This post is about my own experiences and thoughts about eTMS treatment. It should not be used as medical advice or be considered an authoritative source for medical information. If you think TMS/rTMS/eTMS could help you, check with a medical professional for the latest information and steps to get help. If you are a Veteran, First Responder, or Law Enforcement officer struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, sleep disorder, traumatic brain injury, sexual trauma, PTSD, concussions, or other brain trauma, contact eTMS Ohio for treatment options.

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Here I am, on my 54th birthday, feeling like yesterday was like a new birthday for me, as I started the process of rebooting my brain!

Because of life, this will be a big update, and future posts should be much shorter. It’s also the first post after I’ve started treatment! This post will be longer than normal as I’ll be covering the initial consultation with the doctor who’s managing my treatment, my new home away from home for the next few weeks. The video from my first session is still processing, and that has a bunch of key information about the actual first session, so I’ll be putting another update up once that’s done.

Last week, I met with the doctor via video to go over my eTMS treatments. My daughter got married that weekend and with the family in town and the standard busyness of a wedding, I wanted to wait until that all settled before starting, so my first treatment was put off to yesterday. The clinic was also able to set up housing for me, so I’m currently just a little over mile from the clinic instead of an hour’s drive! I’ll be living here during the week and going back home on the weekends, and the whole treatment will take five weeks. It can go up to six weeks, but I have a team meetup at work during that sixth week. The good news is that I can also come back for “tune-ups” as needed, so depending on things, I may just do that when I get back. They’re also allowing me to record my sessions, so I can share the whole experience!

Because the treatment itself can drain your brain, I’m going to post updates in the mornings. That way I’ll have a fresh brain for writing.

Meeting with the doctor

As part of the process, I met via video with Dr. Walter Mysiw, MD. He’s been working with brain trauma for decades, and actually left and came back to the center because he hasn’t seen results like this anywhere else. He’s published a lot on the subject (and a bunch of other subjects), as well.

The doctor and I had a great conversation. He asked some screening questions and I didn’t have anything preventing me from getting treatment, he explained the process, and answered my questions throughout the meeting.

I Had Questions

I had several questions going into the appointment, and he answered them all. Here they are in the order they were on my checklist (which wasn’t necessarily the order we got to them):

Where can I get details on eTMS?

I’d done several searches and eTMS always brought up other topics unrelated to this treatment. I found a bunch of info on TMS (also called dTMS) and rTMS, but nothing about eTMS. I finally came across the term TMS-EEG, which seemed to be the same. I asked the doctor and he confirmed: those are the same thing. Using that, I was able to start a YouTube playlist that I’ll update as I go. So far I’ve got a couple videos to watch in my spare time, and I’ll share anything I learn from those as I watch them.

So far, this podcast episode has been the most informative:

What about meds?

I take a few medications for my mental health: Straterra and Vyvanse for ADHD, the antidepressant Trazadone to help me sleep, medical marijuana to help me sleep and deal with triggers, Ativan as needed for PTSD triggers. I was also taking a high dose of Prazosin to fulfill double-duty treatment high PSA for my prostate and preventing nightmares, but when I started getting light-headed and nearly passed out a couple of times my doctor halved the dose. I don’t really remember any of the nightmares, but my poor partner knows I’m having them when I kick, toss, and talk in my sleep — and it’s come back since the Prazosin was reduced.

I’d love to reduce or eliminate most or all of those meds! I asked the doc about it, and he said it will be up to the prescribing doctors, but he could see me tapering off everything over time. He’s had patients come in to their third week of treatment and announce they’d quit their meds, which is something he highly recommends not doing! He recommended talking to my doctor and starting to taper off after the treatments end, starting with the Strattera. So, I’ll be messaging my doc!

Will this help my ADHD, too?

There was kind of a spoiler above, so you know the answer already. I’m doing eTMS to treat my PTSD, but I’d heard about TMS from someone who had received it for ADHD, and I kept finding references to it in my searches. So, I checked: will this help my ADHD? He gave an enthusiastic yes! I should see better focus and less distractibility in about 3 weeks.

What about my butt?

I’m also “fortunate” enough to have Crohn’s Disease, which means I get a scope up my butt once a year, and this year it happens to fall smack dab in the middle of my treatment. So I had to check: will the prep and anesthetic from a colonoscopy impact my eTMS treatment? Thankfully, no. There shouldn’t be any problems getting a butt scan and a brain fix on the same day.

Side note: My PTSD goes back further than I realized

I mentioned this to the doctor just so there was a full context. I came to a realization that my PTSD goes way further back than my 2011/2012 deployment to Afghanistan. There were some events in my 2008/2009 Iraq deployment that contributed some, but those were minor. But, there was a larger base of trauma laid much earlier, that I discovered this past weekend at that family event. My ex-wife was there, and it was the first time I’d seen her since our separation hearing about 14 years ago. I found myself on high alert and completely tensed up the entire time I was around her. On the drive home, I came to realize that I had significant trauma from the 17 years we were together. I’m not going to rehash that trauma here, but I now see it laid a foundation that had me primed to experience stronger PTSD symptoms from combat/deployment trauma.

This has no effect on the eTMS itself, but having a deeper understanding of my trauma may help me process it better.

How eTMS Works

During our time together, the doctor gave me a good explanation of what is actually happening during the treatment. eTMS, or TMS-EEG, uses an EEG to guide the doses of transcranial magnetic stimulation, which are administered using an electromagnet shaped like a figure 8. This treatment has seen great levels of success in patients with conditions that have resisted other therapies. It’s great for PTSD in veterans, first responders, and others who’ve experienced trauma. It’s also used to treat ADHD, severe depression, TBI, and other brain conditions where other treatments have failed.

He also broke down the four wave patterns that an EEG detects:

• Beta – when you’re awake and alert
• Alpha – when you’re awake, but slowed down and resting, or “chilling”
• Delta – when you’re in light sleep
• Theta – when you’re in deep sleep

eTMS targets Alpha waves. In the conditions this treats, Alpha waves are slower than normal and out of sync with the rest of the brain. He compared it to a car with the timing off: you can drive it, but if you try to accelerate, it has problems getting any real performance. The TMS gradually brings the Alpha waves up to normal speed and gets everything in sync.

Patients see substantial changes in about 3 weeks. After that, treatments will lock in the pattern, so the brain doesn’t reset later.

Possible Side Effects

After the first couple of doses, I could get a fairly mild headache that can be treated with over-the-counter medications like Tylenol. If I do, the dosage can be adjusted.

I could feel very tired for a couple or start feeling “like a pinball”. This normally passes after a couple of days.

There is a very slight (around 1:100,000) of seizures during treatment, but that is quite rare. For comparison: the odds of someone having a seizure while playing video games is around 1:40,000.

Screened and approved!

After our talk, the doctor said everything looked good and we confirmed my start date.

My New Digs

PHBC is in New Lexington, Ohio, about an hour’s drive from my house. Making that drive five days a week for several weeks would’ve been very difficult, taking 3 hours out of my day, every day.

Thankfully, they were more than willing to put me up! I’m staying at a home for men who have completed the clinic’s drug rehabilitation program and are getting education and training to transition to a fully sober, productive life.

The digs, and the people here, are really nice.

Today I did some paperwork to “officially” check-in. I’m the first veteran to stay here just for eTMS treatment without being a part of the rehab program, but the manager Dave is hopeful to see a lot more! We got to talk about this place and what it does for the residents, which could (and probably will) be a whole other blog post.

Day One!

For my very first treatment, I spent a little over an hour and a half there. Future treatments will be much shorter (about half an hour) but for the first time, Ron had to set everything up for me. More on that later on.