> Have you ever had someone close to you commit suicide?
Yes. My girlfriend who lived with me for several years.
> If so, is that truly a better outcome than undergoing ECT?
Yes, absolutely, for the reasons imperio59 and others have already described. You don't solve mental issues by injuring the brain until they the symptoms are no longer obvious to outside observers.
Also, using this type of emotional manipulation that presupposes the false dichotomy of "ECT or suicide" is highly offensive. There are many potential options, and you do not know what someone will do with or without any particular "treatment".
I'm sorry but that's the equivalent of saying "This person is about to kill themselves, so let's take a bat and hit them over the head with it so they can't do that now. See, now they're doing fine, they're not killing themselves."
Would you take someone who is about to kill themselves and take a pair of live electric wires to their head to try to "cure" them? Because that's essentially what ECT is, despite all the supposed "new and improved" spiel which is marketing speak, that and they sedate you while doing it.
Inducing brain damage is not treatment.
Saying that is not denying the problems that some people are suicidal and need help. That's a very real issue.
But ECT is very real scientific fraud, often done without fully informed consent on the parts of the patients and family members, often done against and over the wishes of the person receiving ECT, and billed for thousands of dollars to insurance companies over and over again, with results that go away once treatment stops and side effects that remain for a lifetime.
There is a both a large and strong evidence base for the usage of ECT in cases of severe, treatment resistant depression. Many aspects of modern medicine can be made to sound barbaric with the right framing; those who disparage ECT are not so quick to characterise chemotherapy as “poison by any other name” or dialysis a “vampiric ball and chain”.
By the time ECT is on the table, every other option is exhausted and the sufferer has been through multiple acute hospitalisations for suicidal ideation, if not unsuccessful attempts.
It is certainly fair to say the effect is not always permanent, that maintenance courses are a burden, and that their long-term efficacy does not justify the risks of the procedure itself or the anaesthesia it requires. Nonetheless, for someone who has been depressed for many years, plagued by crippling ennui and a nihilistic view of existence not even Schopenhauer’s grimmest passages can match, any respite is welcome. To deny them that option, with full knowledge of the risks, is to deny them agency.
Most forms of treatment, in terms of therapy, psychiatric medication, or more invasive options, cease to be effective when they're removed, eventually.
ECT and ketamine, for example, are sometimes found to be effective for O(months) after initial more frequent treatment, while most of the psychiatric meds you run through earlier if you're pursuing that type of treatment take weeks to become effective (or not), weeks to stop, and the beneficial effects often stop much sooner than the side effects after taking them (...if they stop at all, in some cases).
ECT can and often does do lasting damage. It should not be used lightly. But singling out ECT for being a recurring treatment seems unreasonable when the other avenues of treatment, both behavioral and otherwise, have the same caveat.
pdkl95|6 years ago
Yes. My girlfriend who lived with me for several years.
> If so, is that truly a better outcome than undergoing ECT?
Yes, absolutely, for the reasons imperio59 and others have already described. You don't solve mental issues by injuring the brain until they the symptoms are no longer obvious to outside observers.
Also, using this type of emotional manipulation that presupposes the false dichotomy of "ECT or suicide" is highly offensive. There are many potential options, and you do not know what someone will do with or without any particular "treatment".
imperio59|6 years ago
Would you take someone who is about to kill themselves and take a pair of live electric wires to their head to try to "cure" them? Because that's essentially what ECT is, despite all the supposed "new and improved" spiel which is marketing speak, that and they sedate you while doing it.
Inducing brain damage is not treatment.
Saying that is not denying the problems that some people are suicidal and need help. That's a very real issue.
But ECT is very real scientific fraud, often done without fully informed consent on the parts of the patients and family members, often done against and over the wishes of the person receiving ECT, and billed for thousands of dollars to insurance companies over and over again, with results that go away once treatment stops and side effects that remain for a lifetime.
nickbarnwell|6 years ago
By the time ECT is on the table, every other option is exhausted and the sufferer has been through multiple acute hospitalisations for suicidal ideation, if not unsuccessful attempts.
It is certainly fair to say the effect is not always permanent, that maintenance courses are a burden, and that their long-term efficacy does not justify the risks of the procedure itself or the anaesthesia it requires. Nonetheless, for someone who has been depressed for many years, plagued by crippling ennui and a nihilistic view of existence not even Schopenhauer’s grimmest passages can match, any respite is welcome. To deny them that option, with full knowledge of the risks, is to deny them agency.
rincebrain|6 years ago
ECT and ketamine, for example, are sometimes found to be effective for O(months) after initial more frequent treatment, while most of the psychiatric meds you run through earlier if you're pursuing that type of treatment take weeks to become effective (or not), weeks to stop, and the beneficial effects often stop much sooner than the side effects after taking them (...if they stop at all, in some cases).
ECT can and often does do lasting damage. It should not be used lightly. But singling out ECT for being a recurring treatment seems unreasonable when the other avenues of treatment, both behavioral and otherwise, have the same caveat.