Q&A: ECT

DoodleI’ve decided to open a new category: Q&A (Questions and Answers). Here I will try to answer some of your questions, as brief as possible.

Question that was asked yesterday about electroshock therapy:

“Can ECT make me more depressed?”

Answer: No, usually it will not. Not by itself.

But indirectly it can contribute to depression, in two main ways:

(1) Psychologically: for some people, regular day-long hospital visits for intensive ECT treatment can be an extra tiring burden and increase your feeling that you’re a very serious case. This might make you feel more depressed.
(2) As a result of side effects: for a few people, serious effects can occur (like structural long-term memory loss) that may disrupt your daily life or even relationships. Eventually, this also can make you feel more depressed.

We all may react differently, in positive or in negative ways, so it’s hard to tell in advance what the end result will be in your particular case.

But if you think about having ECT as a last-resort treatment for depression, it makes sense to also consider the possibility of a negative end result.


 

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Today In History:

Friedrich SerturnerJune 19, 1783 –
Birth date of German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner, who in 1803 (formally a year before his French competitor Armand Séguin) discovered a way to isolate the alkaloid (the active component) from the opium plant.
   He named the resulting substance “Morphium” after Morpheus, the ancient Greek god of sleep and dreams. In due course it became known as morphine. Later (around 1900) the German firm Bayer would develop a stronger semi-synthetic variety: heroin.
   Morphine soon became popular as a pain killer, for example when practicing surgery on wounded soldiers – who then found out it was highly addictive.
   While working as a pharmacist in Hameln from 1822 until his death in 1841, Sertürner suffered much from depression, which he tried to overcome by using morphine. So he ended up addicted to the drug he had invented himself.

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