worth it, a definite downside, but my memories will do me no good if I'm dead... Thank you for the video, so hopeful to try this.
You shared an interesting thought. I wonder if it’s person dependent on the memory loss. My wife and friends I’ve had in the past have keen memories. Myself, not so much. My memories are more of very specific technical things not so much relationship memories. Thanks again for your input.
I notice that I no longer am sharp on times or dates. I feel that my memory loss has been significantly reduced.Now in my 60’s I fear that I have dementia. I had 12 sessions of ECT in my early 50’s. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Thanks for these videos. I wonder how you are doing now? I am considering ECT but at the moment I can't get it on the NHS. So will have to go privately which is expensive.
Bro I would say don't have it it messes up your memory both short term and long term like I had 6 treatments also I have asthama so after 6 treatments I don't remember what movie I watched the last night and many more things my learning capacity has been so much reduced if u wanna dot but it should be your last option btw
I’ve looked up your Twitter and Instagram accounts but find nothing. I found you on Facebook but nothing was new. Perhaps the spelling is different. I was curious about how you’re doing.
A decade later, I honestly felt happy hearing you talking about how sincerely you felt better. It did not happen to me when I had ECT, but I know I'm part of the 20% that doesn't respond like expected. Much love <3
I know you probably mean well, but you should not recommend this treatment to anyone. ECT involves applying electrodes to a person’s scalp and then passing electrical current through the skull and brain tissue to induce a seizure. This is what constitutes a so called “treatment”. At the push of a button psychiatrists shoot up to 460 volts of electricity through the skull to produce a grand mal seizure that can sometimes last up to 30 minutes. This is many times stronger than the voltage one would get even if they stuck their finger into a light socket. To put that into context, 450 volts is enough to power 5 stadium lights on a football field. ECT machines generate nearly 403 times the electrical current of a stun gun and 450 times that of a cattle prod. The brain trauma caused by one session of electroshock is equivalent to the force of dropping a 40 pound cinder block from 7 1/2 feet onto the head. That’s why patients often wake up from the procedure with a headache and severe memory loss. ECT literally fries the brain by heating up neurons to the point where they become damaged or get too hot and die. When an electric current flows through the brain, the electrical energy is converted into heat, raising the temperature of the brain. The larger the current, the more heat is produced. If the temperature gets too high the cells suffer temporary injury, permanent damage, or even death. ECT causes certain areas of the brain to literally waste away, just like someone with Alzheimer’s. The cognitive impairment, memory issues, amnesia, headaches and euphoria are all due to the side effects of head trauma and electrical injury. In an attempt to heal itself from catastrophic damage, the brain releases chemicals which can temporarily create a sense of euphoria, but this eventually wears off leaving people with permanent cognitive impairment. Rather than being a marker for improvement, the euphoria is a symptom of brain damage. Many people who get ECT end up on disability because they are unable to work or function in society anymore. Others require years of speech therapy. Quite frequently people will forget their names, their identity, their family and friends. They might come home and not know who their children are or remember getting married. ECT can erase precious memories and obliterate years of education. There are lawyers who can no longer practice law and doctors who are unable practice medicine. One woman needed a service dog after ECT because she would leave her house to get the mail and forget where she lived. Another man forgot how to tie his shoe laces. It’s terrible. Yes it’s true that you can electrically shock someone out of their so called ‘crazy’ mind… but you don’t shock them back to their ‘right’ mind, you shock them into a ‘shocked’ mind. The biggest mystery of all is why on earth people think that sending bolts of electricity through a persons head is a good idea. First of all, there is no such thing as a “therapeutic”seizure. When you’re in a hospital and someone comes in with a seizure, that is a bona fide emergency and doctors hop right in to try and stop the seizure immediately. Mainstream physicians go to great lengths to prevent seizures. The idea is to prevent them so it doesn’t cause brain damage, because it’s recognized that seizure activity promotes brain damage. The more seizures a person has, the more potential there is for cognitive decline and neurological dysfunctions. ECT comes with more dangers than just the electricity. The drug they use as a relaxant in the U.S during electroshock is the same drug used for lethal injections. This drug is called Succinylcholine. It paralyzes all the muscles of the body, except for the heart. Due to it’s effectiveness at stopping breathing, it’s regularly given in the execution of prisoners on death row. When a patient receives ECT, this drug also paralyzes their breathing, which is why the anesthesiologist has to ventilate the patient during the procedure. Electroshock is still every bit as brutal as it always has been, and the result remains the same- a grand mal seizure and brain damage. The only thing different about modern day electroshock is that anesthesia and paralyzing agents were added to suppress the patients convulsions. The anesthesia does nothing to protect a patient’s brain. The anaesthetics and paralysing agents are simply used to make ECT appear less barbaric for the benefit of the person observing the procedure. Psychiatrists are not electrical engineers so they don’t understand the effects that electro currents can have on human tissue. They are trained to set the knobs and press the buttons, they aren’t taught the ramifications of what it’s doing. It takes about $500- $1000 to make an ECT machine and around $20,000 to sell it. The more sessions you have, the more money a psychiatrist makes. ECT has nothing to do with medicine or helping the patients, it’s about making money at the expense of vulnerable people.
Electroshock is without question brain damage. It causes permanent cognitive dysfunction that is often irreversible. It makes people docile, submissive, apathetic and it literally shrinks your brain. Most people who get this end up on disability, are unable to work and need constant care and assistance from others.
So, you did ETC and TMS for what amounts to hundreds of sessions, but you still have to take 3 medications? What are the medications? Did you have to go on the medications because after you were done with the last TMS, your depression still came back?
