my hubby who is 75 is having ect for major depression

[jellydog]

my hubby who is 75 is having ect for major depression, meds have not worked. he has had 4 at the moment and will have 12, his negative guilty thoughts have increased dramaticly, things that happened 30 years ago swim around in his head. every day theres a new one to worry about . he can't stop these thoughts. has anyone else experienced this after ect. he wants to stop the ect because he thinks it is making him worse any advice would be welcome

[Zeal]

Hi jellydog,

Welcome to the forum!

I don't have any personal experience with ECT, but I'd like to refer you to some resources. You may have already read the Beyondblue page about ECT, but just in case: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/treatments-for-depression/medical-treatments-for-depression/electroconvulsive-therapy-(ect)

These thoughts your hubby is having sound distressing. Make sure this is clearly addressed with his doctor.

Here are two previous forum threads about ECT:

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/treatments-health-professionals-and-therapies/tired-of-been-depressed-now---looking-at-ect-

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/treatments-health-professionals-and-therapies/ect---my-experience

There are others with personal experience of ECT that you can hopefully connect with on the forum 🙂

Best wishes,

Zeal

[geoff]

hello, I'm sorry but I was only close to having it done but never went through with it, but deeply sorry for your husband suffering from PSTD.
What I would do is think about getting a second opinion before he is going to have the next ECT, I say this because certain psychiatrist's have their own way of treating people, such as ECT, whereas another psych may have a better way to help him, so maybe he could be admitted into hospital, telling the psych to hold off from any more ECT. Geoff.

[Airies]

Hello JellyDog,

Similar experience to your husband. I had ECT last year. For a while afterwards and during I was having flashbacks to stuff 30-40 years ago but can honestly state that in the long term it was beneficial to me. It took a while and I had 18 treatments all up. 3 a week for weeks on end.Obviosly I was guided by my psych and at the conclusion of it they were thinking of doing it 1x weekly as maintenance. It wasnt needed and that was in April last year.if I had too I would do so again.

Regards Len

[Croix]

Dear Jellydog~

I saw you had posted elsewhere and wanted to welcome you back. Around 18 months ago you mentioned your husband was undergoing ECT and was having problems as a result with old unpleasant memories and feelings coming to the surface. May I ask if they settled down in time? Depression is bad enough without flashbacks too.

It is realy hard to see someone you love having to try to deal with all this and thinking of what to do is very difficult. Going off all treatment is a pretty big step, even if you are doing it slowly. Is your husband is going to be supervised by his medical personnel as he does so? There all sorts of pitfalls including maybe not realizing the current regime could in fact be having a partial effect which of course would be lost.

As someone who has to cope with these very worrying problems I'd like to ask how you are getting on? Do you have family or friends to talk about things with and get support? When I was particularly ill my wife was very hard pressed and having her mum around made a huge difference.

Other than keeping a very close eye on things I'm not sure I can offer much more. It would be good if you kept in touch and said how he was going.

Croix

[jellydog]

it is now 2019 and he is back in hospital, he was in for 6 months last time, this time he has been in for about5 months so far. he still wasn't well when he came home last time, I think he was too difficult to fix. they have decided to give him bilateral this time instead, of unilateral . why didn't they work that out last time..he has improved. I worry about all the etc. they want him to have 30. he is up to 15 at the moment , plus the other 20 of unilateral before they changed it, so far this time he has had about 35 all up I wonder when they will think he has improved enough. how much is too much. yes memory is not good but I hope it will improve. sorry to take so long to reply but I only just saw your post. I am not good at navigating this stuff. thankyou for your concern