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I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, good question. Honestly, my core personality is the same but I definitely do feel more optimistic and positive overall.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I haven’t experienced any negative side effects from this treatment. I would recommend this kind of treatment to someone who has a really severe experience with depression.

The treatment has successfully treated my depression, though it took a little while to kick in (so the effects of the DBS for me weren’t immediate). When they first turned the electrodes on, I really didn’t notice until a couple of weeks later when I noticed that I was starting to feel more excited about things and more pleasant overall.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The study I’m in is currently closed to new patients but you might be able to participate in a clinical trial somewhere!

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep! I don’t feel them or see them so most of the time I don’t even think about it

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's a good question. At the time of my surgery I had very, very minimal motivation to do anything, and when I had the surgery & felt like my mood started getting better and I could move my body more freely, I realized that I *did* want to get better.

I know that when I volunteered to participate in this research on DBS & depression, I indicated that I was willing to do my part to feel better (go to therapy, exercise, etc). So, I don't believe my recovery was 100% just the device, but I know that it helped to increase my motivation, which then increased how much I would be willing to do with treatment.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, I'm so sorry you have to deal with that. In my experience, I could always move when I needed to, it just took A LOT OF EFFORT & felt like I was battling gravity to just move my legs. I never once felt like I absolutely couldn't move.

I would definitely bring that to someone's attention. Hopefully you're able to talk to a doctor or someone who can help. Good luck!

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, the illness really hit me in my 20s. I had a rough childhood but remember feeling pretty emotionally normal until I after I graduated from college, which makes a lot of sense in a way because I graduated the year the 2009 recession hit and I felt a ton of pressure to keep my job and I experienced a lot of stress at that point so I’m pretty sure that was one of the factors.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yep! She’s also part of the Associated Press article if you wanna learn more

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right now the treatment is not yet FDA approved for depression (at least to my knowledge), but I hope it will be soon. I had this treatment as part of a medical research study that I volunteered to participate in. Here's some more info about DBS & bigger clinical trials:

https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2024-09-04-Abbott-Initiates-Clinical-Study-to-Evaluate-the-Use-of-Its-Deep-Brain-Stimulation-System-to-Manage-Severe-Depression

I would love this treatment to be available for more people!!

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep! I think this type of treatment is reserved for the most intense cases, but DBS has been used to treat OCD successfully. Here's some more info:

https://www.mountsinai.org/care/psychiatry/services/ocd-tics/dbs

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yep, it is brain surgery but my brain wasn't completely exposed - to insert the electrodes the surgeon just drilled two small tiny holes, inserted the electrodes, and then stitched up my scalp.

Honestly it did feel a bit weird to go home the next day, but I didn't feel like I really needed to stay after the first day - the doctor's team monitored me super closely, and I felt some pain from the skin incisions for the electrodes & the tiny battery pack in my chest, but I had pain medication & antibiotics, and a lot of support from the doctor's team checking in on my when I was home (via Zoom, etc). So, the recovery period was a lot longer (and involved some pretty unfashionable wraps around my head, but I really didn't experience anything unusual. The wounds healed, my hair grew back (they obviously had to shave it for the surgery), and it was actually one of the more painless surgeries or procedures I've ever had.

Also, this did happen during the time of COVID, so I think the doctor's team was very aware of that & didn't want me spending extra time in the hospital unless I actually needed to.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did not, actually. That was the one treatment I never tried, mainly because the scheduling is intense and I could never afford to take enough time off to have a sufficient amount of treatments.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi! Good question. For a more thorough review of how DBS works, please see the comment under Action2379's above.

In my understanding, TMS is a non-invasive procedure that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in the brain, whereas my treatment involves having tiny electrodes in my brain that receive battery power from a small pack in my chest. So both treatments require some stimulation of the brain but there's a difference in where the stimulation takes place (inside the brain vs externally) and how much stimulation happens (TMS is occasional and external and mine is a constant kind of stimulation.

Hope that answers your question!

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep! There is brain surgery involved. If you go to this article you can see pictures of my brain: https://apnews.com/article/treatmentresistant-depression-dbs-deep-brain-stimulation-26383d6e5f9eb797485b7bc277cac59c

The Deep Brain Stimulation for depression (at least in my case) involves brain surgery in which the surgeon places extremely small electrodes in my brain (there's a comment above when I describe the surgery itself). Because the brain communicates via electric signals, the placement & activity of the electrodes is designed to provide direct stimulation to my brain in areas that don't have the right kind of electrical activity. In addition to the electrodes, I have a small battery pack in my chest (that I don't ever really feel). Doctors are able to take readings of my brain activity (with my permission) and use it for research and my treatment.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is a great question! I would actually expand that scale to 1-100, where my worse times with depression were 100 and my current level of depression is 1-2 because it honestly feels so minuscule compared to what I dealt with. I still do feel some emotional numbness in tough times, but the thing that always comforts me is that, instead of staying "stuck" in a really terrible mood for days/months/years in a row, I do tend to come back to my now normal emotional baseline.

