. 'There aren't any other treatments for depression that have been found to be superior to ECT.'"
Dr. Kenneth Melman

So why don't people with major depression start ECT sections instead of going from one antidepressant to another till they end up on ECT?
Using ECT when all other treatments has failed just give us the right measure that they are far from knowing how to manage depression.
It's very usual ECT treatment down here.
I knew a woman who was in a severe depression. She had an ECT procedure scheduled. She had already done it once.
She was horrified having to do it again and used to call me in tears.
I didn't know what to do.
I still don't know what to do when I meet people that has ECT scheduled.
I remember that she said that the doctor told her that she had to "go this time for it was very difficult to schedule ECT and she was taking someone else's place by not going".

THAT place dumped my daughter to the curb when she was dehydrated; and when they 'discovered' she was 'off psych meds'--shoved her in a wheelchair via armed security guards; only after i telephoned every contact in my cell phone when they wante to strap her to the medical floor bed---yeah, the place is not creepy---they are in extreme violation of civil liberties--and the attorney told me she would have 'had to have her arm broken' to make a difference.

fuck em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stick a fork in me. I am done. Ugh!

ECT is a horrible procedure, it destroys your brain and your soul. Like you said, if you want it, fine, if not fine. My stance is please before you sign the damn forms, KNOW what you are signing and don't let some smooth talking doctor convince you that if you don't submit to this you will be dead.

The things we do to ourselves in a quest to stay alive, to be normal.

Not that anyone knows what normal is, other than a setting on a washing machine.

Philip a year or so ago, you wrote a piece on this subject with the quote from Papa Hemingway about eating his gun. I replied in your comments if I had a gun after I had ECT I would have eaten it in a New York minute.

You told me to put my experience on paper. It took me two days of heart break, writing out my angst in a piece, writing and editing and not knowing at the end if it was any good when I attached the word doc to you and hit the send button.

To my surprise a day or so later you published it. And then Liz republished it. And both of you then encouraged me to resurrect my career in writing. Which I have been attempting to do. Baby steps.

That is the only positive thing that came out of my ECT experience. Maybe somehow I needed to go through it so by my going though it others can be saved.

If you ever get around to re editing your archives, you can change the name from SS to my real name. It's time, dammit, it's time.

Bless you Philip, and your readers.

Peace. Out.

"I'll open my head and let out
All of my time
I'd love to go drowning
And to stay and to stay
But the ocean doesn't want me today"

Tom Waits - The ocean doesn't want me today

Susan,
Your posting warms my heart. I have recently begun to get serious about my own writing. I'm beginning to believe that we each have something we do well, that really turns us on and that will save our soul (or spirit or whatever) if we focus on it and follow it. Please keep writing. You have a lot to say.

As for ECT, while the entire rest of the medical profession does EVERYTHING they can to prevent seizures because seizures cause neurological damage, the psychiatrists are down in the basement causing them.

Of course, in my area they get paid upstairs about $150 an hour to see a patient for "therapy" (not that they ever actually do that anymore, nope it's fifteen minutes to write a scrip and out the door). Downstairs they get $350 for fifteen minutes of causing neurologically damaging seizures. Plus, they have a steady customer from now on, thanks to all that iatrogenic brain damage.

I've seen people look as if they've risen from the dead with ECT. But I've never seen it last more than a couple of months. And I've never seen it without permanent brain damage. Older women are an especial target. I just turned 60 so I can't begin to tell you how safe I feel in the company of mental "health" professionals, knowing this.

The typical ECT victim I've seen has been an older woman, usually from a strong ethnic background, in what I would consider a bad marriage with a domineering or abusive husband. The family is distraught, mainly (it looks to me) because Mother is broken and can't serve everyone's needs like she used to. They want her fixed. The insurance company wants her fixed. After a while everyone around her wants her fixed because it's simply to painful to watch. So they march her downstairs, zap her brain and the shock takes her mind off her rage. I usually meet her again a few months later, in the same hospital. (Don't ask me what I'm doing there again...)

