Lexi, a 22-year-old female, was referred to TMS Center of Colorado for treatment of severe depression and anxiety by another doctor. At the time she got her doctor’s referral, she was unable to attend college, had strong suicidal thoughts and was hospitalized three times in 12 months for depression.
Lexi had suffered from depression and anxiety since age 16 and had a strong family history of mental illness on both sides of her family. To help deal with this, she had tried eleven different prescription medications, including Prozac, Cymbalta and Abilify. She also took vitamin D, multivitamins, fish oil and exercised regularly to try and make things better.
The prescription drugs made little difference, and they often made Lexi irritable and unable to get a good night’s sleep. She had also been through many years of once-a-week counseling with several different therapists. The sessions were helpful in a general way, but they didn’t really help at all with her depression and anxiety.
At her initial TMS evaluation, Lexi’s depression test score was 31, which is in the “severe depression” category on the Beck Depression Inventory®-II index, one of the most widely used tests for measuring depression. Her anxiety test using the Beck Anxiety Inventory® was 39, a score that means severe anxiety. Based on her test results and evaluation, TMS Center of Colorado treated Lexi with a series of Brainsway® deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) sessions over a period of eight weeks.
Lexi received a total of 35 dTMS sessions, and she started to see promising results. In just the first week, her depression and anxiety were getting better, and her symptoms continued to improve throughout treatment. Lexi’s depression score at the end of eight weeks of treatment had dropped from 31 to 4, indicating a full remission of depression and normal mood. Her anxiety index at the end of eight weeks was 2, down from 39, which is a sign of full remission of anxiety.
Lexi’s mom said Brainsway dTMS was the family’s “last hope” because of Lexi’s own comments that she was prepared to spend two weeks saying her final goodbyes before taking her life.
After the dTMS sessions, Lexi’s mom said her daughter was doing “amazing” and described her progress as a “complete 180.” Lexi said that Brainsway dTMS, “started as a last resort, and quickly became the best decision I have ever made in my life.” As her treatments came to an end, Lexi had a new outlook on life and was planning to go back to school.