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just as shocked as you are - May 30

The inevitable has arrived.
I have exhausted every neurotransmitter able to be addressed with antidepressants, even with combinations.  The magic pills are no longer anything more than expensive, bad-tasting tic-tacs that make my tremors so bad that my penmanship suffers.

I tapered off the millions of medications and signed up for a course of electroconvulsive therapy.

I had been afraid of ECT; it carries such a stigma and history.  But I had been crippled by the shaking, the anxiety, and side effects from the pharmaceuticals... not to mention the fatigue and blurred cognition.  I'm in my 3rd week of ECT sessions, and I'm dealing with a lot of interesting things from that:
My short term memory is pretty terrible but I am starting to regain my long-term memory.
Piercing headaches afterward.  Taking a beta blocker and Imitrex and Toradol have helped keep them milder.  It's not pain-free, but it's a heck of a lot milder.

I have so many mixed emotions.   My sibling did extremely well with it.  I'm not sure how I feel so far.  I do get to see some really nice people, including the one head nurse whom I've known since the mid 1990s ( One of her daughters was in some of my classes in high school, and another was a member of the local youth orchestra to which I belonged).

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