A Positive ECT Experience
This comment from Herb is part of a discussion about positive outcomes from therapies, particularly ECT. He is responding to Alison’s story, where she writes that she found a psychotherapist that has really worked for her.
Dear Alison,
I couldn’t be happier for you than to read that you’ve obtained efficacy and wellness and even more importantly by way of talk therapy; certainly a non-invasive and non-medication means to help control one’s illness is the first approach I would consider and share by way of education from our experiences.
While you also have searched and utilized what I refer to as the “Trial and Error Approach to Wellness” so too has my spouse and me. About 44 years of battling her illness has taken us from holistic approaches, talk therapy, the pharmacopeias of medications as well as total abstinence of all treatments, ECT, VNS and then some. What is important to me is not banning and/or denouncing any therapies but sharing one’s experiences both positive and negative in the hope that others may learn and possibly benefit.
When one reads from the link provided by Kent’s posting above is the likes of David Oaks and the Peter Breggin’s of this world denouncing and calling for the banning of ECT which has in fact benefited individuals and yet their continually omitting their sharing of solutions to the medical challenges my wife and others have experienced strongly bothers me. If individuals like these had their way, there would be no therapies or treatments. As one experiences and learns the seriousness of mood disorders one learns there is no one treatment or therapy that can benefit all just as one also learns that the use of labels taken from a book, the DSM IV, is anything but scientific and the diagnosing of these illnesses at the moment cannot be quantified or tested through X-rays, MRI, blood tests or the like but we do the best we can at the moment with what we have.
Like you, my spouse over the years received several psychiatric diagnoses and did not respond well to medications. Unlike you she has no situational issues to account for her MDD and while she has utilized psychotherapy for many years it is totally ineffective in maintaining or preventing or improving the periodic relapses in her mood state. On the other hand VNS Therapy has proven for her to be “pretty remarkable” in establishing a 3 year period of a continuous depression free state without the use of any psychotropic medications for purposes of depression and over the last 4 years she’s had several brief relapses only to be quickly aborted through the adjunctive use of ECT either through a single or a brief series of 3 bilateral treatments. So when one compares her 37 year history to the past 7 years the quality of her life and that of mine has been “pretty remarkable” as well as improved.
The point being, I’ve read some of the writings of Breggin (a self-promoter and not a researcher), Breeding (a Ph.D. and not an M.D.), Oaks and the others and I strongly disagree with their positions on banning ECT. Breggin also doesn’t write about his failures especially knowing as I do of several patients that had no success with his treatment either.
As research continues to come forth I personally believe more and more in the bio-neuro-chemical theories of the malfunctioning of the brain whether through a genetic predisposition to these very serious illnesses or one caused by situational stresses of various kinds affecting the proper development of the neuronal networking of the brain.
I am also reminded of the fact that placebo also has beneficial effects upon one’s mood disorder.
So while the science of the brain, in my opinion, is still in its infancy I am for utilizing whatever therapies are available with the understanding one should be educated when making informed and un-coerced medical decisions with a trusted, caring, and knowledgeable and licensed health care practitioner(s). Almost all the available treatments come with potentially serious side-effects but this should not be a deterrent to trying to prevent suicide or suicidal ideations and improving one’s quality of life over these illnesses.
I wish you continued success and wellness and thanks for sharing what is working for you.
Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com
View the entire discusion
[photo by InTheSunStudio]
liz | 10:40 AM | Uncategorized
Child Depression Drug Use Soars
Big news today from the U.K. In the past decade, prescriptions for anti-depressants in children have quadrupled but the diagnosis rates have not increased dramatically.
From BBC News:
GPs in England wrote more than 631,000 such prescriptions for children in the last financial year, compared to just 146,000 in the mid-1990s.
But at the same time, figures suggest the rate of mental health problems in the young has not changed markedly.
BBC News: Child Depression Drug Use Soars
liz | 12:04 PM | Uncategorized
Cute Fix: Puggle!
Hello! It’s Alli here, with a cute fix. I got to spend some quality time with a puggle this weekend. Not this puggle, but another really cute one. Figured the best way to start a Monday morning is with a photo of an adorable dog.
[photo by the jyan]
liz | 10:16 AM | Uncategorized
“I’m so glad we had this time together…”
Does anyone out there remember the Carol Burnett Show? I’m really dating myself, aren’t I? But I watched it as a kid — a young kid, that is — and I thought it was so funny. And when Carol sang that sad tune at the end, I really did tear up:
I’m so glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh and sing a song
We just get started and before you know it
It’s that time we have to say, so long
Goodnight everybody!
(See you when I get back from vacation. Be nice to Alli while I’m gone.)
liz | 4:29 PM | Uncategorized
No such thing as a free lunch. Literally.
The cycle continues: Weight-loss med comes out. People freak out and get excited about being thin. They take it and some lose weight. Success stories in the press stoke the excitement. Sales soar. THEN: it comes out that something terrible is happening to people taking the drug. FDA gets pissed. Nightmare scenarios in the press stoke fear. Sales decline. Drug (sometimes) is discontinued.
I think we’re at the beginning of that cycle — or some variation on it — with the new weight-loss drug Acomplia. The European analog to the FDA has concerns that Acomplia increases the risk of psychiatric symptoms and suicide risk in people who take it, particularly if those people suffer from major depression prior to taking it. When the drug was approved for use in Europe in 2006, depression was the most problematic side effect.
EU Warns of Sanofi Drug
liz | 9:29 AM | Uncategorized
Oh, and also…
Fink and co. got paid more than $30,000 for the pro-shock book. Ugh.
