We Understand Family
Those who suffer from depression do so often with much shame and require a great amount of privacy. It is usually not the type of thing that you can share with your friends or family without exposing your loved one in a way that leaves him/her feeling even more guilty. We realize that the “patient” has often been the only person who has received care from doctors, counselors, and others. Neurohealth Solutions wants you to know that we are here for you too. This is demonstrated from the very beginning. We strongly recommend that a loved one attends the initial consultation for the following reasons:
* We are very interested to know what this journey has been like for you.
* It is important for you to have first-hand
information about depression and the treatment
options that are available to your loved one and
* We want you to meet our staff in case you have
any questions or needs, you can match a name
with a face. We are here for you too!
From a Husband
When I first heard about the possibility that there was a treatment option that could help more than medicine I was cautiously optimistic. It was important for me to check it out, so I began to read websites just like the one you are reading.* My wife has suffered for about ten years. She has had spurts of time that were better than others, but she has continued to live with a heaviness, that frankly I have had a hard time understanding. As I have tried to conceptualize depression without being depressed personally, I have sort of personified it. I have viewed “depression” as a thief or a murderer who has been threatening to steal from my family or possibly even take the life of my bride. There is no question that I would face any threat, go to any length to protect my wife from such an evil person. Depression is that culprit who seeks to run my wife off the road every day. I realized that what we have been doing to protect her was simply not working. By the time her doctor had augmented her medicine so many times, I learned that her chances of a significant response was down into the single digits. And then, I learned that TMS improved her chances of a response into the eighty percent range (with reduced meds) and her chance of a full remission increased to fifty percent!
If it were a fight, I’d lay my life on the line. If it were a transplant I’d give her a kidney. If it were cancer, chemotherapy would be difficult, but I know I would do any and everything it takes to help her to heal. After considering not just the financial costs of depression, but more importantly the costs to my wife’s quality of life and the life of my family, finding the money for TMS was a no-brainer. We are by no means wealthy. In fact, we simply did not have the money to write a check. However, when it came to the life of my bride, I found a way.
She is now finished with TMS treatments and has had a significant response. We began this process several months ago and although we are still appealing to the insurance company for reimbursement, I would do it all over again. There has been no sacrifice too great to see her smile again!
From a Daughter
When I was a little girl, I had a mother who LOVED to play. She would get in the floor and play Barbies with us, read us books, make mud pies with us, etc. She was my best friend. Even through my middle school years, my mother was happy and vibrant. She was everything that I envisioned I would be when I grew up. Maybe it's that I was too young to realize the internal struggle my mother dealt with, or maybe I knew she struggled and it was something that I didn't want to deal with. But, that struggle continued to grow in severity as I grew in age. I went through high school, and then left for college. It was when I was in college that I truly realized the extent that this ugly monster, called depression, had taken over my mother.
It was if I had lost little bits of my mom one piece at a time over the months and years. Sure, there were good days where I would catch glimpses of her every now and then. But most of the time, she was a shell of what she had been when I was a child.
She tried everything to make herself better; various degrees of counseling and medications. Nothing seemed to put a dent in the depression that had taken over her. Then she told me that she was considering a new treatment called TMS. She told me how the procedure worked and how it was a new way to treat depression. Honestly, at first I was scared for her. I thought, "Oh no, she is really going to be depressed if this one doesn't work."
She was at her last option. Long story short, I was wrong. Mom started getting TMS treatments a few months ago, and she has not been the same since. I say that with the biggest smile on my face. You see, I haven't seen my mom, the happy one (the real one), since I was in middle or high school. Now, we are best friends again. She has made a complete u-turn from the depressed person that she was before the treatments. She is energetic, happy, outgoing, creative, and funny! If anyone was to ask me about TMS treatment for depression, I would tell them to go for it! It gave me my mom back, and I can never say thank you enough!