It still freaks me out when I think of the episode of Mad Men where Alexis Bledel gets electric shock treatment and has no idea who Vincent Kartheiser is when she sees him. That possibility of memory loss is exactly why Marie Osmond chose not to undergo electric shock therapy after the suicide of her son. She was admitted to a hospital which uses the treatment and Marie initially had wanted it according to a story in The National Enquirer. She was so depressed that she felt it would be the only way to snap her out of her depression. She ultimately decided against it because she was afraid of forgetting all of her song lyrics. Well, I guess that is a good reason. I just think it is a horrible treatment. I'm sure it must work in some specific cases, but to lose your memory and who you are, seems rough.
Dude, I'd get electric shock treatment if it made me forget all the lyrics to her songs too.
ReplyDeleteI <3 Sugar
DeleteSo wrong, yet so funny...
DeleteSo wrong, yet so funny...
DeleteAwww man - I've been waiting for Season 5 of Mad Men to come to netflix :(
ReplyDeleteMy bipolar ex husband had 13 Shock Treatments. It was the last resort to get him to stop rapid cycling so bad. They had tried everything else with no results. Oh, yeah, and it worked. He had mild temporary memory loss at the time, but he did not lose his memory like what Marie and you're saying, Enty. No permanent loss at all. People judge this treatment by thinking it's that terrible shocking treatment 50 years ago. It's not, and it can really save people.
ReplyDelete"terrible SHOCK treatment" not SHOCKING. LOL
ReplyDeleteYeah, i think back in the day it was pretty bad, but now they have improved it.
ReplyDeleteEnty, watch Homeland they had a similar story line.
Homeland is the best show on tv imo.
So good! Go Carrie!
DeleteThey used this treatment at a hospital I was in! I myself didn't get the treatment, but the people that did looked so blitzed afterward. How can that be good??
ReplyDeleteMy cousin gets that. The memory loss is slight and temporary.
ReplyDeleteYeah the memory loss is temporary and the benefits are immediate. No fooling for weeks/months/years as some do to find the right medication combination and dosage
ReplyDeleteYeah the memory loss is temporary and the benefits are immediate. No fooling for weeks/months/years as some do to find the right medication combination and dosage
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy
ReplyDeletelike every treatment when it's appropriate, it's all beneficial
Enty,you saw too many times "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or you're ignorant
Oh I know all about shock treatments...awful
ReplyDelete@renoblondee, just curious-what is rabid cycling? (I'm picturing a guy who wont stop riding his road bike)
ReplyDelete@worstcompany-LOVE Homeland! Just finished catching up on Season 1 the other night, cant wait to start on Season 2!
Going from a manic to a depressed state, over and over.
DeleteThey have changed dramatically and they are not used for everyone, only severe cases. At least it's not a frotal lobotomy.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe anyone wants to hear Marie sing anyway. Maybe we should have EST.
@Sherry - ha!
DeleteECT saved Carrie Fisher's life (see her book "Shockaholic").
ReplyDeletewow i didn't even know they still did that in this day and age :/
ReplyDeleteThe reason people 'look blitzed' right afterward, is that they are fully anesthetized for only a few minutes, while the treatment is applied. So they look woozy because they just woke up also.
ReplyDeleteIt is not at all like it used to be, Enty. No McMurphy-is-catatonic shit like in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. It's VERY helpful for depression and biploar disorder these days, and I'm considering it myself.
ReplyDeleteWatch/read WISHFUL DRINKING or Google Carrie Fisher interviews to hear how she claims it's saved her life in the past few years. She claims that it only kinda wipes out four months' worth of memory, and they mostly come back. Fair trade for some of us, I'd say.
My mother had shock treatments many years ago - she's schizoparanoid. Didn't do any good. No memory loss from what I remember.
ReplyDelete(McMurphy had a lobotomy. Forgot that. Points still valid, I think.)
ReplyDeleteI worked in a psych hospital for many years and the patients that came in for that treatment became zombie like. One girl in particular, it was so sad, she had to be led around and just had had an absolute dead expression.
ReplyDeleteI spent almost a decade working in a large hospital in a fair-sized metropolitan area. That hospital's Department of Psychiatry used "EST," as they called it, on a more-or-less routine basis, although not all of the psychiatrists they had on staff ever used it at all.
ReplyDeleteI personally had some doubts about playing any part in the process, because the whole thing sounded too Frankensteinish to me, even though the patient's I'd known who'd received it had never complained about it. I'd also observed nothing worse than some very mild short-term memory deficits in patients who'd just received a treatment, just as I'd been told would be the case.
