เกี่ยวกับตอนนี้
What happens when a treatment designed to help may also carry injuries we rarely measure? We sit down with Sarah Price Hancock, co-founder and trustee of the Ionic Injury Foundation, to unpack ionic injury as a physiologic framework for understanding electrical exposure—including ECT—and the real-world consequences that can follow. Sarah shares her lived experience after 116 ECT sessions, the profound memory loss that reshaped her life, and the delayed neurologic symptoms that only made sense once she studied electrical injury research outside of psychiatry’s usual lanes.
Together we map the biology: rapid perfusion spikes, bradycardia, and reperfusion injury; blood–brain barrier shifts that may invite inflammatory cascades; and potential acquired channelopathies that present as episodic weakness, spasms, or exercise intolerance. We contrast short-term ECT outcome data with the lack of long-term tracking and the high variability in dosing, electrode placement, and anesthetic choices. The conversation stays grounded in practice: what to add to intake questions, which referrals actually help (neuropsych, central auditory and visual processing, vestibular and balance testing), and how to route patients toward rehabilitation and accommodations that restore function at school and work.
This is also a story about trust and agency. Sarah lays out simple tools for rebuilding a sense of control, and we discuss how clinicians can presume competence, partner on decisions, and stay curious when symptoms fall outside familiar patterns. Whether you support ECT, question it, or simply want better outcomes, this episode offers concrete steps to assess, document, and treat possible electrical injury with the same rigor we give any other trauma. If this conversation sparks ideas or challenges your assumptions, share it with a colleague, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one change you’d make in your practice today.
Let’s Connect
Dr Dan Wesemann
Email: daniel-wesemann@uiowa.edu
Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann
Dr Kate Melino
Email: Katerina.Melino@ucsf.edu
Dr Sean Convoy
Email: sc585@duke.edu
Dr Melissa Chapman
Email: mchapman@pdastats.com
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Yeah.
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Just my take on things.
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My answer number two.
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Identifying the other.
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Hello, listeners for PepLouse Ghost.
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This is Dan Wheatman, one of your hosts here.
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And just wanted to do a quick introduction to this episode because we have a unique and real interesting guest coming up here.
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Her name is Sarah Hancock, and she is not a nurse.
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So this is one of the first, I think, episodes we have at PepLouse Ghost that is not a nurse.
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So we're excited to share her story with you.
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It's really a personal journey that she's been very passionate about kind of looking at some of maybe the long-term dark side of ECT treatments and stuff.
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So we're really excited to show you kind of her personal experience and what she's done with this.
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But we're really hoping that this kind of opens up AppLouse ghosts to other ideas and other things that are complementary to psychiatric mental health nursing.
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So please sit back, relax, enjoy, and always feel free to subscribe, comment, get in touch with us.
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We'd love to hear your ideas for future episodes.
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All right.
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Take care.
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Welcome back, everybody.
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Here we are, another episode of Peplau's Ghost.
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I'm so thrilled to be joined by my co-host and guest here for this episode as we come to the close of 2025.
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Hard to believe.
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It's always gets this time of year, and I'm like, where did the year go?
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It's it's just amazing.
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So but I'm really excited.
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We have, I was just saying, we have the van back.
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So it's been a little while since we had all our co-hosts.
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So I am joined by uh Dr.
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John Convoy, Dr.
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Kate Molino, and Dr.
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Melissa Chapman-Hayes.
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And I am very thrilled to welcome our guest, Sarah Price Hancock.
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Sarah is a the co-founder and trustee of Ionic Injury Foundation, and really looking forward to her sharing her story and her research on the topic of helping people with serious mental illness as well as the interventions that we uh apply to them.
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So, Sarah, thank you very much for joining us.
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And and I'll start off with kind of a question just to kind of get us going.
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So, your work focuses on this idea of ionic injury.
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I don't know if everybody, uh even PMHMPs, you know, I I probably have to look it up a couple times myself to see what this means.
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So, so from your point of view, what is how do you explain this concept to people and and how do you define that that term for yourself?
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Certainly.
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First of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with such a fun group of individuals and to speak about ionic injury.
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So, ionic injury is basically electrical injury.