But by dwelling on ECT, we’ve sadly lost a whole day of scintillating personal commentary. Like this:
True Confession: Thursday, July 19, 2007
Today I went to a Chinese restaurant for dim sum, and the lady asked if I’d like sesame balls, and my first thought was a variation on that old-Jewish-man joke: “I didn’t know sesames had balls!”
Just shoot me now.
liz | 5:32 PM | Uncategorized
That’s what you think, Fink!
Regarding Max Fink, HS writes:
Max Fink is from that rapidly dementing generation of psychiatrists who see every patient complaint and difficulty as evidence of further pathology.Sort of like saying that patients who develop diabetes on Zyprexa just need to control their sweet tooth (or have ” Elevated Glucose Craving” to make it sound medical). Never mind that we are pounding brains with electrical waves or dosing them with chemicals with clear toxicities.
Keep in mind that during Fink’s training years psychoanalysts ruled the specialty and romantic involvement with patients who had “completed” therapy was not frowned upon and you get the idea. The doctor is always right.
Steve C. also points out that Fink authored another recent article, “Electroconvulsive Therapy: Evidence and Challenges” — this one for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
[JAMA always has beautiful cover art, like the image pictured here, from a recent issue. It's Jean-Baptiste François Desoria's Portrait of Constance Pipelet (Later Constance de Salm-Dyck)]
liz | 2:44 PM | Uncategorized
Okay, that’s enough
Dr. Max Fink (pictured), who has a history of touting ECT because he benefits financially and otherwise for doing so (patients’ lives be damned) is back again — with a vengeance. Not only has he published an entirely disingenuous and damaging article in Psychosomatics suggesting that ECT’s side effects are all in the patients’ minds, he is now promoting a book that he seems to have ghostwritten. I won’t go into all the reasons that I believe he is one of the most unethical clinicians in the history of medicine, but I am completely disgusted by these latest gambits on his part.
ECT critic and author Linda Andre first tipped me off to the article, about which she sent a letter to the editor:
Re: “Complaints of Loss of Personal Memories after Electroconvulsive Therapy: Evidence of a Somatoform Disorder?” by Max Fink
Dear Editor:
Not only is the argument made by Dr. Fink not supported by logic or science, but the plain facts in his article are false. As the Editor, you had the responsibility to check his facts, even if he felt no such responsibility. Dr. Fink knew he could have verified his statements about Marilyn Rice with me, since he knows of my relationship with Mrs. Rice and knows how to contact me. He did not.
I knew Mrs. Rice well from 1985 to her death in 1992 and inherited her voluminous archives when she died. Here are the corrections to the false statements you printed:
It is not true that Mrs. Rice made “persistent complaints of dental pain” prior to her orthodontic treatment. In her late 40s, some of her teeth began to come loose; only after attempts to simultaneously straighten her teeth and resolve these seemingly minor gum problems ended in a disastrous reshaping of her entire mouth by an inexpert orthodontist did she experience pain, which never resolved for the rest of her life. Understandably, this experience resulted in depression. However, there was no “9 week stay in a psychiatric hospital”. Mrs. Rice was admitted to a hospital just a short time before being talked into ECT, and spent a total of three weeks there, while she received eight shocks.
Now, besides a ruined mouth and constant pain, she had to contend with a ruined memory, not a “preoccupation with memory”.
Mrs. Rice did indeed retire on medical disability, but it was not for somatoform disorder; she was found by expert medical examiners for the federal government to be totally disabled due to ECT-induced amnesia. Fink conveniently leaves this fact out.
The so-called quote which Fink repeats, in which she says her experience with shock wasn’t a total disaster, was made up by the reporter from the New Yorker. Mrs. Rice made this clear publicly in numerous ways over the ensuing years, including in a published book.
It is false that “neuropsychological tests were unable to document decrements in memory or recall functions”; in fact such testing did show such decrements. This evidence was the basis of her successful disability claim, and was presented in court by her expert witnesses.
The organization Rice founded and which I now direct, the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry, is not an “anti-ECT advocacy group.” The one and only purpose of CTIP is to advocate for truthful informed consent to ECT.
Finally, and most shamefully, Fink claims Rice was “hospitalized for multiple suicide attempts” before ECT. If Rice were alive, she’d sue for libel and win easily on the basis of this fiction. She was hospitalized once only in her life, because of the stress of ongoing botched dental treatment. She never attempted suicide, much less was she ever hospitalized for that reason.
Linda also sent out an email about Fink’s new pro-shock book:
I just found out from the publisher that Max Fink, though the foundation he founded, funds, and heads, the Scion Natural Science Association, gave a grant to fund the book SHOCK TREATMENT, to be out in September from Rutgers University Press.
The named authors are David Healy and Edward Shorter. Fink was one of the original authors (according to Fink himself) but in the end his name was taken off and just the two others remain.
The book is a long pro-shock argument, naturally.
Healy and Shorter didn’t tell the publisher about the funding; though the book has been signed to Rutgers for a long time, they just found out today, I believe through an internet search.
Rutgers University Press should be ashamed of themselves if this is the case.
Most people who challenge the prevelant use of ECT — people like me — are not saying it should be banned. We are saying that patients should be informed of their options as well as the possible side effects that may result from the treatment. Most medical procedures are treated with such candor. I see no reason to obscure the facts from people faced with the question of whether to pursue ECT.
I have had enough of doctors like Fink trying to discredit ECT patients and twisting the facts to suit their purposes. We need to stand up to this. We need to hold people accountable. If I ever form a rock band, I’m going to name it Informed Consent.
liz | 10:37 AM | Uncategorized
Tomorrow
It’s me, Liz. I won’t be blogging tomorrow because I’ll be in a women’s prison all day. I’ll be back on Thursday.
liz | 9:50 PM | Uncategorized
