Credit: Michigan Medicine Christina often struggled to get through the average day. So sad to think of the number of new victims of shock since 2011 when the FDA, listening to similar compelling testimonies of devastating injuries and harms, did not have the intelligence, balls, common sense, compassion, or ethics to completely BAN this torture device and relegate it to the scrap heap where its sleazy, greedy, ignorant, violent, undereducated, and immoral promoters, administrators, and practitioners also belong, stripped of medical licenses. The results are horrific., In 1999, a family member who was 76 years old committed suicide 3 days after ECT treatment and while on 5 different psych meds. Our ConnECT group boasts many positive experiences with ECT. As a doctor and psychiatrist, I know that all treatments will have potential unwanted effects, and it would be wrong to say that such problems are not possible. These ephemeral sensations say something about your personalityand your brain. Now, I used my brain, which still seemed intact, to write my first novel. If ECT improves your mental health, the effects are usually felt quickly. Please do not allow electroshock to become a first-line treatment. Did I ruin my life? I agreed with her and said the psychiatrist convinced my family the ECT treatments would eventually work., I have suffered severe reversible brain damage. Anyway there was no I want to try ECT to feel better, nope, only I hate this . Everyone needs to listen to survivors stories; this needs to become real and fleshed-out. Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text). Is climate change killing Australian wine? If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to During electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) patients are put under a general anaesthetic and a paralytic and then an electrical current is run through their brain. My poor parents. I dont remember where Rainier Ave South is for example. Brain training games? The risks are just too bad. Judging Those Who Get Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Lisa Morrison moved to Northern Ireland from South Africa after she got married."I had my children in Northern Ireland, experienced some postnatal depression. Real talk. Grandma says the shocks cured her hallucinations, but her brain may have been too fried to produce any or she may have not been able to tell people. What? A bit of selective memory themselves. If I want to be bleak I can talk about how I . These seem to stimulate the growth of some areas in the brain that tend to shrink with depression. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. It's used for treating depression, migraine, and OCD, among other conditions.. I lived two years of absolute humiliation, says Cunliffe. There are no goods and bads with ECT, no rights or wrongs. Above them, only the devil. Keppra | MyEpilepsyTeam Ignorance at its finest. Thousands of women with mental health issues in England given It is very unsettling; when I read their comments, I do find myself worrying that I may yet develop further brain disease. !, We thought we were helping our daughter. ', I am signing this petition because I have seen firsthand what these kinds of treatments do to people (one of my own family members) and the results are horrific. A LOT of uncomfortable loud stomach gurgling, a lot of reflux. No, it was all a matter of luck. To this day, she has permanent memory loss specifically about times/events/things related to my sisters and me during our earlier childhoods. I have a right to know these things, especially since this treatment is dangerous and permanent brain damage is the result for all who undergo it., My Mother was given etc in her early thirties.It cannot be selective in what it wipes from memory and Im sure it has contributed towards her very sad state now. Your email address will not be published. Understandably, people benefiting from ECT want normalcy without the label of mental illness. When ECT is properly administered, brain damage does not occur. Maybe even surrounding shock box making companies . The Misunderstood Consequences of Electroconvulsive Therapy Everything you learnt and knew is no longer there. Both had spoken out strongly against the ECT. Performed under general anaesthetic, the NHS website says ECT is sometimes recommended for severe depression if all other treatment options have failed, or when the situation is thought to be life threatening. Editors' Code of Practice. So for example, one of the things I showed many years ago when you could get the figures was in Suffolk. Sackeim et. In late December I had obtained my Win95 computer. Walking through doors wasnt the only thing Cunliffe suddenly found challenging. I would love to walk right up to the shock doc who did it to me, and all those who participated in the coercion and subsequent cover-up and minimalizing and refusal to acknowledge the obvious damages, who are namely, The McLean Hospital Corporation, Shock doc Dr. Michael Henry and the ECT Clinic, and all those bigwigs at McLean who went along with it whom I have mentioned by name in my various documents (I fear them not as I am telling the truth, can they do the same for a change? Another group member survived a horrific suicide attempt, and with ECT, has completely rebounded to care for her three young children. You wake up, a bit confused, and when that settles, youre done. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can It only works because it causes brain damage. As if I am dead! and our Her brain is completely inert., I am an iatrogenic survivor. Subscribing to Big Issue North ensures you receive each copy weekly, saving 1 per magazine on postage! Formerly of Ormesby, near Middlesborough, Miss Dunn was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when she was a teenager, but believes she suffered from bi-polar disorder and depression. I only knew who my friends were because they kept coming in to see me. My distress was taken for agitated depression and I was medicated to insanity dementia it says in my medical records. and our I am not eating or drinking properlyI cant even get up to do everyday thingsexercise is out of the question..cant explain the sensation in my brain.I just want it to go away..im scared to go to the hospital because that is where they did the dreaded ECT..but I cant continue this.also I have a dog and I have no place to leave himso I have been putting off going go the hospital. RT @KellyMartin02: Please cite your source for the 80-90% supposed "response". I agree with you. It was so damn expensive per month and it did the same as the old Keppra drug. I must say that if meds didn't ultimately work for me, and I was afraid they wouldn't, my next consideration would have been ECT. Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life - Amazon I think it is a good treatment, but I think it comes with its fair share of problems, which can be unduly minimised by clinicians. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please FDA PLEASE DO NOT DOWN GRADE THE SHOCK DEVICE TO A CLASS II FROM CLASS III.. She said: "It is a barbaric practice. It's been a hard burden to bear the past 15 years. Dr Rupert McShane, chair of the college's Committee on ECT and Related Treatments, said there was evidence showing "most people who receive ECT see an improvement in their condition". I havent been able to work, and my husband has been responsible for almost everything in our household including the care for my daughter. ECT was not only ineffective at sustainably improving my mental health, but it did significantly damage my memory and brain function., My grandfather, a NASA engineer, was reduced to a vegetative state through treatment with ECT. When nothing could cure my depression, shock therapy saved my life - CBC So, here is the article I wrote. As with any major medical procedure, patients must compare risks to benefits, then decide if the upside outweighs the risks. I was exaggerating, they said, Faking it. Each time I complained, they said, You think about yourself too much, you are self-absorbed. They even said Id been faking my eating disorder for attention! Some who consider ECT worry about memory loss. Consequently, people try to think through an experience to better understand a problem. Ummmaybe they were missing something, eh? A British family were left horrified after their dream Mallorca holiday turned into a bed-bug-infested nightmare. He lost his ability to read and forgot his name. Id forgotten I could even do that.. The place she was living before was her mom's rental. TMS Ruined My Life - neurowellnessspa.com We just want equality, and I dont care whether [ECT has] helped people, she says. (Never, ever shut up, either. Personally, I dont believe that I am cognitively impaired, although its hard to prove. But there are people who have been treated with ECT who consider that they have been permanently damaged by it. Stop the Shock!, Ive been through ECT and have lasting effects that doctors deny are related to this procedure., I see the devastation caused to a loved one. TMS Gains Attention as a Treatment for Depression - The Atlantic The study's lead author, Dr Read, a professor of clinical psychology, describes previous research justifying the use of ECT in the UK and around the world as "the lowest quality of any I have seen in my 40-year career". A junior doctor told me recently that they were taught that memory problems were unusual and short-lived. The sixth, seventh, and eighth most common words used in the comments submitted through the petition were damage, barbaric and torture. We must continue the fight to make sure that the FDA hears the people who will be adversely affected by the proposed rule if it becomes an order.