Understanding TMS Therapy for Depression and OCD
As medical innovation advances, we unlock new ways to treat both physical and mental health conditions. Take transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as an example. This leading-edge treatment gives people with mental health conditions, migraines, and more a way to get medication-free relief from their symptoms.
In fact, if you’re living with major depressive disorder (depression) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that hasn’t responded to other treatments, you might benefit from TMS.
Understanding transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
TMS uses magnetic fields to influence targeted parts of your brain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared TMS for treatment in all of these conditions:
Depression
Anxiety symptoms with depression
OCD
Migraines
Smoking cessation
TMS is a medication-free, totally noninvasive treatment option.
The way TMS works in your brain depends on what condition you’re addressing.
How TMS works for OCD
If medication and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) haven’t notably improved your OCD symptoms, TMS can help.
Your treatment provider tailors the TMS to impact the way your brain works. It allows them to stimulate certain parts of your brain — specifically the ones that contribute to your obsessive-compulsive disorder. Over a decade of research has allowed TMS providers to determine which parts of the brain respond best to this magnetic stimulation, helping to minimize OCD symptoms.
Generally, people see the best results when they pair TMS with other OCD treatments like exposure and response prevention (ERP) and/or medication.
Using TMS for depression
TMS has been extensively researched for depression. Today, it has replaced electroconvulsive therapy (i.e., shock therapy) as the gold standard for people who have depression and haven’t responded to other treatments.
TMS doesn’t help everyone with treatment-resistant depression, but about 60% of people see an improvement. One-third of them experience full remission, meaning no depressive symptoms persist. At Delve psychiatry, 80% of our patients see improvement with 40% experiencing full remission.
Your provider should tailor your TMS treatment to you. They may use a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to map your brain networks, for example, allowing them to pinpoint where the magnetic fields should be directed.
By stimulating the parts of your brain that aren’t performing ideally, TMS helps to fight the symptoms of depression.
What to expect with TMS treatment
If your psychiatrist recommends TMS for you, you wear an electromagnetic coil aroundcoil is placed on your head. As it’s activated, sending magnetic fields are into activated that are designed to stimulate your brain, you feel a tapping sensation on your head and hear a clicking sound.
Most people report that the treatment isn’t painful, although you might have some mild transient soreness for the first couple of weeks after you start treatment. It should dissipate with time.
Your provider tailors your treatment plan to you, but most people get TMS treatment five days a week for four to six weeks. Sessions usually take about a half hour, and you can continue on with your day immediately afterward. As a result, you could get TMS on your lunch break or on your way home from work. It’s perfectly safe to drive immediately afterward.
If you’re curious to learn more about transcranial magnetic stimulation and whether it could be right for you, schedule an appointment with us. Board-certified psychiatrist John Reitano, MD, and our team can come alongside you to see if you would benefit from this treatment and, if so, to tailor a plan to you and your mental health needs.