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And electrical injury is a non-ionizing radiation injury, and it really depends on the length of time a person has been exposed, whether it's been a chronic exposure, like an EMF living right next to a cell tower, or if it's been, you know, like a TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, or in my case, electroconvulsive therapy.
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With each of those, there is a larger and larger and larger energy that's used.
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And so they can cause a variety of physiological consequences, especially with chronic or repeat exposures, that that create the physiological response that can be quite detrimental to the human body, just based on the natural laws governing electricity and its contact with the human body.
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Thank you.
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Appreciate that.
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Hey, friend, so I I'm interested, you you you made reference to the possibility of of uh different mediums by which this could happen.
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What may motivated you to kind of kind of build this idea, this foundation?
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What was what was the experience?
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What was the the crystallizing thing that said I have to do this?
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I think for what what happened with me is I had a history of electroconvulsive therapy.
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I had had uh electro-convulsive therapy 116 times.
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I quit against medical advice.
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I was able to get into rehabilitation based on very well let me back up a little bit.
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I was not given assessments.
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I was not given proper assessments to investigate whether I had experienced serious adverse events from the medic from the electroconvulsive therapy.
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They refused even to do neuropsych testing on me after ECT.
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And so what happened was finally I realized since it had erased 36 years of memory, which included my undergraduate education and work experience, I realized that if I wanted to return into the community and be an active member and participant in society, I needed to be able to return to school and be retrained.
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And so I used that argument the next time I asked for uh neuropsych testing.
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And my psychiatrist was like, oh, of course, we can refer you for that.
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We can that you, you know, you'll you'll need accommodations when you go if you choose to go back to work or school.
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And so uh in so doing, I qualified for the initial neuropsych exam.
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And after completing the testing, I was diagnosed with a mild cognitive impairment of from the ECT.
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It was actually identified that it was caused by the ECT just based based on the differential between my capacity prior and my GPA and whatnot prior to the ECT, and then the changes that had occurred as a consequence of the ECT.
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And so I went back to school.
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And the school, I went back to school at San Diego State University.
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I had combinations.
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I my tests were such that I qualified for double time on tests, and then I qualified for note takers, I qualified for being able to record and re-listen to my my classes, being able to use even notes.
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And so that that leveled the playing field.
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And then I was I I chose to become a rehabilitation counselor because I wanted to help people like myself who had experienced these kinds of injuries, be able to re-enter and be productive members of society after having been injured by shock treatment.
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And so I chose to do that, and I was able to, you know, I completed my three-year program.
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I was able to become nationally certified as a rehabilitation counselor, and I thought everything like I was getting back on the horse, I was ready to go.
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And about seven and a half years after my last treatment, I started experiencing some symptoms that nobody could explain.
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And I was speaking with the one of the nurses who's a trauma nurse who had participated, who also had ECT.
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She spoke to me and she said, Well, Sarah, you know, what you really need to do is you need to begin studying electrical injury because what you're experiencing is known in the research as delayed electrical injury.
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And I was like, wait, what?
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There's more to this than just what I've already done.
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And so some of the symptoms I was experiencing were spasms and festiculations and progressive motor deterioration and respiratory dysfunction, difficulty swallowing, and all of the tests were indicating that it was a quote central issue, not that the organ was affected, but that it was a central or spinal issue.
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And so I contacted the American equivalent of it was an organization that provides rehabilitation for people with electrical injuries, and they refused to see me because I was not harmed on the job.
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I had not been electrocuted on the job or at my house.
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My electrocution had been prescribed.
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I use the word electrocution intentionally.
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It's not hyperbole.
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The electrical energy that's used in a shock treatment is nearly an amp of current.
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It's for eight seconds.
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And it causes a seizure that's so severe and so strong that it actually turns off the brain activity and turns off the heart.
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So the person can experience, they call it post-ictical suppression, but really it's brain activity silence.
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That's something that they cannot control for how long that brain activity is turned off.
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And the the you know, the the heart initially spike, the heart rate initially spikes, but then it has paradoxical effects, so that it the heart rate goes into brainycardia and it can go in 50, about 50% of the people, it goes into acystole.
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Or I'm not saying, I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but uh, but it goes into electrical silence of the heart.