My niece works for a nationally known mental hospital. She has witnessed the arrival of the Ritalin generation on their sunny shores. Now she's doing aftercare for young people on SS who have had ECT. Every time SS does a review the patients get ECT so they'll look bad enough to keep their SS. People in their twenties have had a shocking amount of ECT in this little dance and my niece has watched their cognition go down the toilet permanently from the brain damage caused by the seizures the rest of the medical profession tries so hard to prevent.

Grrrrrrrr...

Sherry

In a wealthy, historic suburb of Boston, there is a small harvard-affiliated hospital which has a 22-bed psych unit. I had the misfortune to work at that hospital while unable to locate technical writing work 2002-2005. As a ward clerk working 3-11:30, I floated to the psych unit about once a month or so. There was a calendar for scheduling ECT. Two ORs at the hospital were booked for up to six patients each every weekday morning and four patients every weekday afternoon. That doesn't seem to me to be a treatment that has lost favor.

The folks who were on the psych unit and getting ECT were sometimes devastated - especially elders - going from being crabby, depressed intelligent humans who lived independent lives to needing psych nursing home placement - speaking gibberish and unable to care for themselves ever again. It was horrifying.

A couple of RNs who floated to psych from other floors used to plead with patients to not take the risk. The patients invariably said, "Dr. X said that I'd be much happier and more able to get along with my family if I do this. He knows more than you do."

Small, small nitpick on the article. Can you consider saying 'staff' instead of 'man' when referring to people working on or for something? Otherwise, right on for being very, very skeptical of the attempt to 'rehabilitate' a horrific and life limiting treatment for depression. I know precisely one person who benefitted from ECT and even she said the second course of treatment didn't seem to have the same 'zap' if I can be so tacky as to say that. Everybody else hated it, and about two thirds of the people I know who have had it have cognitive damage so bad they can't work.

allegra, you are nitpicking philip for using man as a verb? that's crazy. his work is hard enough here to where he shouldn't be nitpicked--no offense to any nits!--over pc crap.

it's not even 'man'used in that context!-- it's "mans a suicide hotline"--like as in running a desk! read it again

1 am the one Philip cited in the article and he has to keep me anonymous. He knows who I am in real life and probably used his journalistic ethics not to reveal his source.

I work and have worked for two hotlines. One is a national one, and it's done from an office here with a bank of phones, and other phones available to trace calls and call th callers local PD deptartment if someone is actually in the process of suiciding.

The other one is for state agency where people come to ask for help finding a p-doc, finding a support group. Or they call because they want to commit someone and I tell them to go to the closest emergency room and have their loved one evaluated.

I live approx 6 miles from a hospital such as the one Philip apparently lives near. A place where they do ECT off the assembly line.

It was regarding this particular hospital I got two calls yesterday asking how they can get a loved one evaluated for ECt. I told them I am not a professional, I don't know. I gave them the hospitals phone number which they could clearly have gotten through the local Yellow or White pages. All I did was tell them to go over there, and have the professionals ther evaluate them or to use then phone number.

I shared this with Philip as someone I know who might have thought it was slightly strange and eerie just as I felt it to be.

But you are right. It shouldn't have been manned.

It should have been Wo-manned.

I don't have a penis. Therefore I am not a man.

What has happened to the insulin shock? Perhaps staffs have given up because I believe anesthesia cannot be used. I don't know.
Reading all your stories made me very unhappy.
These old people receiving ECT that Deborah has described sounds very strange.
State-mandated ECT?
Just know I've read it.
You have the state to demand ECT for someone?
I don't know how it works here. I'll inform myself. But I believe that once you're in a mental institution... they do whatever they want.
Do I have to explain who are "they" Allegra?
Do you understand who are they?

Philip,
I truly believe that people are having trouble with reading comprehension.
Perhaps they missed classes.
You are being corrected wrongly.
I'm the one who writes terrible. But I'm scary by what some people are suggesting you're doing with English language and semantics.
Come on! English is not a very difficult language and it's blah, blah...

