I started TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) this year at my psychiatrist's recommendation. It was 37 visits over about 2 months, five times a week when we could manage it.

I'd like to walkthrough my experience, but there's a lot to discuss. I'm noting it here in an outline, linked to the various parts that might need explaining.

TL;DR:

After 2 months of 4 or 5 sessions a week of getting magnetic pulses shot into my brain, I've found I can feel a wider range of emotions to a greater volume than before. Along with regular therapy, TMS has made me happier, while giving me much to think about for the next party of my journey. I have no idea how long it will last, but I am trying to enjoy it while I have it.

The outline

If the links don't work, just scroll down to see the text.

First, I'll talk about the Steps that got me into TMS.

Second, the Environment for the sessions is important, so I'll describe that in detail along with what happens in a session.

Third, the Processing after each session - and now after completing them all - is a mix of physical and mental updates. The changes are hard to quantify with my limited perception and knowledge, but I'll attempt to explain.

Finally, I will give my Recommendation about the entire process. I am not a medical professional and this is entirely my subjective experience. Take that as you will.

If you got all the way through this with me, thank you for listening. I hope it gives you what you need to decide if you want to try it or at least an understanding of what it might do for someone you know with treatment resistant depression.

I'm very glad I went. Details follow.

Thanks for listening.

Steps

After suggesting TMS as a possibility, we started checking off prerequisites. I had to 1) have treatment resistant depression, 2) have tried 2 or more antidepressants that didn't help, and 3) insurance had to cover it.

As you'd expect #3 is where the problems cropped up. I had to get referrals to and then call three clinics to find one that took my insurance. After the second one, my psych started calling places to find one for me.

My psych is the absolute best, did I mention?

Once I got the referral, I got scheduled for a consult a couple days later.

The consult was many questions about my mental health, designed to help me understand what is happening and to grease the wheels for insurance. After this appointment, my first session happened the next week.

Environment

The TMS room was fairly large, never feeling cramped or claustrophobic, even though there was a sensor attached to my forehead on the right and a machine pressed against my head. The tech, Olivia, took great care of me, making certain I was comfortable every session. She would get me talking about good things happening in my life or the world and was very engaged the entire session.

The device that delivered the magnetic pulses looked much like a VR headset, but without a place for your face - solid on both sides.

They calibrated the forehead sensor with the camera that was watching me, to keep track of where my head was. This kept the pulses aimed at a specific area of the brain, alerting when head moved too much. I am an expressive speaker when I'm passionate, so we had to stop every so often and move the device back into it's preferred spot.

I never got above 58% intensity for me than a few pulses, as it actually hurt. They assured me the intensity level didn't matter much, as I would get results either way. I'm still curious what purpose the intensity serves with this knowledge. I suppose I'll need to accept that I may never know. :)

This cleanly moves us to the really fun part: Processing.

Processing

Processing - to me - is everything that happens around my various therapeutic seasons. I'm super aware of changes to my mental health and after a TMS appointment was no different. I often would be exhausted and needed to sleep for an hour or more at first as soon as I got home.

Eventually, it was down to less than 30 minutes, but I was still very tired after a session for several hours.

The range of emotions I was feeling for nearly 9 years was apathy & exhaustion, with brief moments of excitement. These moments were often self-destructive, such as drinking, in unsafe environments like bars.

After several years of therapy, I've stopped those behaviors when faced with apathy, mostly because I ran out of money to do them.

I now take naps, play games, or take walks (except in the summer) to help regulate my emotions when they get off balance.

After TMS, I've started having to regulate more emotions than apathy. Anger came back, along with my libido, although both of those are on a tight leash at the moment. I do allow them to inform my decisions, as anger & fear are signals from the body that something isn't right. Good info, but not enough to act on by itself any more without clear and present danger.

Surprising everyone including me, I actually felt happy for the first time last week. Nothing was going on. I didn't go anywhere. I was just happy existing and grateful I've gotten this far.

I feel deeper empathy for others as Trump dismantles the US government to hand off to foreign and domestic Oligarchs. People are dying, losing money and benefits, while rich people are making an unreasonable amount of money in the process.

As a public servant who took an oath once related to defending the Constitution, I am not OK right now overall. I do feel more capable of handling the stress than before, but there is so much stress that it doesn't didn't seem to move the needle much at first.

Recommendation

I spent two amazing months with the wonderful people at Sahara Behavioral Health in Scottsdale, getting to spend an hour a day in their office for my TMS appointments. I went 4-5 times per week, depending on the schedule and rides, as I was without a car for a bit. I checked in with Danielle & Emily, had some of the provided refreshments - there's a secret coffee machine! - and waited for Olivia to take me back to the TMS room for the treatments.

I felt welcome and expected to relax with them while I was there. Everyone is upbeat but not fake. Real people helping other people. I will always remember the time I spent there, as they have advanced my healing journey forward a significant amount. It is subtle, but it is...better now. And TMS was a critical tool in that jump.

The treatment can give you a small amount of pain, so they recommended I take headache meds a bit before the session. YMMV. They can lower the intensity, as needed, to reduce the pain so you only feel the tap-tap-tap of the pulses in your head. I was referred to TMS by my psychiatrist because I have treatment resistant depression and it is the only thing that has really helped in a significant way.

I called many places before ending up here as they were the only one to take my Medicaid as a primary insurance, at least for now ( 2025, amirite?). If you are going to get TMS somewhere, I recommend you go to Sahara.

I feel it is the best TMS experience available in Phoenix. They also do other therapies, such as ketamine, so check them out for your mental health needs.