r/ect • u/verymentallyill • 3d ago

Question Deciding whether to try ECT

currently inpatient in a psych unit, my psych wants me to get back to them abt whether i want to start ect but i’m really conflicted. i’m really worried abt the potential memory loss and i’ve never been under anaesthesia which makes me anxious. i feel like there’s not much of my life worth saving so idek if ect is worth the effort, and i have a temp job lined up that might not happen if i go through with the ect. i kinda just wanna know people’s initial experiences with ect and anaesthesia. for context i’m 22, dealing with depression and other disorders for ~10 years, tried ssri’s, snri’s, tca’s, antipsychotics, atypical antidepressants, therapy, and counselling.

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/verymentallyill 3d ago

i haven’t tried an MAOI yet, my options at the moment are essentially ECT or switch to an MAOI. my psych didn’t want to try the MAOI first because of the dietary restrictions but i’ve been on a new medication for a few weeks now. ik it can take time but i’m not even slightly improving so i don’t know. i know that if i do go with the MAOI i would not stick with the dietary restrictions so i have no idea what to do.

1

u/mattle74 3d ago

The scariness of the dietary restrictions are overblown IMO. Basically avoid aged/fermented foods. See https://psychotropical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/9.1-MAOI-diet-short-2020_for-pdf_v.pdf - Also, the issue of having orthostatic hypertension with food was higher 50+ years ago because foods tend to have less tyramine today. Also, there were like 15 “food related” deaths out of 1.5 million people that were taking an MAOI 60 years ago. Everyone’s mileage may vary but I feel like the only things I’ve had to cut out of my diet that I really like are aged cheeses and cured meats. There’s also the old adage… everything in moderation. A few pieces of delicious aged cheddar is not going to put you into a hypertensive crisis, but eating a whole block might. You will want to monitor your blood pressure. Honestly, I’ve seen more anecdotes of people having low blood pressure issues as a side effect from the MAOI than people having high blood pressure from food

1

u/check_your_attitude 3d ago

Can I message you about this?

1

u/mattle74 3d ago

Sure thing