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| HEALTH
Writer: ROXANE B. SALONEN | Photographer: 5foot20design lounge
Treatment for Hard-Core Depression TMS brings relief to longtime depression sufferers
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ome depression sufferers live with the illness for years, moving through life as if through a wall of molasses and with zero relief from medication. But technology is catching up with depression, a condition affecting approximately 15 million Americans. And Fargo boasts North Dakota’s only facility equipped to administer an innovative new treatment that might be the first real relief for sufferers of hard-core depression. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is virtually side-effect-free because the treatment is administered by an electromagnetic pulse that targets the specific, quarter-sized area of the brain responsible for the depressive effects. “Medications hit receptors in your gut, heart, and every other system you can think of,” explained Dr. Rachel Fleissner. “TMS treats only that very small area, so there are no systemic effects.”
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| areawoman.com
Though approved by the Federal Drug Administration, the state-of-the-art treatment is still in its early stages of use. Nevertheless, reports on effectiveness have been of a rather dramatic nature. “One patient was on the phone with her sister, who said, ‘What have you done? You’re like my sister from five years ago.’ She could even tell the difference in her voice,” Fleissner said. “Others have said, ‘I’d forgotten I could live like this. I can see the colors in the flowers for the first time in years.’” Inside her TMS suite at Attentive Mind on South University, Fleissner sees patients with treatment-resistant depression – those who’ve tried at least one anti-depressant with either no result or intolerance due to side effects. The treatment area is located by using pulsating magnets, a mathematical algorithm, and lasers. The dose