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So then you have the absence of the heart rate, you have the absence of the respiratory function, you know, the person is under a paralytic, so they have no respiratory function and they're dependent on the ambo bag.
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And so, you know, without capnography, we don't really know how much the individual is impacted.
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And we know for sure that the blood is not circulating through their brain as it needs to be.
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And then when the heart restarts and the breathing restarts and whatnot, then you have the reperfusion injury.
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So, you know, there's really nothing to distinguish electrical injuries, you know, whether it's prescribed by a doctor, a well-intentioned doctor, or whether you get it on the job.
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It's the natural laws still apply.
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And so I wanted to be able to create an organization that would recognize and help people regardless of how they were injured.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Can yeah, I'll step in here.
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Sorry, Kate.
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Just can I ask, you know, just kind of some follow-up questions.
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You mentioned you had 116 treatments.
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You know, for I I'm not an ECT expert by any means, but I mean, can can you kind of share with us where they were they telling you that you were getting better with each treatment?
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Or is that I mean, what was the what were they telling you as far as why you needed more treatments and such?
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So well, initially I was catatonic when I was began ECT.
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So I was not really aware of the world around me or really uh capable of consenting, though it is my signature that is on the consent form.
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I attribute that to motor memory, really.
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If you put a pen in my hand and tell me to sign my name, there is a part of me as an ardent person that loves to follow instructions, I will sign my name.
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But I my doctors initially didn't recognize that the real underlying cause of the catatonia was because my body was incapable of breaking down the medication that had been prescribed.
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So I actually had hyper ammonia levels, toxic ammonia levels, because my body couldn't break down the depict.
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And these medications were originally prescribed because I actually had what is commonly known as a form of brewery syndrome.
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I actually had hepatic encephalopathy.
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And so the hepatic encephalopathy, mine was fungal.
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It basically produced these alcohols that my brain was marinating in.
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And since they didn't do a lumbar puncture or, you know, any of those kinds of tests, and my liver function panel looked normal, they didn't think, oh, you know, she's she's ammonia toxic.
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They just said, oh, she has she has catatonia.
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And since she's not responding to medication, even when we raise the dose, she's getting worse.
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We're just gonna give her shock treatment.
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Because that's kind of the protocol for unresponsive psychiatric patients.
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Yeah.
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Thank you, Sarah.
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I appreciate that.
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And appreciate you sharing your story.
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It's must be difficult to talk about at times.
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You know, it's it can be challenging, but I think that in sharing my experience, it enables me to share it in a way that hopefully can bring a light to other people so that they can ask these additional questions.
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Because I that's one of the reasons I love working with the nurse practitioners and and lecturing when I was able to lecture in San Diego at the uh California San Marcos because I just I loved, I loved, loved, loved working with the nurses.
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They always had such good questions.
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We appreciate that, Sarah.
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And on that note, you know, obviously, you know, a few of us here are nurse practitioners, our audience is mainly, you know, psychiatric nurse practitioners.
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We would love to hear your thoughts on how psych and peas and mental health nurses can integrate concepts of ionic injury into our clinical assessment, into our teaching of students, you know, and general work with clients.
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Of course.
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Well, I think first of all, if you think of it as a physiological from the physiological perspective, right?
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When a person is electrocuted, instantaneously they have a burst in heart rate.
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So their their blood perfusion will spike.
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And in terms of electrical for electroconvulsive therapy, it's four, three to four times the rate of perfusion.
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So that's the entire body.
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So we're talking increased perfusion of the brain, but we're also talking increased perfusion all the way down the spinal cord and all of the peripheral organs as well.
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And then once that heart rate dampens and slows down and stops and then restarts, then you have the perfusion injury.
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So reperfusion injury.
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So looking at things like, I mean, that's a breaking of the blood-brain barrier, right?
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And so then you have everything has access, all the individuals' histamine, any viral, any viruses they may have, any any bacterial, you know, latent infections or anything like that.
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They those are all things that that you can look for.
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And if you think of it more from the physiological perspective, you know, there are there are permanent changes that occur when a person is shocked, then like that the body has changed how we regulate our electrolytes.
