Did you know that psychiatrists frequently use IV caffeine when giving ECT? They say it helps the seizure last longer. I certainly wasn't told that I'd be getting IV caffeine with my ECT. I stopped drinking caffeine when I was 14 because a friend invited me to give it up for Lent. I didn't even know what Lent was at the time. But for 40 days, I gave up caffeine and discovered I slept better. So I just never purposefully used it again. Imagine my surprise when I finally got my medical records detailing ECT treatment and discovered that I'd been given IV caffeine? And to think my doctors kept telling me during ECT that the reason I was such an off the charts agitated insomniac had nothing to do with supposed "mixed mania" and everything to do with the more than 60 ECT treatments I received with IV caffeine. Their solution, give me more ECT!
Today I found the article "Hippocampal neurons are damaged by caffeine-augmented electroshock seizures." I then looked up the unfamiliar medical terms and the functions of the brain involved in the areas where neurons die. The Hippocampus "has a major role in learning and memory" and the "striatum is one of the principal components of the basal ganglia, a group of nuclei that have a variety of functions but are best known for their role in facilitating voluntary movement." If you know an ECT recipient who has problems with either, they likely had caffeine with the cocktail of drugs given with ECT. This article explains my difficulties coordinating voluntary movement, tremors and bouts of rigidity. Any wonder why after closely spaced repetitive mild traumatic brain injury I've developed difficulty speaking, walking, using my hands, climbing stairs, tracking things visually, and basically every single task associated with motor function? I guess not. I'm living proof that ECT really does cause brain damage on a cellular level--undetectable on standardized brain scans--only be evident at autopsy.
And to think, each ECT treatment even without caffeine causes temporary Postictal Suppression or “electrical silence,” the absence of brain activity and the resuming of brain activity in coma waves.
Why doesn't the FDA or any other national regulatory agency put limits on caffeine use in ECT? Why don't they prioritize patient safety?
Why do they vehemently deny ECT causing damage? Are they simply not familiar with the evidence? Are they purposefully paternalistic in an effort to minimize risks to get patients to have treatment? Are they willfully negligent or are they willfully blind? The more I learn about this treatment, the more questions I have about the education of psychiatrists and their qualifications to provide a treatment for which no one can provide adequate follow-up care for the rest of the patient's life. They treat patients and then abandon them when they develop the severe effects of the treatment provided. Isn't that unethical? Why must we fight tooth and nail to get the appropriate support for life after ECT? Don't they realize not all of us have the ability to be our own advocates--especially in the face of relentless gaslighting by doctors and mental health professionals who tell us and our family that any damage is but mere myth--the delusion of a malingering patient? Really? They should be ashamed of themselves!