it is a condition that may affect you or
a loved one one out of every six adults
will have depression at some time in
their life
according to the CDC depression affects
about 16 million American adults every
year anyone can get depressed and
depression can happen at any age so we
want to talk to John Christianson who is
battled depression and bipolar disorder
for six years HP are treatment centers
recently helped him overcome the mental
illness using TMS therapy and
fda-approved treatment for major
depressive disorder that uses targeted
magnetic fields to stimulate areas of
the brain that control mood this is just
fascinating so joining us now is dr.
Marcus Teague Carvalho am I saying that
right medical director of the HPR
treatment center dr. want to start with
you real quickly describe to me what
this is it was FDA approved in 2008 in
2008 absolutely essentially what we're
doing here is we're creating magnetic
fields in an area of the brain called
the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex we
know that depression lies there when we
take pain medications we are actually
trying to increase those chemicals in
that area but with TMS we can actually
map your brain find the area through MRI
technology create a magnetic field in
that area and increase these chemicals
as well on the first treatment that you
go to you don't have to wait four to six
weeks you don't have to worry about any
of the side effects that affect your
body because we are essentially going
right to the area of the brain John now
you have said you've essentially been in
remission or cured however you want to
put it for about six months now yes a
reality totally reality previously I was
on eight different medications
and my my business is more than a
praying and it was very stressful the
amount of hours I was putting in and so
I was also doing alcohol everything you
know to try to fix things for myself to
cope when to cope and finally I was like
hey I need to see a doctor and I went
and had treatment and it was um it just
has done great for me it's done
wonderful for me I noticed that after
the first one treatment is started to
work well and and now I'm able to be off
of all medications except for one and I
think I'm on that one just to hold on to
something you were telling me that
depression was kind of taboo to talk
about yeah yeah growing up as always
don't talk about it my family said no
it's not
and so it was just always something you
need to cope with yourself you know and
then you try to medicate yourself with
alcohol or whatever else you know any
addictions and so that's really what I
did and then finally I just gotta hit
rock bottom when it was like hey I need
to deal with this and take care of it
and the family noticed doctor would you
consider this a cure or necessary
absolutely I mean we're finding patients
going into remission and essentially
becoming cured what this does is it gets
the brain to ramp up and create these
chemicals that you can already produce
it just sometimes the brain needs that
boost when we take actual oral
medications we're getting you to do this
on a day-to-day but with TMS it actually
can last a lifetime is this something
that works for all patients I'm assuming
each patient deals with us differently
right each patient deals with it
differently as far as how they cope but
the brain is essentially the same we
know we're mood lies in the brain and so
we target that area to increase these
chemicals Don how did you learn about it
as you're going through su mning
treatments and medication there's
actually a video playing in the waiting
room where we're asking game going for
my medications and so I just kept
watching it and watching it then I asked
him is my candidate for this and he said
let's go through the the checks and
everything and I end up being a
candidate so real well I'm assuming
there's a lot of patients who are maybe
watching this right now saying I'm
interested in that man I've never heard
of it right what are what's the first
step they want to take is they're going
either three or initial diagnosis or
just medicating it right so what I would
say is you know get in touch with your
psychiatrist if you don't have a
psychiatrist you look us up online we
would be more than happy to do an
initial evaluation through that
conversation we can see what is the
depression you're dealing with if you
are a good candidate reach out to a
mental health professional go online and
just Google TMS and Jacksonville will
definitely pop up there you can find HPR
without a problem we actually deliver
TMS throughout the entire country and
we've now recently over this last year
bringing it to the first coast so what I
would say is just go online research TMS
a bit and reach out to us last question
is life just different now yeah actually
I have better memory skills I am more
cognitive I just feel
it helped me maybe take care of myself
better because it was a process that I
went through but I definitely feel
better much much better and I'm so glad
I did
gentlemen thank you so much for joining
us I really appreciate it well for more
information on this really important
treatment that we're learning about go
to HP RTC comm crystal