Posted by ShelliR on February 28, 2003, at 12:49:04
In reply to Re: ECT - long and possibly very boring - sorry » Greg A., posted by Bipolarsux on February 27, 2003, at 5:15:37
Hi BPsux,
Just wanted to let you know that supposedly *frontal* bilateral ect has the benefit of having the success of bilateral, without all the memory loss.
In the hospital where I got ect, all the doctors use frontal bilateral because they have a greater success than unilateral *and* it doesn't have all the side-effects of bilateral non-frontal (like memory loss). When I decided that I wanted to try ect, I would only consider unilateral, but none of the available doctors where I live would consider it. So I wasn't given any choice. The positive is that I'm not now sitting here wondering if I had gone for bilateral whether that would have been successful.
Someone on this board (can't remember who) started with unilateral, then switched over to bilateral. You might want to do a psychobabble search, if the search function is working.
btw, I also couldn't take valium during the ect because it might have supressed the seizure that is the basis for the ect.
I am very hazy about the three or four weeks when I was getting the ect (i.e., I went to see a movie but I have no recollection of it and I probably never will.) Other than that, I'm not sure whether in general my post ect memory is any worse than it was before. It's hard to tell especially because I'm now doing more drug trials (testing abilify presently) and I'm feeling a bit disoriented--I went up to 15mg just yesterday.
So anyway, good luck to you,
Shelli
poster:ShelliR
thread:201088
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030223/msgs/204693.html