Saturday, February 24, 2007

The real Horrors of how Electric Shock (ECT) "Works"

I recently got a little description of this "treatment" and how it is meant to work and cure someone. Or maybe the word cure has been removed from the Psychiatric vocabulary. It's pretty disgusting, if you've got an upset stomach I would suggest you skip this post and go to the next one.

Here's a brief description of the process - don't try this at home (nor in a hospital).

1. The patient is injected with an anesthetic to block out pain and a muscle relaxant to shut down muscular activity and prevent spinal fractures.

2. Electrodes are placed on the temples bilaterally (from one side of the brain to the other) or unilaterally (front to back on one side of the brain).

3. A rubber gag is placed in the mouth to keep teeth from breaking or patients from biting their tongues.

4. Between 180 and 480 volts of electricity are sent searing through the brain.

5. To meet the brain’s demand for oxygen, blood flow to the brain can increase as much as 400%. Blood pressure can increase 200%. Under normal conditions, the brain uses a blood-brain barrier to keep itself healthy against harmful toxins and foreign substances. With electroshock, harmful substances “leak” from blood vessels into the brain tissue, causing swelling. Nerve cells die. Cellular activity is altered. The physiology of the brain is altered.

6. The results are memory loss, confusion, loss of space and time orientation and even death.

7. Most patients are given a total of six to 12 shocks, one a day, three times a week.
Ask the foremost psychiatrists and they have no explanation to justify why or how their “treatment” works. It is literally as scientific as sticking one’s head in a light socket. Do it often enough and you will become disoriented, confused, lose your memory or even die. Same result as ECT.

Someone called Neal Fox did an interesting post on this subject on his blog http://news-from-meat-street.blogspot.com/ - I don't have the exact post title but you'll find it.

1 comment:

Jayme said...

I love this post! It is concicse enough, as well as VERY informative, to direct people I know who are considering ECT for themselves or are advocating the use of ECT in general. It has been such a hot topic on some of my online boards, and it's nice to have a post like this to refer to without having to use long, drawn out articles or entire websites. This is just perfect!