Finally, one of the staff psychiatrists agreed (with his patient's permission) to let me witness an EST treatment being administered. Two drugs were administered by mouth before the treatment began: one to put the patient to sleep; the other a muscle relaxant. When the treatment itself was administered, it was far less frightening than I'd expected. There were no major convulsions or seizures. In fact, the unconscious patient's body barely even seemed to register that anything was taking place.
None of the above makes me any kind of expert, obviously, but I do know that once I saw what it was all about, I had much fewer reservations about the use of EST than I had had before. I certainly did see patients who had come in nearly catatonic due to depression rally enough to be able to hold conversations, take medications, eat, drink, work on crafts, etc., and in general behave much more functionally after the treatments than before.
Wasn't she still on DWTS when her son died? She is too much of a Drama Queen. Can't stand her.
ReplyDelete@curlyhair
ReplyDeleteRapid cycling is when a bipolar person has real quick cycles of both the mania and the depressive stages going back and forth. Like a week of severe mania and the next week severe depression and then back again and so forth.
Thanks Reno, I had serious brain skip for a minute there-makes total sense.
ReplyDeleteI knew they used that like back in the 1950's but I didn't know it was still used today.Seems kind of archaic....
ReplyDeleteThanks @ Robert for the more realistic impression. :)
ReplyDeleteFor some more info, there is a wonderful memoir about bipolar called Madness by Mayra Hornbacher. If you read all of her memoirs, you can see how she finally realized that she wasn't just a cutter, then a drug addict/alcoholic, but actually bipolar who was self-medicating her entire life - I know a couple of folks who did the same thing. She does a great job illustrating the mania portion.
Homeland (which I LOVE) is also in the business of drama so of course she looks like she's in a massive seizure. Although, I should add, if they had done a more realistic interpretation on the show I don't think it would have minimized the severity of Carrie going in for EST.
Dick Cavett also wrote positively about his experience with EST for depression.
ReplyDeleteAs for
"to lose your memory and who you are, seems rough."
Depression causes you to lose who you are
@ T Lex: that is so true and I'd never thought of it before quite like that. Thank you.
DeleteYou don't lose your memory or who you are. Like others have already said here, it's temporary and mild. My daughter had it a couple of years ago as a last-ditch effort to lessen her schizo-affective disorder. It wasn't that effective in her case but I know it has helped a lot of people with depression. Amazing in this day and age how many people still have their minds set so far back in the past.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, electroconvulsive treatment is making a comeback. Its use as a punishment in psychiatric hospitals was a grotesque affront to human dignity and human rights, and people were probably right to be wary of the procedure. But it can be used efficiently, humanely and with good results for many psychiatric conditions.
ReplyDeleteMother Campfire, did you read Wasted as well? Yikes. I didn't read her other books, but that one was fascinating to say the least.
ReplyDeleteRobert's description confirms what Carrie Fisher said. She said there really aren't even shocks anymore, exactly. She said, "I guess I COULD say, since there's no "C" anymore, that I did ET. But then people would think I f#cked an alien."
I forgot about Dick Cavett, too. That's right. And so was your point about depression, T Lex. Depression is a freakin' insidious fog that invades everything that you are, and mania is often no picnic, either.
The shocks used in ECT today are a mere fraction of the strength they were back in the day. That, and changes in technique (like where they put the electrodes on the head) have reduced memory loss in ECT patients a lot.
ReplyDeleteA coworkers wife gets EST every 2 weeks for her bi polar disorder. It doesn't help much but make her a zombie for a few days. It has aged her significantly as well.
ReplyDeleteNiv EST is effective to use when indicated properly (current uses haven't seemed to be indicated for bipolar d/o. So I'm curious to know why a doc recommends for some bipolar diagnoses). Personally, if you read up about Area 25 in the brain, it's showing significant promise to possibly use more neurostimulation to treat mental health issues. 30% of the population (according to esearch) do not benefit from medication. As a practitioner I feel so bad for clients of mine who "stay the course" to attempt adequate trials of meds (about 3 months) to find nothing works. At that point I can't blame them for getting frustrated. I try to encourage as much as I can so they can get *some* benefit of treatment through therapy even if the meds aren't working optimally. Sometimes knowing someone cares (and I can honestly say I care about everyone I see) is encouragement enough to get through some really rough times.
ReplyDeleteAnyone that does get treatment for mental health issues, I applaud you. I hope that your treatment has been helpful thus far for you.
