Hey! I didn't under go SAINT TMS specifically, but I have undergone TMS therapy. Reading this article I'm not sure how different what I received actually is compared to SAINT, but TMS absolutely changed my life.
I was referred to TMS after a rash of different medications and years of talk therapy fell short on relieving the worst of my symptoms. Many of the benefits the patients in this article discuss are ones I received as well. I really do suggest it to anyone who is able to access it and suffers with severe depression.
Really happy to read about your positive experience. TMS changed my life also. It ushered me out of a nearly 5-year depression.
It was interesting to talk to the technicians/clinicians about how they came to be working at a TMS clinic. Several told me they'd been working in mental healthcare for decades, and were excited to work with TMS because it was the only thing they'd ever seen be truly effective in treating severe and persistent depression. One told me she had been helping patients through the 6 week program for three years and had not seen it fail to help a single person.
When I read the paper for this study it brought tears to my eyes. To think that it's possible to apply a lasting treatment to someone stuck in their own personal hell over the course of five days, and to have the effects persist for six months, is practically a miracle.
My treatment was over two years ago and I have not relapsed. There is hardly a day that passes where I do not feel deep gratitude for that burden to be lifted.
Wow it's so great to hear from another person who had a life changing experience with TMS! The clinicians were really blown away by how quickly the TMS started to help me and even though it's been over two years since my treatment I really do feel as though it is still helping me now. The clinicians that I talked to at my clinic were similar in their experiences. It really does drive home for me how debilitating depression actually was for me and still is for so many people. I spent years taking all the "right" steps to feel better and following advice from different doctors, and I still was often overwhelmed. I am happy that now when I use the skills I had built up over years with my therapist they are a lot more effective.
Very interesting. And there are tDCS home kits for $149, e.g. https://apexdevice.net/shop/apex-type-a-4ma-std/. This is low cost enough that I'm willing to give it a shot. Worst case, I end up with a decent DC current source that I'm sure I can find a use for at some point.
Okay, sounds like some people trying this at home have had seriously bad side effects. So will definitely have to do some reading before giving this a shot.
Hi! TMS is at a baseline very expensive. Luckily(hah, sort of) because I had both suffered terrible side effects with several medications and I carry a sustained diagnosis from a very young age that was documented as being massively detrimental to my ability to function, my insurance was willing to cover the treatment. The head coordinator of the program actually advocated very heavily on my behalf for me and spent a lot of time working with my insurance to get me covered.
The main downside of TMS is simply that you have to be fully dedicated to the treatment. For six weeks I had to go Monday through Friday to a special clinic that was a half an hour drive from my house. This was a point that they brought up repeatedly in my interviews to get the treatment, so I think it must be common that people decide that it is too much dedication. For me though, by the time I was interviewing to receive TMS I had really tried everything and I was absolutely desperate to follow any path that would offer relief from my symptoms. I had gone through multiple medications, had been in talk therapy for several years, tried CBT, DBT, self medication, meditation, yoga, exercising three times or more a week, different diets, spiritualism... Really the works. I could sometimes stave off my symptoms but eventually I would suffer a huge crash and totally burn out again.
One of the other possible side effects is also seizure during treatment(very rare) and because of this they ask that you abstain totally from substance use during the time as it can lower your seizure threshold, which I agreed to happily. While the idea of having a seizure was scary, I had already experienced so many horrible side effects from medications that didn't even alleviate my symptoms I was willing to try anything.
I am not an expert in the field but I do think that there is a lot of use that could be gained for any person who decided to try TMS, for me some of the things I noticed was that my brain fog started to lift and suddenly I was able to learn much more quickly. I started practicing languages and instruments to really help foster this growth in my brain. The TMS helped me break the patterns of my mental illness and start forming healthier ones...I really do credit it with saving my life.
Looks like it is just more tailored to your particular brain neurocircuitry and give more pulses but instead of in 1 session over ten small sessions in a day. Sounds like it only makes sense that this works even better!
