Vagus nerve stimulation may relieve treatment-resistant depression, study finds
CTV
A yearlong trial of 493 adults, with an average age of 53, found vagus nerve stimulation therapy led to improvement in participants' depressive symptoms, ability to complete daily tasks and quality of life.
Nick Fournie was 24 years old when severe depression upended his life.
Fournie had been married to his longtime sweetheart for two years, and had no reason to suspect he had any mental health issues.
“I just thought to myself, ‘If this is it, if this is all there is to life — if it ended now, I’d be OK with it,’” Nick, now 62 and based in Illinois, said of that fateful day outdoors nearly 40 years ago.
But one day as he was mowing the lawn, his perspective on life abruptly flipped from light to dark. The shift would set him and his wife, Mary, on a tumultuous, yearslong journey of fighting for his well-being and another chance at a happy life together — until they learned of an alternative, obscure treatment that would change everything.
Over the next decade, Nick worked with a psychiatrist to find a medication that would alleviate his depression. Not only did the 10 or so drugs he tried fail to improve his condition — they also caused “terrible reactions,” Mary said, especially when he was prescribed more than one drug at once.
Nick has always been sensitive to medications, but he likened the side effects he experienced to “psychotic episodes.” Although he believed the psychiatrist was doing his best, “some of (the drugs) really sent me way out of my mind,” he said.
On some days he wasn’t functioning, and even experienced paranoia that kept him from leaving the house, Mary said.
