A wonderful success story about the effectiveness of vagus nerve stimulation therapy to treat major depression.

This one is from Billings, Montana-February 22, 2008

Bal Slevira suffered from what is known as treatment-resistant depression, or clinical depression that does not improve with standard therapies. An implanted device that stimulates Slevira's nervous system - and vibrates her vocal cords, making her voice sound raspy - finally lifted her out of severe depression that had dogged her for nine years. "I'm still not 100 percent," she said. "But I can do what needs to be done now." 

No fewer than 23 medications had failed to relieve Slevira's severe depressive symptoms.

"I always describe it as a black cloud over my head," she said. Weeks sometimes passed without Slevira, 34, getting out of bed. Her husband became the primary caregiver for the couple's three children as well as the financial provider for the family. "I'd go to (the kids') school for something, and they'd have no clue who I was," Slevira said.

At times, medications helped her feel better for periods of months or even years, but the positive effects always eventually slipped away. By the time she ended up in Dr. Belinda Hartley's office, Slevira was desperate to feel better. "Val was so depressed she wasn't able to function at home or at work," said Hartley, a psychiatrist at Behavioral Health Associates. "I didn't see her smile for months and months."

That changed with vagus nerve stimulation, a treatment that has been used for a decade to prevent epileptic seizures but is relatively new to mental health. "In a lot of ways, we don't really know why it works or how it works," Hartley said.

Last April, a device the size and shape of a drink coaster was implanted beneath the skin on Slevira's chest. A tiny wire stretches from the device, called a pulse generator, into her neck, where it is wrapped around her vagus nerve. Slevira's pulse generator discharges an electrical impulse for 30 seconds every five minutes.

"What you do is send a shock back up the nervous system to the brain," said Dr. Stuart Goodman, the surgeon who implanted Slevira's device at St. Vincent Healthcare. "It's a backwards shock. It goes the wrong way." That reverse stimulation seems to reset the brain's electrical system and somehow alleviate symptoms of depression.

It took a couple of months for Slevira to feel better. Her husband and children noticed the change first, she said. While her depression is not entirely gone, she has improved enough to enroll in courses at Montana State University Billings.

The therapy is considered an experimental treatment for depression, so many insurance companies will not cover it.

Slevira hopes her success with the device will help persuade the industry to accept the therapy as a standard treatment for depression. "It works," Slevira said. "Why don't you help all those other people in the same boat?"

"Look at all those years wasted," she said. "It's been nine years."

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Comments

[Jesse Gayfer]

I'm in Australia,

I have found evidence of a couple of Double Blind Trials into VNS here but none seem to have shown enough proof for it to be accepted as an feasible option for 'treatment resistant Depression' which I suffer from. What do you know about its use in other countries. One study I looked at here had VNS priced at $14000(Aus) what does it cost in America?

Still searching for answers.