Profile for User: camilo

Claire, Colleen and Greg: After my first round of 36 treatments, on a scale of 1-10? Hard to say. I felt normal/vital again, the best that I could expect I think. However “normal” for me entails a lot of underlying chronic issues: compulsion to isolate, having great difficulty in sharing my life with people close to me, and commitment phobia. These are things that require help that I don’t believe any amount of TMS can solve; they are largely in the unconscious. That is why I am doing weekly therapy in addition to my recent current regimen of 100 mg of Pristiq and 15 mg of Mirtazapine (I have been on these for a week and, as of yet, no noticeable improvement with depression). I believe the goal of TMS is not necessarily to cure you, but to getting you to feel vital again; I don’t know if many of the underlying issues I have mentioned which accompany, and exacerbate, my depression can ever be eliminated by TMS. I would love to hear from people here that have had successful treatment what that “success” means to them.
I met with pdoc yesterday and asked him what he thought about my experience with TMS (36 treatments, followed by a total of 25 booster treatments) and he suggested it could me that I need more, although he acknowledged my frustration of not having lasting improvement after 60 total treatments over the past year. He mentioned a patient of his who had an initial 36 treatments which helped her for a short time; when she relapsed she had an additional 36, after which she have been in remission for the last 3 years. So, I am thinking of possibly doing 36 more treatments. I just don’t know.

Hi, Claire. TMS had no effects physically at all. Mentally I felt better after 36 treatments, but that lasted only a few months before I went down again. An additional 10 booster treaments helped me out again, but some months later back down. My last round of 10 treatments didn’t help. Because I was out of network my insurance–BCBS–only paid about 20% of the cost. Total cost was close to $15,000.