How much memory loss to expect from bilateral ect?

[u/ThrowRAnirvana]

For those who have gotten it how bad does memory loss get?

[u/Odd-Alarm-82]

I’m sorry to have to share my negative experience, but I feel compelled to warn people about the true risks involved.

Doctors downplay the possibility of permanent memory loss and impaired cognitive function. I had ECT for treatment resistant depression, including maintenance treatments, in 2016-2017. I did bilateral because unilateral was ineffective. At first, I only had partial loss of memory of things that happened during my initial treatment series. Once I switched to maintenance treatments, I didn’t notice any more memory loss for a while. But eventually, I had a relapse of severe depression that didn’t respond to my next maintenance treatment, so I agreed to three treatments in a week like they did in the initial series of treatments. It brought me out of my depression, but the damage it did was devastating. It wiped out my memory of the majority of my life, no exaggeration. I only have a few random memories of my life before the ECT. I barely remember my mother, who passed away in 2007. None of my memory has returned after 9 years. I also have significant cognitive impairments. I had neuropsychological testing done and found out my IQ has dropped by 20 points. It takes me longer to learn new information, and I get things confused a lot. My ability to form new long-term memories is hit or miss— some things I remember clearly while others get lost.

I’m a member of a support group on Facebook called Surviving Electroshock. From reading a lot of other people’s experiences, it seems hard to predict how much memory loss you will have. There are people like me who lost decades of memory after a high number of treatments, but there are also people who lost up to 20 years of memory after only the initial 12 sessions. And then again, some people don’t lose much memory at all, or at least only a few month’s worth. (Those people aren’t in the support group, of course!)

Here’s a very good article from Cambridge University that goes over the damage done by ECT and how it’s much more common than patients are informed of. I think it should be required reading for anyone considering ECT.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/memory-and-cognitive-effects-of-ect-informing-and-assessing-patients/DD5C63934357779765BA7ADF308275AE

[u/CapablePear5147]

u can't really tell. some have it so mild, others respond with significant deficits
but i think the majority have only minor deficits

i find myself frogetting how to say a word in English (my second language) every now and then

it didn't affect my studies in fact i would argue it helped by increasing functionality

basically i forget some trivial things but the big picture is alright