The Truth About Shock Therapy

JenSCDC

Shock therapy, or E.C.T. (electro-convulsive therapy) might just be the most misunderstood medical treatment in existence. In popular culture it is depicted as indiscriminately applied torture, but it reality it is a humane and effective treatment for severe cases of depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia that can save a person's life. I know this because I probably wouldn't be alive to write this if it weren't for E.C.T.


The beneficial effect of seizures on psychiatric conditions was know centuries ago, but the history of E.C.T. as a modern medical treatment begins in the 1930s when Ladislav Meduna published a paper describing his success in treating schizophrenics using seizures induced by camphor. However, drug induced seizures had the drawback of being very unpleasant for the victim, so doctors sought an alternative way to induce seizures. The best method turned out to be electricity, and in 1938 Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini were the first to treat a patient using this technique.


There was still a long ways to go after Cerletti and Bini. Much research still needed to be done on the size of the shock and how best to apply it. As it turns out, for many people the shock only needs to be applied to one hemisphere (unilateral treatment); unilateral treatment has fewer side effects than bilateral treatment, where a seizure is induced in both hemispheres. The biggest advances were what made E.C.T. a human treatment, namely the use of general anesthetic and muscle relaxants so that the patient doesn't experience any discomfort.


Two works have probably done most of the damage to E.C.T.'s reputation, “A Bell Jar” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. “A Bell Jar” depicted E.C.T. as a horrifying experience. While E.C.T. in the past may have rather unpleasant, anesthesia and muscle relaxants have solved that problem. As for “Cuckoo’s Nest”, let's just say that if Ken Kesey had set out to write something to deliberately damage E.C.T. he couldn't have done a better job than he did.


In reality, E.C.T. can work wonders, dramatically improving the lives of people for whom all other treatments have failed. E.C.T. isn't a one time thing. It usually takes about a dozen treatments to be fully effective, and very often people need periodic maintenance treatments.


E.C.T. is by no means perfect. Will it often works, there are unfortunately people for whom it doesn't. There is always a risk of death whenever general anesthesia is used, and there are of course side effects. The most common side effects are problems with memory and cognitive ability; there can be large variations in both the severity and duration of these. For these reasons, psychiatrists are very selective about who's eligible for E.C.T.. At the hospital where I had mine, patients were interviewed and had to be approved by not just the doctor who performs the procedure, but by a second, senior, psychiatrist as well.


For me, E.C.T. was a godsend- as I said above, if it weren't for E.C.T., I probably wouldn't be here to write this. I have bipolar with an extreme bias towards depression. At the end of 2014 I was in very bad shape. The two words that best describe how I felt are “pain” and “misery”. At times it hurt so much that I would curl up sobbing. Over the years I had been on many medications, and the drug cocktail that I was on consisted of massive doses of a number of very powerful drugs. I had reached the end of what medication alone could do for me, so my shrink suggested E.C.T..


I was inpatient (which really sucked) for my first few treatments, but most of my E.C.T. was done outpatient.


I was very lucky with E.C.T.- not only did it work extremely well, but my side effects were pretty mild. I had both memory and cognitive impairments, but nothing major. I just felt that my mind wasn't working on all cylinders; over the course of a few months this vanished. It did take me about 20 or so treatments -twice the normal number- for E.C.T. to be fully effective, but OTOH after close to two years I haven't (yet) needed any maintenance treatments.


While E.C.T. did work wonders for me, it wasn't a magical cure. I still have to take some medication, although nothing like I was on before, (The drug cocktail I was on before E.C.T. had so many dangerous side effects that the psychiatrist who performed it told me choosing to have E.C.T. was the best choice I could ever make to improve my lifespan) and I still experience some mood swings. However, compared to how bad I was in the past, these are just minor annoyances.

The Truth About Shock Therapy

The Truth About Shock Therapy
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