Trolls... they make me happy!
Don't bother Jones! They only come here to entertain us.

People are really upset about the use of the word "mans?" Are you kidding me?

ECT posts make me think about my own ECT treatment, which ain't fun. When Philip wrote "...why isn't the mental health industry encouraging people with chronic depression, who've generally flunked numerous anti-depressant trials already, to undergo an off-meds trial before recommending ECT? ECT is an any-port-in-a-storm procedure,..." it crystalized my opinion on why it had benefical effects for me. The drugs that they put me on were petered out, and my brain was chemical quagmire soup; ergo, the ECT had the all-too temporary effect of resetting the signals. I tend to believe that ECT is most "effective" on iatrogenic states of mental distress, or possibly other confusion at which drugs are a source. But, they can probably obtain more positive statistics when ECT is administered to address problems that psych meds have started in the first place. And thank you, Allegra, for reporting about your friend who said that her second round of ECT didn't have the same benefits as their first round. I suspected this, and it's been keeping me away from becoming addicted to this treatment on top of all the drugs that lost all their benefit.

In 1943, the early days of ECT at first helped, then killed, my father. Fast forward to my children who were each in their time totally suicidal while manic depressive. ECT was terrifying but it made each FORGET about suicide, which was a benefit. Now my son is gone but I do believe my daughter has mild residual memory problems. I hope to never be in the situation again, but what are the options for someone who is severely suicidal especially when support systems are slim/burned out?

This is not a vote for ECT, but at the time our backs were against the wall.

Philip...

I think this is the first time I've commented on your site. I can't remember; I've just completed 12 treatments of ECT: 5 in May, 7 in July. My doctor let me take pictures, so I wrote a piece on my blog and attched the pics with the electrodes to my head on it. Check it out if you like.

I'm a relatively newcomer to this so I'm not sure where I stand on the procedure right now. I am so frustrated with my lack of memories and my ability to retain new information that I can't say either way. I am hoping it is just temporary because one thing I did forget was that I was depressed in the first place. So, I'm wanting to be a proponent of ECT b/c I never thought I'd forget depression...if only temporarily, but it's just too soon to tell. I guess I've just got to wait it out and see.

Thanks for the article. Interesting points to ponder. Take care.
Kara

I responded to this but got a weird message, so I don't know that it went through. Forgive me if it's redundant.

I have no problem with ECT being given to people who voluntarily consent to it & are not coerced into it. My issue is with docs who tell patients who are already depressed & despondent that "we have tried everything, and this is all we have left." The effect of that on me was to leave me feeling even more hopeless. First of all it wasn't true & it's very coercive. It wasn't all that was left. What I needed was a different therapist, one who didn't suck.

So, I would ask that docs stop telling patients that kind of crap. If they want to recommend ECT, then okay fine recommend it, but don't present it as "this is your only hope." My shrink did the same kind of thing with meds when he would say, "You will need to take medication for the rest of your life." Wrong, again. I think he was even more gloomy than me.

Interesting. I was just in my psych docs office on the Eastside the other day and he mentioned ECT as a possible treatment for my "bipolar spectrum" disorder if I relapse after my lamictal withdrawal. I don't think I can ever consider such a thing. I love writing and would be lost without the ability to do it.

""we have tried everything, and this is all we have left.""
Lisa

This is quite scary and that's what they say.
But that's what they say at the beginning of any treatment!
When it's related to ECT it looks like a sentence.
"-you will have to choose: depression or this procedure."
Does it work?
I'm not sure.
Kara,
I've read your post and thanks for sharing it. I respect your decision and I don't know what would I do after being depressed for more than... time has another meaning in depressed periods.
I didn't understand when you say that
"I never thought I'd forget depression...if only temporarily, but it's just too soon to tell."
What do you mean by "forgetting depression"?

It also confuses me that "the last resource" is temporally.
It's the same with ads.
Too many questions about it all.

