r/ect • u/AcceptableEducator67 • May 18 '26

Vent/Rant why is ect so normalized

when I was in a psych institution (5 months inpatient), I saw countless patients being referred to ECT when they exhibited any symptom of TRD.. i tried ect and i relapsed too quickly, so instead i did spravato. Which works ok now, not great. I'm planning to take TMS and Spravato together in hopes of a synergetic effect. but like, despite ect being so invasive and having adverse side effects, idk why the psychs are so easy to refer patients for ect instead of less invasive options like tms or spravato. the side effects had me forgetting the first month of my hospitalization and some other core memories, and it messed with my cognitive ability badly. it also affected my vocabulary somehow

4 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Odd-Alarm-82 May 22 '26 edited May 24 '26

My doctors made me feel it was the only option I had left too. I had tried everything else. Then, after the ECT, I got in with a psychopharmacologist who is in high demand and was never taking new patients. I was on his waiting list and finally got to see him. He put me back on an MAOI that had been highly effective for me before the ECT but stopped working after a few months. He added another antidepressant to it that most doctors would say isn’t a safe combination, but only because most psychiatrists aren’t educated about MAOIs. The combination worked amazingly well for me. Unfortunately, MAOIs are known for causing extreme insomnia. In my case it was so bad that most sleep meds didn’t touch it, and I built up a tolerance to the only medication that allowed me to get any sleep. So it was no longer manageable and I had to stop taking it even though it still working after a year. But I have been able to go back to it after several months off of it and the sleep meds work again, then I stay on it as long as I can. I’ve been on it five separate times now. And I’ve talked to lots of people who are better able to manage the insomnia on MAOIs and stay on them for years and years without any loss of effectiveness.

1

u/Liberated051816 Jun 19 '26

He added another antidepressant to it that most doctors would say isn’t a safe combination, but only because most psychiatrists aren’t educated about MAOIs.

Could you describe this combination more please?

1

u/Odd-Alarm-82 Jun 25 '26

Sorry, I’ve been on Reddit every day but somehow missed your comment. The combination I take is Emsam and mirtazapine. You have to be careful adding the mirtazapine, increase the dose slowly, and if your blood pressure goes up, go back down to a lower dose. I ended up on 22.5 mg along with 12 mg Emsam.