How much room does your obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) take up in your daily life? Are you frequently stressed by your mental symptoms, associated anxiety, or the rituals you feel compelled to complete and repeat? It’s not easy living with OCD, and your mental health struggles can constrain your personal and professional activity. Wouldn’t it be nice to live life with more mental ease, relaxation, and freedom?
You may have already tried treatment options for OCD such as talk therapy or medication management, with insufficient positive results. If your OCD symptoms continue to burden you, requiring your active daily management, you should know more about the promise of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for OCD. This noninvasive, drug-free treatment addresses your symptoms at a neurological level, retraining your brain away from obsessive-compulsive pathways, and can provide lasting symptom relief.
Dr. Ronald P. Winfield and the team at Greater Lowell Psychiatric Associates LLC offer TMS therapy and more for people with OCD living in and around North Chelmsford, Massachusetts. If TMS treatment sounds interesting, here’s more information about how it works, and what to expect. With the right care, you can conquer OCD and break through to a clearer, quieter, more controllable mentality.
Your OCD is primarily a problem located in your brain. That’s why treatments targeting your brain, especially the areas that regulate your mood, are useful for symptom relief.
TMS is a safe and drug-free way to gently stimulate your brain, using pulses of magnetic energy to transform your mental health. Repeated TMS sessions increase neuron activity and neurotransmitter release. As your brain receives more of key chemicals, including serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, your mental health improves.
For OCD patients, that means a lessening of obsessive thoughts, as well as a reduction in the intensity of related compulsions. Many TMS patients report lasting mental health improvements after completing treatment, which includes 36 treatment sessions and takes about 12 weeks. And, your mood and energy levels may be noticeably better after just a few 20-30 minute treatment sessions.
Dr. Winfield reviews your symptoms, health history, and past treatment experiences to determine if TMS is the right type of treatment for you. Most patients tolerate TMS therapy quite well, and TMS combines easily with other treatment protocols. If you find benefit in talk therapy, for instance, you can continue it while also receiving TMS.
We use the CloudTMS system for your treatment. During each treatment session, a stimulating coil is carefully placed on top of your head. The coil is activated by the handheld CloudTMS device. Most patients only feel a mild pulsing sensation focused around the coil.
If you experience any discomfort, adjusting the coil can often relieve it, without lessening the effectiveness of your therapy. We can also adjust the intensity of the magnetic energy pulses, if needed. TMS patients don’t typically need anesthesia or pain relief, and side effects are not common.
To reduce the intensity and prevalence of your OCD symptoms, reach out to Dr. Winfield and the Greater Lowell Psychiatric Associates team. Discover if TMS treatment could be the mental health solution you’ve been looking for. Instead of trying to cope with your OCD symptoms as they occur, go to the source of your mental health condition, and stimulate the formation of new pathways in your brain.
What could you accomplish, if you weren’t always fighting an uphill battle against OCD? Contact us today and find out. Schedule your initial consultation appointment over the phone, or book online today.
