Like I mentioned in my last post, I started TMS recently. TMS sends magnetic pulses through your head and can cure you of – according to the internet – almost everything. It’s often covered by insurance (you know, after every other treatment has failed), although neither the insurance company nor the TMS clinic can tell me how much it will cost me out-of-pocket because apparently neither of them know.

So far, the FDA has approved TMS for depression, migraines, OCD, and smoking cessation. Apparently, across the pond, Europe is already using it for a host of other conditions, including chronic pain, MS, and Parkinson’s (Please note, this link is to the website of the machine my clinic uses. I was hoping for a less biased source of info, but that was all I could find).

TMS requires a commitment – I have to drive to the clinic every weekday for a 30 minute appointment. It will last for about nine weeks, gradually tapering down from the five sessions/week after the first five weeks.

TMS helps with depression 30-64% of the time. The results are even better when people come back for a “touch-up” down the road. The side effects are headaches, scalp discomfort/pain, dizziness, and tingling, spasms or twitching of facial muscles. When I did my initial intake, they only mentioned the headaches and dizziness, and it sounded like it wouldn’t be a big deal. It didn’t occur to me to investigate further.

All the people who work at the clinic are guys, and the guy who does my TMS is a bro. He must have played basketball in college, and perhaps his five year reunion is coming up this year. At our first appointment he failed to mention that TMS is actually painful for some people, and that it causes you to involuntarily clench your jaw. Apparently, this doesn’t bother everyone, which is why he didn’t mention it.

This matters, because being gaslighted/lies of omission are at the top of my shit list. I also store a lot of stress in my jaw. I’ll realize at the end of the day that my whole lower face aches from clenching my teeth all day without even realizing it. So my teeth clacking together while the machine pulsed my brain every 20 seconds was uncomfortable AND unnerving. I literally had to ask in between being pulsed if there was a reason my face was twitching.

The bro tech was also increasing the intensity of the pulses to get to the therapeutic goal rate without telling me he was increasing it. That meant it was getting more painful without explanation. When I asked about it, there was some mansplaining, which did not help our developing relationship.

I had a headache for five days straight when I started TMS therapy, even though I was pre-gaming with acetaminophen and then taking it every six hours after that. I was irritable at home and would freak out about just about anything. I think my kids wanted to send me back. *I* wanted to send me back.

I confronted the bro tech about his methods, started using a mouth guard, and began bringing a smooth rock for fidgeting with to help me cope with the stimulation. My communication with the bro tech improved. At home, life was an unabated misery of headache pain and sometimes dizziness.

Freaking out over the unexpected issues, I started to google my symptoms. Without fail, instead of getting a hit that said “TMS causes…” I would get a hit for “TMS treats….” For example, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which I had because I went to a lot of concerts back before there was hearing loss, has gotten much worse. Googling it resulted in a research study saying TMS could cure ringing in the ears. And as I mentioned above, it  cures headaches (while also causing them!).

The only reason I hung on through that first week was because I was reassured that the first week is the worst. I was determined to do TMS for long enough to see if it worked. Supposedly negative side effects like the headaches start to decrease as you get used to the treatment.

The average person gets relief after 20 sessions, so it may be a while before I know if this is going to help. I’m pretty stubborn and have a high pain tolerance, so I know I can do it, but I’m clenching my teeth just writing about it.

As I’ve moved into the second week of treatment, the headaches have lessened, but they haven’t gone away. Pain meds still don’t help much. They take the headaches down a peg, but it doesn’t disappear completely, and comes back before it’s time to take meds again.

As an extra bonus, during TMS one wears a baby bonnet-style skull cap that gets strapped on with velcro underneath the TMS machine’s plastic helmet. I haven’t had the courage to take a photo of myself in this ensemble. I’m pretty sure it’s unsexy on a birth control level. I had to ask the bro tech not to remove the cap after the sessions, but to let me do it. After the first time with him suddenly ripping multiple velcro strips next to my ears I almost had a meltdown. For people with hair, it seems like this cap would spell an automatic Bad Hair Day, but because I shaved my head a couple of months ago, it usually just fixes my bed head.

As a sensitive soul, I suspect that it’ll take longer than average for my brain to learn how to turn down the stimulation of these sessions. I really hope that research paper was right and the tinnitus calms down. Honestly, I hope every research paper was right and it fixes all my problems. Perhaps eventually my bro tech and I can work out our problems, too. After all, we still have eight more weeks to figure it out.