Can one receive ECT for further period of 1-2 yrs ,after initial 8-12 result oriented ECTs ?
This is for my nephew, whose antipsychotics ,Risperidone & serenace were supplemented by ECT . He felt & looked better.after-8-ECTs. Can few more every month help him as maintenance?
Hello,
I will refer this question to Dave Robbins, a community member here who gets maintenance ECT treatments regularly. I read somewhere that a person shouldn't get more than 100 ECTs in their lifetime but that is only one report I read and it might not hold true. I'm going now to send Dave a message to reply to your question.
As I haven't had ECT, I will defer to him as well as research the topic and get back to you if I can.
Regards,
Christina
I get an ECT every three weeks to supplement my meds. I have been getting routine ECT's for three years. Depending on my depression it could be once a week or once a month.
I am all for ECT's. They help me a great deal. There has been times where I was extremely depressed going onto treatment and coming out a new man.
ECT doesn't have the lasting effect like meds. That's the reason I get them on a regular basis. I talked to my pdoc about when and if I could stop having ECT's. He said that I will probably need them for a long time.
If I stop the treatments I will get sick in short order.
I wish you and your nephew the best. I hope I answered your question.
Dave
In 1996, I had 3 ECT treatments per week for 4 weeks, for a total of 12. Then for the next 7 weeks, I received ECT once a week. They stopped it at that because it wasn't doing me any good (or so I thought at the time.) They seemed to make things worse because of memory loss. I had to quit a job I had had for 12 years because I couldn't remember what to do. Still, my current doctor says if severe depression comes back, he would recommend my having ECT again. Hopefully, that won't happen. But depression is horrible and I would do probably anything to get over it.
I said that I didn't think it helped me at the time. But I was very suicidal and I think it got suicide off my mind for a while -- I was so disoriented I couldn't even think about it. So maybe it kept me from killing myself.
So any time I feel depression coming on now, I get with my psychiatrist as soon as possible and he usually makes some adjustment to my mediations.
Carolyn
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