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Hi magic1, hang in there, it could be a dip.
I started w left side treatment and then later got left and right. I do think TMS helped to decrease my anxiety.
I had 9 weeks at 3 times a week and then taper and then once a month. I did not get results from TMS- I got a day where I felt better two or three times but that was it. Basically nothing at all. I would say the treatment is harmless so worth a try because some people are helped. My psychiatrist told me that about 30 percent of people who do it are helped by it. I thought it was more than that but the facts are it is 30%. I was desperate enough to try it. I really hoped it would make a difference and I think just having some hope for a while was good.
Hi I think the machine is a Brainsway machine maybe.
Wow Thank you for all the information on your journey Colleen, I cannot wait to hear what else you have to say. I think it is very fortunate that you had a Dr. that also underwent TMS and knew first hand what depression is like. It also sounds like your TMS team was/is willing to be creative and try things to meet patients individual needs. I don’t know if that is quite the case where I go. But maybe if I knew what exactly to ask for some time in the future, they would be willing to provide it.
I am on a different machine, not the neurostar. I forget the name of this machine but my sessions are twenty minutes each, instead of the longer sessions w the neurostar. I was assured this machine has been well tested for positive results. The one thing I get anxious about is whether it is placed right during each session, because this machine doesn’t give feedback about that. Sometimes I worry that they don’t have it in exactly the right spot and that is impacting the results I am getting. Hopefully this is just me worrying and not true. I hope I will continue to see changes after the treatments are over! Like today, I could not think of anything at all I wanted to do and I have just been reading most of the day. Not exactly my hoped for state of being, it would be nice to feel more desire and motivation I guess.
Thanks again Colleen!Hi Colleen, Next week is my last full week of treatment, then taper to 3 a week, then 2, then 1, then off. The Dr at the clinic said they do maintenance treatments once per month or once per three weeks for some clients, I do not know yet about that. I wondered what your experience has been or what you do for maintenance treatments if you care to share about it.
The psychiatrist at the clinic I go to says with the long term serious depression I have that it is best to take a multi-pronged approach, medication, therapy, TMS. I think next week is week eight for me but Christmas week I had four sessions and New Years week just three sessions. I think my total will be 40 sessions with the taper sessions included.
I have experienced some good days and good moments and new experiences, like one day I felt competent and motivated and a desire to contribute and interact with people that was really new and different for me, like this huge weight of hopelessness and negativity was gone. It felt pretty dramatic. My anxiety overall has diminished throughout the course of the treatment. I have noticed that a lot of what I thought was objective facts about my life turns out to be projection of my inner depression thoughts and feelings. Some days I feel a sense of possibility and openness. I have not been waking up with the huge not of fear in my heart and gut and the dread of having to face another day. All that being said it seems like I get to a new layer of the depression, like last week I felt strong experience of lack of motivation or ability to feel pleasure or anticipation of positive experience, I felt kind of really flat most of the week, although also I had some really pleasant and fun conversations. It is a mixed bag I guess… it feel like a worthwhile journey for sure. I do feel some disappointment that I have not experienced anything like consistent lifting of the depression. My Dr says she is still hopeful, I have another week of full treatment, and she said some people get benefits after treatment has ended.
I think it would be beneficial for me if I exercised more consistently, I have thought about it but haven’t gotten myself to the gym and it’s been rainy. Sometimes I will want to do something but still have a negative fear/expectation stop me from following through. I still feel like there are scales on my eyes metaphorically speaking that if they were gone I would see possibilities and options that I don’t currently see….Just to update this thread from my post yesterday- today I did not wake up with the feelings of dread again or feeling like I did before I started TMS. I feel relieved.
To continue from my last post… right now I feel pretty much like I did before starting the TMS… I I guess it helps me see how much the TMS has been making a difference, even though it hasn’t so far totally cured the depression and anxiety…. but I feel frightened and discouraged to wake up feeling this way, it seems like out of the blue for no reason. I have to somehow keep the faith I guess. To feel gripped by this negativity and fear again… ugh…. I do not want this to be my life!!
Yikes, I have one more week of five TMS sessions before taper. This morning I woke up feeling fear/dread that I had not felt since starting the TMS although before I started it was a daily occurrence to wake up feeling this way. I forgot how awful this is because I have been having relief from it for weeks now. It really scares me that it has come back! I hoped it would dissipate or disappear once I was up for an hour or two but it hasn’t yet. I am praying that I won’t wake up to this every day again after such a huge investment into TMS. I do not want to discourage anyone else, just feeling frightened right now.
Hi lajp- just wanted to note that you are early in your treatment and sometimes people don’t notice any positive benefits until four weeks. Everyone has a unique experience but the Dr at my clinic has seen this a lot where it takes til the fourth week for people to feel benefits. For me that wasn’t exactly the case, I felt a lift the first two weeks then a dip for three weeks then a lift again … but hang in there, don’t give up, give it time to work for you!
I felt a life the first two weeks, then for three solid weeks I felt a dip and that was very discouraging, then in my fifth week I felt a dramatic lift one day, then since then more subtle gradual lift. I have another full week after this week, then will reevaluate with the Dr.
