In the nearly 40 years since its introduction in 1985, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is quickly becoming a frontline treatment for a wide range of mental health issues, as well as an alternative for managing chronic pain.
To give you an idea about why so many people use TMS, the team here at Vital TMS Therapy offers a look at just a few of the many benefits of TMS and when it’s used.
When medications don’t work
Treating mental health issues through medications can be tricky, as everyone’s brain chemistry is different, which means there’s no magic solution in the form of a pill. For example, of the more than 14 million people in the United States who suffer from depression at any given time, 10-30% don’t respond to medications, such as antidepressants.
While there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution with most mental health issues, TMS comes fairly close. With TMS, we deliver magnetic impulses into your brain that stimulate nerve cells and encourage the release of mood-regulating neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
To give you an idea about the effectiveness of TMS when it comes to treatment-resistant mental health conditions, one recent study found that, “The antidepressant effect of rTMS was studied in follow-up and it was found that patients with unipolar depression, less severe depressive episodes, treatment-resistant depression, non-psychotic depression and those who were on concomitant antidepressant therapy had a better antidepressant effect with rTMS.”
When you want to reduce the risks and side effects of medications
Another reason patients come to see us for TMS therapy is that they’re not keen on the idea of medications to begin with. As an example, if you’re among the one in five people in the US who struggle with chronic pain, the idea of risky and potentially addictive painkillers may give you pause.
With TMS, we avoid those risks and only target the neural pathways that are responsible for your pain messaging.
This same problem holds true for those who have anxiety — the medications often used to treat anxiety (benzodiazepines) come with a good deal of risk in terms of addiction. With TMS, our goal is to alter the chemistry in your brain naturally, without relying on medications that only mask the symptoms.
As well, medications tend to have a more systemic effect and often lead to undesirable side effects, such as weight gain and fatigue, whereas with TMS therapy, we’re only targeting your brain with relatively harmless magnetic pulses.
When you want a more sustainable approach
Many of the treatments for issues like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder are stop-gap measures that address symptoms. With our TMS therapy, our goal is to provide sustainable results by reconfiguring the neural pathways in your brain.
When you need a fast stabilization approach
While psychotherapy can be highly effective with many mental health issues, the process can be lengthy. We believe that combining your psychotherapy with a fast-acting treatment like TMS is beneficial. When we deliver the magnetic impulses into your brain, they work immediately, which allows us to stabilize your condition quickly, so you can do the therapeutic work in relative peace.
If you’d like to learn more about the many benefits of TMS therapy and why people use it, please contact the team at Vital TMS Therapy to set up a consultation.
