In the deepest despair, electroconvulsive therapy offers hope

Re:In the deepest despair, electroconvulsive therapy offers ... by jamesgreenleaf on Monday March 29, 2021 @04:27PM (#26627745)

Some people in this thread have mentioned that ECT is only considered when doctors have "exhausted all alternatives". Does that include the use of psychedelics? I don't know about you, but before electrocuting my brain I might be willing to try a particular mushroom that humanity has been using for thousands of years to alleviate feelings of despair and meaninglessness, and one which has shown serious promise in that regard in several recent studies. It's really too bad most governments saw fit to make it highly illegal.

Disclaimer: Not for everyone. I am not a doctor. Do not eat fungi you find in the wild unless you are a trained mycologist.

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Re:In the deepest despair, electroconvulsive therapy offers ... by DanBC on Monday March 29, 2021 @05:33PM (#26628454)

Psychedelics are still grinding their way through the testing and licensing processes. One of the reasons ketamine had so much buzz was because it was initially going to be used for this group of patients.

In England (where the author works) ECT really is used for people who are very severely ill. They will have been through several different types of medications first. When psychedelics get approval those will go into the roster of things to try before ECT.

It's possible for someone to write an advance directive that says they want ECT to be used, so I guess there's some people for whom it's not used as a last resort.

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Re:In the deepest despair, electroconvulsive therapy offers ... by smt88 on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @05:17AM (#26632555)

This is not true in the US. Ketamine is FDA-approved for treatment-resistant depression now, and it's thought that ketamine's effectiveness is because it is a psychedelic.

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