Eliza McNamara likened an increasingly popular medical procedure used to help treat her depression to the sensation of leaning her head on the window of a bus while it's in motion.
“It feels so good, it's like, my favorite feeling ever,” McNamara said. “That's what this one feels like.”
McNamara used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to help manage her symptoms since late last year. She said she noticed a gradual improvement in her mood.
“I felt really relaxed, I think in huge part, because I was processing with a therapist,” McNamara said.
Some mental health professionals say while TMS was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration for adult use in 2008, it is now becoming more popular in Connecticut. That's as the state has seen a rise in the number of teens and adults experiencing depression and other mental health challenges.
Dr. Aaron Krasner, McNamara’s psychiatrist in Wilton, demonstrated how the machine works. Krasner treats patients using TMS, from his office.
Patients undergoing treatment wear a helmet with coils inside, which use magnetic pulses to induce small, localized electric currents that painlessly stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of severe depression.
The mechanics of it, according to the Mayo Clinic, are not completely understood, but health experts say TMS has been proven to show positive it’s been shown to improve outcomes for patients.
Krasner uses TMS along with psychotherapy and says he has seen how the treatment helps his patients.
“Somewhat miraculously, in my opinion, patients say, ‘I'm more open to an idea, I'm more open to talking about a problem,'” Krasner said. “I'm more open to thinking about an old problem in a new way.”
TMS is safe and brings about few side effects or complications, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Doctors are still figuring out how to best use TMS, said Dr. Andrew Gerber, president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in New Canaan.
“I would say that there's good evidence that it has some effectiveness, particularly for mild to moderate forms of depression or anxiety,” Gerber said. "It's not a cure-all; it's not a panacea that makes symptoms entirely disappear in most cases.”
The FDA cleared TMS to use as treatment on teens in 2024. Gerber says research on how TMS impacts teenagers is still in the early stages.
“The good news is there's virtually no downside, because it's such a safe treatment, but the evidence is still early in terms of its value in adolescence,” Gerber said.
Krasner said the treatment has gotten more popular, but some people may be apprehensive to try it for a variety of reasons — that includes a lack of insurance coverage for the procedure and some social stigma that may be attached to it.
The National Institutes of Health reports TMS is usually used on patients when medications used to treat depression were proven to be intolerable or ineffective.
TMS looks superficially similar to a well-known treatment known as electroconvulsive therapy, which used to be known as shock therapy. It is more invasive, and has become controversial by opponents who say the treatment is harmful, even as ECT is still widely considered an effective treatment for severe psychiatric disorders.
Gerber said TMS is not the same thing.
“It's safe and and has very few side effects,” Gerber said. “TMS, there is no seizure, the patient is fully awake, is not anesthetized, and so really [it's] an entirely different thing.”
Krasner said many of his adolescent patients are receiving the treatment.
While McNamara is now 30, she said it’s already made an impact, referring to a time her daughter spoke to her before bed.
“She said, ‘I like the mom that you're becoming,'” McNamara said.