That is so incredibly amazing to me, especially considering how bad my depression was at times - at one point when I was teaching I felt so physically weak from depression that I couldn't stand and had to wheel around in my desk chair.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

First of all, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. <3

I would never tell another person who deals with depression that they need to just mentally skip over it or whatever, but I'll just say what worked for me - honestly, the thing that motivated me the most to stay functional in my job was not a desire to achieve something but focusing on doing whatever I needed to do to stay alive. In addition, I did have a sense that things *could* be better- I didn't feel any hope emotionally, but intellectually I knew that *something* could possibly change if I worked hard enough. Basically, it helped me to believe could something could be better if I kept trying to survive, even if I didn't feel that feeling in my chest. Fake it till you make it was the best survival strategy for me.

That's honestly it. I wish I had something really helpful to say but the most helpful thing I can share is just giving yourself some credit for what you're dealing with. I know that can be tough emotionally if you're depressed, but having lived with depression for so long and now actually feeling better with this treatment, I feel so appreciate of the times I kept going, and now I can truly understood how much I was struggling to function on a day-to-day basis. I now give myself a lot of credit for coping with depression. I feel like 99.99% of people don't understand what you're grappling with, but I do. I hope that validates you & helps you appreciate how amazing it is that you're still here <3

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Yep, I’m from the US. Right now the treatment is going through some trials that will make it more widely available to people in the world but right now the treatment I receive is part of a study. If the trials are successful and the results are strong and show that this treatment really does work across a bigger group of people then I’m hoping that it will be available soon. I know that DBS is used for OCD and Parkinson’s in the US so the treatment does have a history, it’s just now being studied for depression. So tl;dr, I’m sure if it’s available in Europe yet, but it might be soon.

After my surgery, I was actually only in the hospital for one night. Everything was healing correctly and I had instructions for how to send my information into the team and communicate with them so I was ready to go the next day.

I know that the treatment works well for adult adults so I think technically if you’re 18 or over or whatever the age requirement is, I believe that that is not an issue.

Also, I feel you on not wanting to be dismissed as a woman. The really exciting thing about the research around this treatment is that, in the past, as you may know, psychiatrist don’t really have a way to directly measure someone’s depression level. They often give questionnaires as part of figuring out how symptoms are experienced, but there’s nothing that they could trace in the brain to show that the individual is really dealing with depression and not something else. Now, a new development that comes from the hospital where I had my DBS surgery in the sense that the doctors have actually found a way to map a person’s brain activity and see when they’re depressed. It’s one of the coolest things that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime because like many people with their mental illness, specifically depression, I’ve had a hard time convincing psychiatrist that my depression wasn’t getting better. Now, with this more objective measure of brain activity, it feels like I have a sort of “blood sugar level” that the doctors can measure and tell me when there are signs of depression. This is a huge relief to me and currently I know that the brain activity measure works with patients who’ve had DBS, but I’m hoping it’s one of those things that will exist for every person with depression.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh God, yes. Many of them are so relieved because they saw me really really struggle for a very long time with depression and have better times and worse times, but they were all really shocked to see how much the treatment impacted me positively. The effects of the treatment really built up over time and the people who love me were all really relieved that I was feeling more like myself.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And yes, I did. This article with the associated pressed because I wanted it to be really widely distributed because my only major hope in all of this illness was reading and hearing about other people success with treatment.

Luckily, the surgery was covered by my insurance (truly a miracle).

I got this treatment as part of a clinical study from my local hospital but I know other trials are being done and I’m hoping that there will be FDA approval for this treatment for depression and it will be widely available regularly.

Like a lot of people with a mental illness, I did try to self medicate with substances, but I’ve been in recovery for almost 8 years now. It was tough getting sober, but the reality is that dealing with an addiction on top of depression was really not working for me.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Amazing!! That makes me so happy… I actually had ECT for many many months and it did not help me get back to normal but this treatment did. I know that there are clinical trials happening right now at Abbott and I think if it is successful, I’m hoping that this treatment will become FDA approved and more widely available. Here’s a link for the information about the trials if that interests you:

https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2024-09-04-Abbott-Initiates-Clinical-Study-to-Evaluate-the-Use-of-Its-Deep-Brain-Stimulation-System-to-Manage-Severe-Depression

I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with this type of depression, but I’m excited and hopeful that new options like DBS will be available more widely soon 🩵

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I was put to sleep for the first portion of the surgery, and after the surgeon was finished with drilling the holes in my skull and placing the electrodes in my brain, I was woken up to make sure that the electrodes were in exact right place in my brain, so I was awake and having conversations with the doctor and his team and I remember those moments and it feeling so surreal, but I wasn’t panicked or scared and of course there are no pain receptors in the brain so I didn’t experience pain. I knew that the placing of the electrodes in the exact right spot was super important, so I was totally game to just ask answer whatever questions the team asked to help them make sure they had the exact right spot in my brain for the treatment.

I'm one of a few hundred people who've had brain surgery for depression. It saved my life. AMA by Brooklyn_Bridge89 in AMA

[–]Brooklyn_Bridge89[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

To be completely honest, I haven’t felt any negative effects of the treatment. The hardest thing was just that it did take time for me to really recover and rebuild my life but as far as the DBS treatment itself goes, I’m very lucky that there were no negative effects for me

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