New treatment for OCD - Brain pulses

[GeoffR]

My doctor has recommended to me a new form of treatment for my OCD. It's called transcranial stimulation (TMS). Has anyone had experience with this, whether good or bad?

thanks

Geoff

[Ashley]

Hello,

It's not bad, but its expensive with no evidence it helps.  NICE actually looked at this last year and were quite clear to say that at this time there is insufficient evidence to justify the use of TMS in the treatment of OCD.  This was the quote.

Quote

Evidence on the safety of transcranial magnetic stimulation for obsessive-compulsive disorder raises no major safety concerns. However, evidence on its efficacy is inadequate in quantity and quality.

https://www.ocduk.org/tms-for-ocd/

[Agrippina]

I actually had TMS treatment a few years ago but at the time I had an incorrect diagnosis so the treatment was just done for depression and not OCD. It didn't work for me which I put down to it being for the wrong diagnosis so I have no idea if it would be any good for OCD.

The treatment itself was expensive, really time consuming and there was v. mild pain (during the treatments). The time consuming part was incredibly hard for me at the time as they saw me 5 days a week for 3 or 4 weeks - the actual appointments were short, but being severely depressed and riddled with OCD fears at the time I found it very tiring and difficult to make it to all of those appointments.

When I saw recently that TMS now included OCD among the things it treated my first thought was to wonder how it fit in with CBT? I could see it being positive if used in conjunction with CBT but my personal concern would be that people would just do the TMS, maybe feel a bit better but not learn the CBT coping techniques for when anxiety/OCD/depression hit again in the future.

[snowbear]

7 hours ago, Agrippina said:

When I saw recently that TMS now included OCD among the things it treated my first thought was to wonder how it fit in with CBT? I could see it being positive if used in conjunction with CBT but my personal concern would be that people would just do the TMS, maybe feel a bit better but not learn the CBT coping techniques for when anxiety/OCD/depression hit again in the future.

I agree. TMS temporarily disrupts the 'wiring' of the brain, opening a window of opportunity to 'rewire' it. Done in conjunction with CBT (which does the actual rewiring) it may well be beneficial. But done alone, particularly if the person continues to behave as they have before with compulsions, and the brain will simply wire itself back to how it was before.