ECT went well today. I’ve done it more than 30 times; it’s become normal for me. When I woke up from anesthesia, I felt fine, no pain. By the time I got home, the pain set it, so I had to take a Percocet. I have a pounding headache and my jaw hurts terribly. I’m just waiting for the pain meds to kick in.  I wish I could go to sleep, but for some reason, I can’t, I’m just not tired. If I could sleep, it would probably make me feel even a little bit better.

My memory is back to being crappy. I can’t remember where my husband is, although I know I knew his plans before the ECT treatment today. I looked in my calendar and saw that I recently went to visit my family in Connecticut, but I don’t remember any of it. I can’t remember my wedding, that one really bothers me. I went through my wedding album; it brought back some of the memories. That was helpful, but still not enough. I’ll probably watch my wedding video later today. I hate the memory loss. Every time it finally starts to improve, it’s time for another treatment that causes memory loss again. It’s a vicious cycle.

I don’t want to continue (I think I’ve mentioned that many times), but I just do what I’m told to do. One of these days, I’m going to stop being so compliant. I know that my being compliant regarding my psychiatric treatment is extremely helpful, but it’s also exhausting. I’m afraid that one day I’m just going to do what I want to do instead of what I’m told to do. Following my bipolar treatments is overwhelming. I’m going to rest today, or I’m going to clean the house and go play cards with my family. I know I should rest, but I doubt that will happen.

I'm a 32 year old married woman who has been dealing with Bipolar disorder since the age of 14. This is all about my life, diagnoses, and treatments. If you have any questions, just ask me. I hope that others with Bipolar Disorder or PTSD can relate to my blog and find it helpful.

9 thoughts on “After ECT”

    1. ECT got me out of a major depression when nothing else worked. The doctor that does my ECT is also my psychiatrist. I’ve talked to him about wanting to stop. He wants me to be stable for 6 months before stopping. I laughed because I don’t remember the last time I was stable for that long. I’m afraid to stop. What if it is the one thing that’s working for me? Then I would have to start over at 3 times a week instead of once a month like I’m doing now for maintenance. My mom also thinks it’s a good idea to keep going. She gets a say because she pays my medical bills and because I trust her opinion 100%.

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  2. Maybe your resting is cleaning house or playing cards with the family. Who knows. Those are what I call no brainer things. Sometimes that’s the best rest/ therapy that we need, without even knowing it!

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  3. I am a person with “Prozac Poopout,” ‘Medication Fatigue or Med Burnout.” It just so happens every year and a half my meds stop working and I fall into depression. Not everyone has this. I’ve been on every class there is except for tricyclics and MAOI”s and with the laundry list of stuff I’m on for side effects like tardive dyskinesia, for example, no one wants to get into possibly toxic drugs with drug-drug interactions so ECT or TMS might be right at some point. Also, there was a new antidepressant FDA approved this week, it starts with a G. And there’s Ketamine. And believe it or not, there are clinical trials using buprenorphine as an antidepressant for treatment refractory types. Ok, yeah, I’m wanting something for you. For people who seem hip and with it, who have bipolar and love alternative and/or classic rock, I wrote a story for bipolar hope origninally called “Bipolar Strong: Rx- Fast cars, Loud music and Quentin Tarantino” but they changed the name to:

    http://www.bphope.com/blog/living-with-bipolar-itherapy/

    would you mind either clicking on it and commenting or just a clickthru counting as a view? Tell me or them what you think of the ‘new name,’ i.e., can you tell that the story is about alternative music from the title?
    I’ll look up that new antidepressant so we can have it in our information arsenal. I’m compliant too and the regime is over the top. So much work.

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  4. Hello, I have done ECT about 15 times now and I feel sort of frustrated and lost. At what point did ECT start helping you? I still feel depressed. It has helped a little but I just thought it would have made a bigger difference by now.

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