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PHOENIX (Serenity Mental Health Centers) – “My way of dealing with hard things was just to push through and just keep moving forward,” said Serenity Mental Health Centers patient Toni B. “I didn’t really give a whole lot of thought or consideration to my mental health or how I could improve it. I just kept pushing forward.”
Sounds familiar, right? Pushing through is the default setting for many of us. We live with mental health challenges, possibly not even realizing that we are struggling when we don’t have to.
Things took a turn for Toni when she experienced a devastating traumatic event in her life.
“It overwhelmed my nervous system,” she explained. “It was very debilitating. It felt like I was made of glass. Every time I would hear the phone ring, or the dogs barking, or any other kind of notification, it was very sharp. It would feel like I’m made of glass and I’m being hit in the chest with a hammer.”
Mentally shattered, Toni knew she had to do something.
A combination treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and ketamine at Serenity Mental Health Centers was the solution Toni needed.
“That treatment was really amazing for me,” she said. “Within the second treatment, that feeling of that shatteredness inside of me was completely gone; it never came back. The ketamine and TMS combined was surprising to me.”
Not only did the combination help with the trauma and subsequent problems, Toni said it also helped heal the depression and anxiety she “had carried” for much of her life.
“When we experience traumatic events, it can alter our brain chemistry,” explained Kasey James, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Serenity Mental Health Centers. The neural connections our brains make based on our thoughts, behaviors, and experiences are affected, as well.
When you suffer a trauma, your brain kicks into survival mode to help you get through it. Issues start to crop up when your brain stays in survival mode. Your brain isn’t making the neural connection needed to help you thrive.
“TMS is helpful because it resets the brain,” Kasey said.
“I equate it to exercising,” explained Dr. TeeJay Tripp, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at Serenity Mental Health Centers. “When you work out, you increase the blood flow to the muscles. They get stronger.”
TMS reestablishes and strengthens neural connections that might have fallen by the wayside because of the trauma. It kicks your brain out of survival mode and back into the land of the living.
“Your brain starts functioning that way it should function,” Dr. Tripp said.
TMS is the long-term treatment. Kasey said it can be helpful to pair it with ketamine, an anesthetic used for surgery and pain management. According to Serenity Mental Health Clinics, ketamine has proved to be a viable option for patients who haven’t found success with traditional treatment for mental health disorders.
“Ketamine is [almost] instant,” Kasey said. “We use is in instances where somebody needs relief right now. We like to pair it in the beginning with TMS so people can get pulled out of the dark place that they’re at so they have what it takes to show up every day [for ongoing treatment].”
Kasey says she can see the positive changes of TMS treatment on her patients’ faces.
“Life is just easier,” she said. “They feel unburdened.”
“If I would have known about this treatment or that feeling this way was possible, I would have done this decades ago,” Toni said. “I wouldn’t have waited for a traumatic event to happen.”
Start your journey to peace by calling 602-661-6482 or visiting SerenityMentalHealthCenters.com.