One of the things that is so awful to me about depression is feeling like I have to hide it or cover it up and pretend to be feeling good for people around me… the shame… when I started the TMS I felt like I was taking a step out of the closet of shame.
I am not happy and carefree either but definitely feeling a noticeable difference, like a burden I have carried has been lifted, like some of the really negative thought patterns that ran my life no longer have such a grip on me, and there is possibility to have good experiences. Right when I wake up in the morning is still the most difficult time for me … but once I am up it seems like it lifts noticeably.
I realize now that a lot of my experience of life and my ingrained thoughts and beliefs about life were projections of my inner depression and not real.Thank you so much for sharing your experience Diana. I am diagnosed w major depressive disorder too and I can so relate to what you have shared. Feeling like there is no hope, no meaning, no purpose, no light at the end of the tunnel, no future… just to feel a glimmer of feeling alive and competent and motivated and maybe even hopeful from the TMS, for the first time in so long I can’t remember… that blew me away. I have two weeks left of the TMS, it has been so far not linear like just feeling better and better, sometimes better then worse then better etc, but I am committed to seeing it through because like you shared, years and years of being very depressed and medications really not helping and finally when I stumbled on this TMS deciding if there is a chance that this will help it is worth it and maybe it will save my life.
Hi, I have noticed an increase in my appetite lately, more frequent hunger pangs. Haven’t noticed being more thirsty except after the very first treatment.
I am I think in my fifth week of treatment but Christmas and New Years as I mentioned we’re not full weeks. I have had kind of a roller coaster I guess. First two weeks my depression lifted then it seemed like three weeks of feeling pretty lousy but for almost two of those weeks I was sick w flu… and then today finally I notice I feel more energetic and more desire to be productive and social. So that is encouraging.Hi, I am hoping maybe someone else will chime in here because I don’t have an answer for you really… I have not found that TMS impacts my ability to get things done or resume activities and tasks and responsibilities- depression impacts my abilities way more! I am still in the middle of doing my TMS session, not done yet.
Hi, sorry to hear you are getting side effects, and I hope they will decrease or go away with more sessions.
I have not felt tired or lethargic after my sessions, no. But everyone is unique. I guess I am fortunate because I really have no side effects.
Five times a week is definitely the best way to go. That is the proven protocol that has been studied. It sounds like you have a really good doctor and technician. That is great.
A lot of people start at a lower calibration and work up to their recommended highest level, so you are doing great so far.
Good for you for relaxing and taking care of yourself while you adjust to this. There is no need to push yourself if you don’t have to!You are very welcome, I hope you will keep us updated as to how it goes. Try to hang in there if it feels uncomfortable at first because often it gets better pretty quickly!
Thank you so much for your reply, barbm… I noticed in the first couple weeks of TMS, less anxiety and not waking up with that feeling of dread, and I was a little more able to be productive and just go for and enjoy a walk outdoors. So you are right the Dr telling me it was too early for results was invalidating for me. It is true the holidays and the flu really worsened my depression, too. It is really helpful to hear about your experiences and I feel encouraged and less alone. Thank you.
I am wondering why you are tapering off of your medication? It seems to me more likely that you might be experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the medication taper rather than that this is caused by the TMS treatment. I am not a Doctor. The Dr. in charge of the clinic where I get the TMS treatments told me that research has found that TMS works best when patients stay on their medications.
Hi, I experienced a lot of anxiety before my first TMS appointment post consultation. However the appointment itself went very well. At the first appointment I found the tapping to be uncomfortable but not painful, and I got used to it very quickly so that after the first few treatments it was not even uncomfortable for me anymore. I have had no side effects at all, no headache, no pain of any kind, and It does not interfere with doing anything else. I can get in a car and drive right after the appointment.
Regarding the noise, for me it is not an issue at all. I wear ear plugs given to me by the clinic at each treatment. I do not find the tapping noise disturbing at all.It is nice to hear from you, thank you for responding. I have struggled with depression since I was a child and also with increasing anxiety as I have gotten older. Both of my parents struggled with depression, anxiety, and OCD. My sister also has struggled with depression and anxiety. There are suicides within my extended family as well… so it seems it is at least partially genetic… I started taking antidepressant medications over twenty years ago… Prozac, Zoloft, Cymbalta… one after another has been prescribed to me. Currently I take 10 mg per day of lexapro. I have never gotten a lot of help from medications. Maybe I would be even worse without them. I was also prescribed benzodiazepines to help w insomnia and anxiety and have been trying for over a year to get off the benzodiazepines. I have managed to reduce dramatically the dose but the last bit has been tremendously challenging and I currently take 3/4 of a 2 mg diazepam every evening- just reducing from the whole pill to 3/4 of the pill was a nightmare for me and my depression got frighteningly bad. For many years I had a successful career but for the past six years I have found it impossible to hold a job. My life feels at a standstill, I am on disability, my social circle is small, I find it difficult to enjoy even simple things, and I read about TMS online and asked the psychiatrist who follows my medications about it. He gave me a referral. It felt to me like making this commitment to do the TMS was a communication to myself and to life itself that I needed intervention, needed help, just did not have the power to face life and face the challenges in my life without something major changing.