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So some of the things that I've done is I've just started increasing in weight, even though my medications haven't changed, my diet hasn't changed, my exercise hasn't changed, I'm just blowing up.
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And when we began looking at it as a an acquired channelopathies, you know, I do have episodic parasomal neuromuscular problems that are consistent with the channelopathies.
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So I do have episodes of paralysis, I do have episodes of spasticity, I do have episodes of spasms, I do have episodes of just weakness.
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And when you start looking at that from a physiological perspective, based on what we already know about those kinds of things, either if it's genetic or you know, then it becomes less like nebulous, right?
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We're able to better think about, okay, you know, my patient is reporting that they're having spasms, they're having festiculations, and you know, I have since been diagnosed with nomocolemic hypokolemia because I have chronic, I respond to potassium.
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So if I drink water that has potassium, then I actually have an increase in strength.
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But it's not something that's going to show up on a blood test because it's on a nervous system level, not on a plasma level.
00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:17.599
So I think one of the most important things we can do to is really take our patients seriously when they say, you know, I'm experiencing spasms, I'm experiencing weakness.
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You know, when I do the exercise that you've prescribed, I actually feel worse afterwards.
00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:27.440
You know, kind of starting to ask the kinds of questions like, well, tell me more about that.
00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:37.359
As I like we recently, like I was my respiratory system had gotten to the point where I was having such problems with breathing independently.
00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:43.359
And then I was prescribed, I broke out in cold sores, I had massive whatever, who cares?
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Broke out in cold sores, and they prescribed me an antiviral.
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And I kid you not, the night before I took the day's worth of antiviral, I had apnea, I had severe apnea.
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It was 41 events an hour, even on my respiratory support.
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I took the antiviral the following night, I had one event an hour.
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Like we just really need to start looking at how the brain is affected by, you know, when it's permanently changed when you're dealing with these things that shouldn't even have access to the brain.
00:18:31.279 --> 00:18:32.640
Thank you for sharing that.
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:37.599
I was gonna go a little bit of a different angle, Sarah, and ask about your advocacy work.
00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:44.799
So my understanding is that it emphasizes hope and agency for individuals navigating complex health systems.
00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:53.680
What are some of the practical steps clinicians can take to help patients reclaim a sense of empowerment when they're feeling unheard or misdiagnosed?
00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:07.599
I think one of the most important things we can do as clinicians is to presume competence.
00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:34.960
When we approach the individual knowing that they are a human who has unique experiences that have gotten to them to the point where they feel so frustrated they don't feel like they are an agent of change, then they can present in ways where we might feel that they are not competent to make choices, or we may presume that they cannot make choices.
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But as we strive to help people recognize that the power is within them, that they can be an agent of change, that they do they are in the driver's seat.
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And when we demonstrate that we are willing to partner with them in their treatment plan and listen to their feedback on how X, Y, or Z is making them feel.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:13.599
That is the foundation of building a relationship of trust where your patient will be more open with you about what is going on if they recognize that you're responding.
00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:22.400
And I think that as we presume confidence, and you know, we might have people talk to us about things that they're experiencing, and we're like, I've never heard of that before.
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:24.799
I've never heard of that happening before.
00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:29.279
Maybe reframe it and say, how could that be possible?
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What are some things that could cause that?
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:39.440
And that's when we get to, you know, really dig into what we know and then expand on what we know.
00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:50.160
But one of the things that helped me get out of my learned helplessness, because I did struggle with learned helplessness, was doing the simple what went well and why.
00:20:50.559 --> 00:21:03.519
And writing three things daily, that helped me begin to recognize that I could help make things go well, and that people around me were also not against me.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:06.240
They were actively trying to help me.
00:21:06.400 --> 00:21:11.519
And there were lots of times where I couldn't explain why something went well.
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And because of my history and my background and my belief system, I concluded that the reason it went well when I couldn't explain it was because there was a higher power that was interested in me.
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I believed that God had an interest in my life.
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:41.440
And so just helping people to explore, you know, what's going well, because when we finally can focus on what's going well in our lives, then, you know, yes, there are bad things happening.
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:54.880
We're not trying to ignore them, but we became, if we can explain, you know, if we can see within our own minds, you know what, there are things I can do to change this and feel empowered to do it, then we can make that change happen.
