Hello! In this post, I will go through my personal experience with TMS. To learn more about the facts about TMS, read the last post. 🙂

My first day of treatment, I was so nervous the whole day leading up to 4:30pm, I had no idea what to expect. The office was part of a larger building shared with many other businesses. The walk down the hall from the elevator was nerve wracking, I was almost shaking. The large heavy door opened to a simple waiting room with an annoying bell that rang signaling my entry. A little sign asked me to sit and wait to be shown into the back. My ass barely grazed the chair by the time the technician came in and brought me back. I was met by a smaller, darkened room with what looked like a large dentist chair in one corner and a TV mounted in the corner across from the chair. I remember that the TV was tuned to the Food Network. The tech greeted me and I was asked to fill out some paperwork and meet the doctor. Then the fun started. The doctor had to find the treatment area of my brain and since everyone is different, the method of discovery included finding the motor cortex in the brain first. I climbed up into the chair and they explained to me that they would send magnetic pulses into my head until my thumb then whole hand twitched. This was completely painless and a little entertaining. I’m also the weirdo that loved taking the doctor’s rubber hammer and hitting my knee until my leg kicked for fun. It seemed to take a while to find the motor cortex but I was assured it was normal since it was all trial and error. Finally my hand flew through the air and we were ready to start the actual treatment. Now, up until this point, everything was painless. To be honest, other than my hand jerking, I didn’t feel much of anything. This changed when the treatment officially started. It wasn’t painful as in a sharp, stabbing pain, but the sensation was odd. I was conversing with the technician during the first few rounds of the stimulation and she agreed that patients couldn’t how the stimulation felt. It was a combination of feeling like a rubber band was being snapped on my scalp to a pulling sensation in my skin, like the spot was bunching up my skin in a ball, thus, pulling on the surrounding areas. My eye twitched with each pulse but again, not in a painful way. My treatment window is only 18.5 minutes, I’m one of the lucky ones. Some people have to sit there for up to an hour according to the paperwork I signed. It was over sooner than I realized. The next day, I was a little sore, it felt like I had a bruise at the treatment site. This was first exasperated by the pulses on my second day of treatment but after a few minutes, the soreness went away and by the end of the treatment, it was completely gone. Each day I’ve gone back, the soreness lessened to the point of not even noticing it at all during the session.

To this point, I’ve gone over the physical sensations of treatment, but what about the emotional effects. Dear Reader, the first day I had the clearest mind I’ve ever experienced. I never realized how foggy my mind always was because, well, it was always like that. I didn’t know any different. The feeling of being clear headed went along with an almost physical feeling of relief. I felt light, a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Walking back to my car, I thought I was floating along like my feet no longer needed the ground to move. The first week of treatment, I felt great. I had so much energy and motivation. I couldn’t remember a time I have experienced this sensation. I was able to complete many chores around my home and even started this blog.  I do have to admit that I have leveled out in the second week but I am able to handle situations without reacting emotionally. I even worked up the courage to profess my feelings to a friend. This has been an amazing experience so far. I look forward to finishing treatment and share with you the final results.

I hope you have learned from my experience. If you feel that your depression has become treatment-resistant, check out this therapy. It is always worth trying. Take care.

https://www.greenbrooktms.com/

[I was not compensated for this piece. This post represents only my opinion and does not reflect on Greenbrook TMS.]