Electroconvulsive therapy and Epilepsy

[Dochead]

Hello there. I'm new to this place and it has already been very re-assuring and helpful. This is more of a vain introduction but just wanted to say hello and introduce myself with this question. Sorry to sound like I'm boasting here but this is my wee history. I had a severe nervous breakdown that lead to being sectioned around 4 years ago. I later fell into a catatonic state and needed ECT to get me back in working order.

I never had epilepsy before this life event and of course it led me to be a little curious as ECT does exactly what it says on the tin. Having 12 sessions of it I just wondered if this indeed may have contributed to my later diagnosis of Epilepsy. This has been denied by several neurologists except one but I was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience.

Sorry to bore you all. I hope everyone is getting on ok with their lives just now. I am very fortunate to have a little control of my tonic clonic seizures. Very lucky to have returned to a normal life and grateful that the ECT worked. It saved my life so I am not ungrateful but I just wondered if there were similar incidents here.

Thank you for your time

David

[EpilepsyAction1 Partner Epilepsy Action]

Hi Dochead,

Firstly welcome to Epilepsy Actions HealthUnlocked page. I hope you continue to find it helpful.

I have researched if ECT can cause epilepsy, but I was unable to find a definite answer. Here are some papers for example:

seizure-journal.com/article...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/232...

If you haven’t already, may I suggest you contact a mental health organisation such as MIND? They should know more about ECT and side-effects it can cause.

mind.org.uk

Regards

Diane Wallace

Advice and Information Team

[Dochead in reply to EpilepsyAction1]

Thank you very much for the advice and thanks for looking up the papers. Like I said, it has not made my life unbearable and was instrumental in making me well again, it was just more out of curiosity than anything else.

Thanks again!

David