Oh and an earlier thread regarding Adderall-- believe it or not, we MH providers don't jump in and prescribe anything someone asks for. Actually that, and benzos, are scrutinized closely because it's a controlled substance. In adults, usually Strattera is attempted (the breakdown of the stimulant occurs in the lower GI so when someone crushes/snorts them they have no resultant stimulant effect). Intuniv is a newer med indicated for kids below age 17 that is nonstimulant.
I have a friend who had ECT for his DEBILITATING OCD. It helped temporarily, but now, he has had the lifetime maximum. Unfortunately, he's still fucked up, not from the ECT but from the OCD.
ReplyDeleteECT is much different than it was in the 60s, much more humane. In fact, the friend who had it is a physician, so you know it's a lot safer.
To just add on th what everyone already said, I worked as a Quality Assurance Specialist at a psych hospital. I got to feel the actual voltage of the treatments because I asked one of the doctors. It was very slight -as I pictured a dungeon, chains and drooling people. It was the opposite. It worked best in the most severe cases of bipolar disorders and such. It actually turned one patients life around, so much so that he had his own business and was very successful.
ReplyDeleteIt's the drugs that make people seem catatonic, not ECT. Y'all need to quit with the stereotypes. Ugh, it makes me sad. (Not everyone, just the ones that think its medieval torture)
I'm having ECT in a couple of months. I'm scared but optimistic; I feel like it might be just the thing to help with severe depression. I don't expect miracles, but I've been on almost every drug there is and none have really helped. I'm happy to read this thread; I've done my research, but it ALWAYS helps to read more.
ReplyDeleteGood luck! After trying many, many, different meds, I finally was put on something that helped with my depression (along with therapy). I felt like a guinea pig. I spent years in a fog of depression, I know how horrible it is. I truly hope some success will come from this for you.
Delete@pinch weasel It helped my ex so much, I wish you the best of luck and good health!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Renoblondee, I appreciate the well wishes, and I'm happy to hear it helped your ex! xoxo
ReplyDelete@ reno & the comments made about NOT using ECT for bi-polar:
ReplyDelete(bad wording in that address, anyway), as reno can tell you, bi-polar (manic-depression in the old days) and ALL mental health issues have come a long way in the past 25 years. it's no longer just a great big catch-all term. there are rapid cyclers, ultra rapids, and even ultra-ultra rapids. there are (this is fairly new to me, i can't speak knowledgably about it) now different levels of bi-polar, and in the worse cases, yes ECT CAN help. it's all a crap shoot, and ECT is in the last resort colmun, but this disease destroys a person and their family, even the "mild" cases.
20 years ago, a person could not be DX w/ bi-polar disease unti the age of 18, schizophrenia was the same until only about 10 years ago (how they slap a random age like that on something, i don't know). my son was DX at age 16, 16 or 17 years ago. most bi-polars (like autistics) are childhood savants-- in other words have a talent that is more advanced than what it would normally be in another person with their age or background, my son has a musical talent that always amazed us. unfortunately, so did a "church" locally, a very cult like group who feeds off people (at least 4 of his friends also BP and almost his once best friend, but his bff chose the meds and his wife instead) with these issues, not to help them, but as a drug replacement. the man i see now is not my son, and he really frightens me. he lives 10 miles away, and we haven't seen the grandchildren in a year, but finally spoke this week. what REALLY scares me is he tells me the eldest, at almost 3 is "scary smart". as the mother and grandaughter of a bi-polar sufferer, those are terrible words to hear.
I'm sorry that you've had a rough time, bionic bunny. You made some excellent points, especially regarding the different types of bipolar. Try mixed episodes! Talk about a roller-coaster.
ReplyDeleteIt's my understanding that not DXing children is to avoid the MI stigma, plus for some children there can be the hope that it's a temporary issue that could be outgrown. I do know that DSM personality disorders are still not assigned to children until age 18, even when the diagnosis could not be more clear. I don't know if this helps or harms, frankly.
And yes, many of us with MI are either very intelligent, very creative/talented, or both. I happen to be gifted as well as having both bipolar disorder and GAD, and I've said before that I'd rather have average intelligence or even be somewhat limited in the brains department, yet be happy and "normal." It's hard to decide which life would be better...
Bionic bunny, I an so sorry you are going through this. I wish you the best and hope your son will one day get the help he needs. My teenage daughter leans toward being depressed and her church school did the same thing to her. They use them and suck them in. As you know, these kinds of people can't handle it, and it makes it worse. She is now in public school and doing much much better.
ReplyDeleteI thought electroshock therepy wasnt still used, and just a conspiracy theory free-for-all
ReplyDelete