I was force-electroshocked some time in the last few years (ironically, I can't remember exactly when). By definition, somebody that depressed isn't capable of informed consent. They are mentally ill. I, for one, want the practice outlawed. It causes far more harm than good. My aunt suffered severe brain damage from massive amounts of electroshock over the years. And my own bipolar disorder developed directly from electroshock and anti-depressants. I had never been manic before. Of course, the wigpickers claim that I had "latent bipolar." What a pile of horse dung.

Francesca,
I see... latent bipolarity...
"By definition, somebody that depressed isn't capable of informed consent."
No! NO!
By "their" definition.
As far as people who are not on mental institutions is concerned I have already witnessed a woman who was depressed for many time and she didn't want to go. But she was said the "-You last resource..." argument.
This post is making me think a lot.
I could never imagine that ECT was being used the way you're all describing here.
I'm appalled.
But I guess I'm suffering from something like "perpetual amazement".
Even when I go in search of nice things I'm seeing things that is pissing me off.
People are being disrespected in so many ways in Rio de Janeiro, me included but I don't care for I'm in a good moment, that nobody reacts.
It seems we lost the sense of ethics...
Ok.
I'm not supposed to say it here.
But... I'm tired!

I didn't even realize that people were receiving ECT against their will until reading about the woman in a NY state hospital who was fighting it. Shows how much I know. At the time, I remember thinking how glad I was that I didn't live in NY because that could have been me. Also, I find it pretty situationally appropriate that a person living in a state hospital would be depressed. That's not exactly a very uplifting place to be.

It makes me sick to think that people could forcibly give a patient ECT. I hope that those who have harmed you, Francesca, end up in a shitty nursing home in their later years and get to experience some of the care you've received. Fuck them.

lisa, to the best of my knowledge, forced ect is fairly uncommon. there were two cases in ny last year where the state tried to impose it on patients but mindfreedom and some good lawyers put a stop to it.

if others know if forced ect is going on currently--no pun intended--anywhere in the us or elsewhere let me know.

Philip, I know forced ECT goes on currently in many parts of the world, and I think it probably is not that uncommon in the U.S. as well (although I don't have specific information for the U.S.). About a month ago there were some articles and letters in The Irish Times that seemed to indicate that the big ECT debate in that country was about whether it can be forced even on people who haven't been designated to be incompetent, or should only be forced on those who have - (for example: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2008/0702/1214935463721.html).

In the U.S. I think there is a big difference among the different states as to how easy it is to force ECT on anyone, but it probably still goes on anywhere where it is legally permitted. Sometimes ECT can be forced on someone without it being considered forced, as when the relatives of someone in an institution give their consent on that person's behalf. I think almost anytime that ECT is given to an incarcarated person - whether in a prison or psychiatric institution - it is likely that it was forced, or at least coerced.

Sorry I can't provide anything more specific - it seems like most of the information on the web regarding forced ECT in the U.S. is for at least a few years ago. But I don't think the laws have changed much recently regarding forced ECT. I'll bet there are still a lot of states where it's permitted, but anecdotal reports from people who experienced it may be the only way you would be likely to hear of it. There don't seem to be very many reporting requirements regarding the frequency of forced ECT, or coerced ECT, or anything like that. I don't think the forced ECT I experienced in the mid-1970s was included as part of any statistics.

I'm glad to hear it's rare, but it just boggles my mind to learn that ECT is EVER done involuntarily. What about the depression caused by the act of forcing a patient to have a procedure that they don't agree with? Do we then force them to endure more ECT to address the depression caused by the forced ECT? And what about when it doesn't work or causes brain damage? Do we just tell the patients who are forced to have it, oh sorry we forced you to have a procedure that gave you brain damage? That's just wrong.

Again if people want to take the risk, then that's fine by me. People risk their lives for liposuction.

My previous psychiatrist didn't do ECT because he said the insurance was too high. I assume there's a reason for the insurance being so high? It would be interesting to know if docs who do ECT are recommending it to patients earlier in treatment than those who do not perform it - got to recoup those high insurance costs somehow.