Does TMS really work?

[NotForThisWorld]

Has anyone tried it out?

 

[charlie_z]

Has anyone tried it out?

I've never experience TMS, but I have a friend who's gone through a number of sessions and she swears that it's helped her. Now, you have to balance that with the fact that she also takes a good number of psychoactive medications. So, it's difficult to know if it was solely the TMS that did the trick, or maybe a med kicking in, or perhaps a synergistic effect between the drugs and the TMS exposure. Sorry, wish I could more precise than that.

 

[notjustyetagain]

shrink said my depression was too severe to bother with TMS... so, there's that. apparently you can be too sick for this medicine? :/

 

[Science Is Scary]

The Cochrane Library is a good resource for answering these kinds of medical questions with high-quality evidence. It won't always have an answer though.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/search?searchText=transcranial

The results in the "Cochrane Reviews" tab are systematic reviews. Systematic reviews attempt to answer a question by combining results from multiple sources of evidence.[1] In theory, they're better than relying on just a single experiment.

For example, I found a Cochrane Review concluding the following: "The information in this review suggests that there is no strong evidence for benefit from using transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat depression, although the small sample sizes do not exclude the possibility of benefit."[2]

There are Cochrane Reviews for other conditions as well.

Feel free to bookmark the Cochrane Library for future medical questions.

References

[1] "About Cochrane Reviews | Cochrane Library." [Online]. Available: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-reviews. [Accessed: 09-Nov-2019].
[2] J. L. Rodriguez‐Martin et al., "Transcranial magnetic stimulation for treating depression," Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, no. 2, 2002. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003493/full?highlightAbstract=transcrani|withdrawn|transcranial

 

[LMFAO FOCKERS]

Has anyone tried it out?

I found lots of horror stories on youtube when I researched it before. Not working was the narrative in "good" stories. Many people claimed permanent memory loss and degradation in intelligence / cognition.

 

[Sha70]

What is TMS?

 

[NotForThisWorld]

What is TMS?

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

 

[NemoZeno]

shrink said my depression was too severe to bother with TMS... so, there's that. apparently you can be too sick for this medicine? :/

Your shrink may be right but I think it's slightly unprofessional for him to dismiss it on your behalf: even in 2019 and for a few more years, we won't know exactly antidepressants/psychotics work. They just do (for those who it works on; obviously some people are unfortunate that none of the ones on the market do).
Same with this.

You might be too depressed but if your insurance covers it, try it anyway. In a very insignificant way, you can at least say you tried virtually everything and nothing worked so the toxic, pro-life deniers have less "ammo" to use against you.


@NotForThisWorld

Try it if it's affordable: I was fortunate to get this pricey procedure covered.
I wasn't a panacea/miracle cure for me but it was temporarily effective in making me feel a little better.
The doc where I did TMS, of course, gave me anecdotal evidence of 1 patient who responded super positively after 1 session ( if approved, you go though 35-40 sessions intensively: 5-6x a week until you hit 35-40): she couldn't explain the why but she had a gut feeling of "everything is going to be fine" after years of horrible anxiety and depression.

I have heard similar anecdotes online.
That's at the very best outcome.

The worst outcome is the side affects which is nothing like ECT where the worst is sizable memory loss: with TMS you may be unlikely to get a mild seizure. The literature out there states that, as of as of 2019, >90 times/100 that happens when it's a combination of the intensity starting too high and bad placement.
If the TMS is reputable, they would take it very slowly so that they eliminate seizure occurrence 99% of the time ie you have to really bad luck and genetics to get TMS induced seizure.

I'm middle of the road. I didn't feel as if life was sunshine, peaches, and puppies after the treatment (that's actually rarely reported: it's not like TMS suddenly opens the floodgates and dopamine/endorphins are constant abundance) but I did get that same sense of "everything is alright" like that anecdote I mentioned earlier.

That lasted strong for 3-4 months after 36 sessions for me. The next 3-4 it wasn't as noticeable but still there. After that I went to get a "maintained" but doing a session 5x for 1 week so that it goes back up (many do this; it's just a question of when. Some don't need one until years later, some sooner, some like me).
I "should" have went after 4 months because I think it would have kept it (near) perpetually strong. Going back 8-10 months to get maintenance didn't help much so I just gave up on that.


ANYHOW,

If only because there's a decent chance (unlike medication) there are some semi-permanent gains, please try. With how miserable this reality is, if a decent option exists out there (TMS, ketamine, psychedelics, etc), I always recommend. Life is too miserable to stay miserable
The disclaimer was that TMS did was that they highly recommended you do TMS while also doing intensive CBT/DBT/whatever therapy. Combined, TMS and therapy has a very high efficacy even for treatment resistant individuals like me.

Good luck

 

[Neurodamaged2]

I received ECT and while it temporarily made me 'feel better', cognitively it wrecked me. Memory loss and decreased ability to form new memories, decrease in cognitive function, loss of 'self', emotional blunting, etc. Insomnia and lack of appetite were a bitch, still face these issues over six months later. I don't have the energy to link the studies and youtube videos but ECT is basically a low-intensity lobotomy. It causes a disruption in brain function, tiny patches of neural cell death, and an overall decrease in cerebral communication. There have been many lawsuits over ECT and the manufacturers were basically forced to admit that the way it worked was by causing brain damage. Some people seem to have a higher tolerance to these treatments and get away with less side effects but the result is the same. It's a fools gold, a trick that somehow technology has found a way to cure depression when really it's just a barbaric running of electricity through your skull multiple times causing small TBI's which in turn in some people cause the release of feel-good chemicals. You're better off suffering what you have, don't make it worse in the long run for possible temporary relief.

I wish I never did ECT. After being in a few psyche wards and watching others undergo ECT I saw the same pattern - reduction in cognition but some seem to brighten up temporarily despite being obviously less cognitively 'there' or so to speak. Some had it so bad they were just zombies, nothing really there cognitively anymore. Some I talked to had it in the past, they said it temporarily made them feel better but they lost pieces of themselves or so to speak - cognitively, memories, etc - permanently.

Chinese acupuncture has a longer history of working well with depression and it doesn't have brain damage as a side effect, I wish I tried that instead of being fried.