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Implant Nerve Stimulator For Depression

A small electric generator, about the size of a stopwatch, can be surgically attached to rib cage during an operation. The generator is called a Vagus Nerve Stimulator or VNS because wires from the generator travel under the skin up to the neck and wrap around the Vagus nerve, which sends signals to the brain to help regulate moods.

The VNS is programmed by a computer to stimulate the Vagus nerve for 30 seconds every five minutes. The only side effect: a slight change in the patient?s voice because the stimulator is near the vocal chord. The VNS has been used to treat people with epilepsy since 1997.

When scientists noticed it also put patients in a better mood, they decided to try it on severely depressed people. Now the Food and Drug Administration has approved another test of the nerve stimulator at 15 medical centers nationwide.

It could be at least a year before the treatment is widely available, but it does offer hope for the one million people who suffer from untreatable depression.



Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola's Comments:

My guess is that this will receive FDA approval and be available next year for the treatment of depression. It certainly appears to be a novel, if not aggressive, way to treat depression. The therapy may have value in certain recalcitrant depressions. However, it really seems to be a more elegant and less dangerous symptomatic treatment of depression, and my guess is that it would be quite costly. The foundation of treating depression is to stop eating sugar. Many of the advanced energetic techniques such as those discussed in Applied Psychoneurobiology in my articles section





Comment on This Article Community Comments (1)
 
 
Posted On Dec 18, 2008

The Vagus nerve stimulator used to treat epilepsy uses a battery pack installed in the body.  Epilepsy by its very nature, is a disfunction of the body's electrical system. How beneficial can it be to carry a battery pack around inside your body? My daughter who has epilepsy, cannot even wear a watch. The battery in it so disrupts her internal electrical system that she has seizures when she wears one. A watch battery is tiny.

In addition, the process of recharging this battery pack involves a transformer. Transformers produce radio frequency waves that break down your body at the molecular level.

Her neurologist proposes she get one everytime she has to see him, and doesn't/ can't/ won't see the connection between the watch and the battery pack.

Another example of mainstream medicine making people sicker so that they can "cure" them.


 
JMD
Novice User Novice User, Joined On 12/2008
JMD  
 
 
 
 
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