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For 35 Years I Was Losing The Battle To Depression. Then Came Vns

Author: RickLondon
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Looking back, it is difficult to believe that it has been nearly thirty five years since I first walked into a psychologist's office to see if there might be something wrong with me. I felt very different and out of sorts. I was in my twenties. It was at the counseling center at my local university in southern Ms.

After about six or so meetings, I realized nothing was getting better, and decided nothing was wrong except that I was suffering the same pressures and anxiety that everyone else did in life. But it was not to be. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Then I decided that if I could land a decent job with a great salary, all my maladies would suddenly disappear I landed a job as chief writer and editor at a major network in Washington, D.C. At age thirty six. By age thirty seven, I had read enough about depression to know I had it. I immediately took action and visited a local psychologist who brought a psychiatrist aboard to try a combination of talk and medicine therapy. Year after year I religiously attended my therapy meeting and took my myriad of pills, combinations of pills, changing pills, increasing dosages of pills, etc. Nothing worked yet the medical community continued to applaud me for doing so much better. I begged to them that nothing had changed (I knew how I felt inside my body a lot more than they did), but they insisted the changes were so subtle, I would surely notice if I stopped taking my medicines and discontinued therapy. I did just that. No difference whatsoever. By then, I could barely work much less get out of bed. I made myself do it. I still don't know how, but felt I needed to.

By 1994, still very "depressed", I figured I better live my dream and live it fast. I would have to write a blockbuster screenplay so moved to Los Angeles and started taking classes. I wrote several full-length motion pictures. I was sinking yet deeper into depression. I was certain that if just one of the films would make it, I would be happy forever. What a fools game and I was playing it like the fool I had become. I was now on a relatively new class of drugs called SSRI's or Prozac. They told me if this didn't help, probably nothing would. It did not help.

Later that year, the Norhtridge Earthquake occured and wiped me out. On top of that, a week later my mother called to tell me she had cancer. She was living in my home town of Hattiesburg, MS. I went home to care for her.

One afternoon in 1997, I was reading New Yorker Magazine and I read an article on something called the Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS). It is a tiny computer chip device about the size of a silver dollar, implanted directly under the skin and wiring running up to the mood centers of the brain, emitting a magnetic impulse that allegedly had amazing effects on depression. Again, I was a bit skeptical but this time there was a big difference. Even though it was not yet on the market for depression, (had been for awhile for epilepsy), in clinical trials, it appeared people who had tried every other modicum of therapy were seeing dramatic improvement with this device. It was made by a small medical device firm in Houston called Cyberonics.

I started getting more and more curious and spent a great many hours on the Internet following the studies. It came close to FDA approval several times, but the powerful AMA and pharmaceutical lobbyists continued to "find fault" in the studies and kept it off.

The battle raged on between Cyberonics and some very powerful medical and pharmaceutical lobbyists that kept finding fault in the studies. It would be delayed another several years. I simply had to wait and hang on by the skin of my teeth.

Since I continued to "be punished" in my hometown (was very disenfranchised by then), I started to research. My search was focused on towns with low cost of living, high quality of life, and an advanced medical community. I was not finding any of that at home. Surprisingly Hot Springs, Ar became a top choice. The major medical community was in Little Rock, less than an hour away and UALR Medical Campus was considered one of the most advanced in the country (to my surprise). It's name was and is up there with many more familiar names like Sloan-Kettering, M.D. Anderson, and Johns Hopkins.

In September of 2005, I finally heard that VNS therapy had been approved by the FDA for treatment of TRD. To my knowledge, it was the only medical modicum that had been approved for such.

Now the problem was how to "get my name on the list". So I called Cyberonics and they turned me over to a nurse/caseworker, who got right on the case. She found the (very few) surgeons who performed this one hour procedure, and she had to talk my insurance into covering it based on my medical history of years of no results.

On January 25, 2006, almost nine years after I first started following the news of the VNS implant, I received the procedure in Little Rock, Ar. at St. Vincent's Hospital.

I remember waking up and feeling very light. Something had happened, but I was not sure what. I knew almost immediately that I'd gotten the procedure. I asked a nurse if "it was in" and she assured me it was.

For the first time since I was about twelve years old, I felt no depression? I still had some anxiety but it was based on thinking "my mood is about to swing any minute and there is not a damned thing I can do about it". Minutes passed by and then hours. No mood swing. I felt like a child playing in the sandbox in kindergarten My worries and stresses were minimal.

Every month, I continued to go to Little Rock for a computerized non-invasive "tune up"; the doctor merely turns up the frequency another notch. It is at a point now where it is every three months and by the end of the year, the depression will be in total remission.

How is my progress? Amazing. I can remember like yesterday that I could not get out of bed, it was a huge chore to clean my home, studying was a brutal task as was work, and all that changed. I love what I do, I do it well, and do it joyfully. Today I am a cartoonist and etailer and full time student, have a wonderful girlfriend, and all kinds of doors opening that were closed, due to my having a undiagnosed disease, and at that, one that was not only socially-unnacceptable but one that a lot of people do not believe exists.

My faith is back and if others have problems with my disease and recovery, I believe it reflects more on them than on me.

VNS, for me, is the closest thing to a miracle I've ever experienced. It is not a cure-all, yes I still occasionally get the blues. I guess medicine offers no panaceas. But this is the closest thing to one I've ever experienced.

Many friends encouraged me to stay hush-hush about this story, that it might come back to slap me in the face.

My reply is "So what? Let them use it. If one person reads this with TRD and learns about it, and is fortunate enough to receive the implant, people can use it against me all they want. Doesn't matter in the least. Let one person get well from this most dreadful disease and it's all worth telling the story. Really. Well, back to work. Have a great day!

About the Author

Rick London was told for 35 years he had garden-variety depression but the doctors were mistaken. Waiting for Vagus Nerve Stimulator to be approved London focused on his top cartoon site comic art gifts, and funny t-shirts