” So I’ve always had a bit of depression, anxiety, ocd and I guess always a bit of an over-thinker but I’ve always managed to sort of deal with them over the years. Drugs were always being prescribed to me but I’d always refuse as it doesn’t seem to be a good long term decision. As much as I had these issues I would’ve rather had my “old” mental problems rather than whatever this TMS thing gave me.
So the general doctor that I go to prescribed me antidepressants and I was scouring the internet looking for an alternative solution. There seemed to be an ad that kept popping up talking about TMS this and TMS that. I even seen it mentioned on social media pretty often. I ignored it at first but upon further research it looked very intriguing. They do a really good job marketing their product. Saying that it’s safe and non-invasive. I googled and YouTube searched far and wide and there seemed to be positive reviews on every page that I searched. Every website on google that I looked at seemed very generic which I thought was a little suspect. On the various YouTube videos I watched there were people who had some device on their head and they always had positive things to say about it. There didn’t seem to be any cons and I figure it was a “healthier” alternative to whatever else was out there for mental issues.
So I gave the company a call and the sales lady was extremely convincing and kept talking about how it improved various people’s lives and just convinced me to try a session and see if it does anything. I had some doubts but everything seemed positive and I sort of just went with it. They make it seem like something that’s convenient like a massage appointment where you just go and then you go back to work. But it definitely doesn’t work that way. I found a place that was near the place I worked at the time and they had the same things to say about it. All positive and everything will work out fine. They weren’t even doctors.
I went ahead and scheduled the first session and I didn’t really like it at all. It felt really weird from the get go. They put you on a device hooked up to your head and you get zapped every 20-30 seconds. The technician kept saying its normal and I just sort of went with it. After the session I had serious doubts about this device. I wish I would’ve refused after the first set of zapping they did. I went in for a second round which only lasted 15 minutes and all these zapping sensations. After this session I felt very odd and the first symptoms I started experiencing was a heightened abnormal amount of anxiety. I decided to not move forward with the treatment as my common sense told me something was seriously off about this device.
After these two treatments I began having various symptoms such as: Dissociation/depersonalization (out of body feeling), weird head sensations/tight headband feeling, mental issues became worse, insomnia, light sensitivity, decreased enjoyment of life, vertigo feelings but this went away, depth perception is way off (objects seem far away than they really are). The insomnia and vertigo went away but all the other symptoms continue to persist. I wanted to say for a long time that it wasn’t the TMS but before this device I never had any of these symptoms and the only thing I can think of is the TMS being responsible for this.
I was depressed about this for a long time and still sort of am but at this point I just want solutions now. What can be done at this point? No amount of complaining is going to solve anything. And if there’s ways I can be compensated, how can that happen? I continue to “tough” out these symptoms but this has honestly been an added challenge in my life on top of everything else that is going on nowadays. I’d like a solution but this is something I don’t even know where to start. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever have my regular brain back. It’s been a year since I had those two treatments and haven’t really seen any improvements. All I did was adapt to this “hardship.”’
– Usman