00:21:57.440 --> 00:21:59.440
Hey, Sarah, I'm uh thank you very much.
00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:03.279
I I'm gonna take us in a slightly different direction, actually, back to where we kind of started.
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:03.839
Of course.
00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:09.279
Before I ask this question, it's important to me that you understand that I'm not questioning your lived experience with ionic injury.
00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:10.000
Of course.
00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:19.759
That said, the body of evidence that supports the clinical application of ECT suggests there isn't lasting nervous system damage following standard protocol treatment.
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:33.279
I'm wondering, do you think your personal experience associated with ionic injury is associated with the fundamental practice of ECT or the malapplication of ECT to your particular experience?
00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:35.279
I think it's both.
00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:37.359
I think it's a cumulative effect.
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:48.079
The reason I say that is because if you look at the research that's out there on ECT, they have never tracked patients beyond the beyond the use of the ECT.
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:53.279
They've never systematically tracked long-term consequences.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:23:02.880
So we just published an article that actually identified patients who had had ECT historially.
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:10.480
We just published this article, and these people are reporting much of the similar symptoms that I'm reporting.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:13.279
They're reporting an inability to go back to work.
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:17.440
They're reporting, you know, a quarter of them said that they were unable to go back to work.
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:23.759
And the other thing we need to understand as clinicians is that ECT does not have standard practices.
00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:26.880
There are no dosing consensus protocols.
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:31.759
There are more than 2,000 possible doses of electrical injury.
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:36.400
And so you're going to have people on an entire Likert scale, right?
00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:43.519
And based on, you know, that there, you know, there's also five different methods of dosing.
00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:48.720
There's three different ways places to put put the electrodes.
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:54.400
There's multiple different kinds of medication to be used as anesthetic.
00:23:54.720 --> 00:24:00.079
So it's literally each individual that has ECT is going to have a very unique experience.
00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:03.599
No two people are going to have the exact same experience.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:18.880
And part of that is because no two people will have ECT the exact same way, and no two people have the same cranial anatomy and you know brain structures in the exact same place between those electrodes.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:26.640
So we have an entire spectrum of people who've had an entire spectrum of experiences.
00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:32.160
So I'm not going to say that you know someone can't have a positive experience.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.039
I actually have friends who swear by ECT.
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:38.079
Who am I to say anything different, right?
00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:58.160
I I understand all of the variables involved, but I think that in the absence of standard practices and in the absence of reliably replicable application of ECT, it's it's not something that we can say, you know, well, everyone has a good experience.
00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:00.640
Thank you.
00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:02.720
Yeah, thank you, Sarah.
00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:10.960
I mean, I think that's that's one of those things, and I appreciate Sean kind of you know going right at it, which he he will always do, and which I I admire with him always.
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:26.079
But but Sarah, and and I think this is something that you probably come into contact a lot too, is when you're talking to mental health nurses, you know, doctors, other people in the mental health profession, I mean, you're you're kind of you have to recognize you're you're flowing upstream a little bit, right?
00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:34.960
I mean, there still is the American Psychiatric Association recommends in their guidelines for treatment of of depression and capitonia, as you mentioned, you suffered with as well.
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:44.640
ETT still seeing the standard of care, but I think you explained it well that you know that they haven't, you know, there hasn't been a lot of long-term data here looking at that.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:48.559
And that's something when I first talked to you, I was really kind of put back on it.
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:49.680
I was like, yeah, you're right.
00:25:49.759 --> 00:25:50.480
There that we haven't.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:26:01.440
I mean, we we understand kind of the short-term potential negative, you know, we explain in kind of very medical ways of you know, you could have some memory loss, it may or may not come back and things like that.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:15.359
But uh what are what are some of the you know other in in in kind of both based on kind of your experience, but you know, as the head of this foundation and and such, I'm sure people are continuously kind of coming to you with their stories as well.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:26.079
But you know, what are some of the other shortcomings and pitfalls that you see that maybe people who are listening to this can start to kind of maybe guard against in their own practice and in their own clinics?
00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:56.799
Well, I think that one of the things we really need to humble ourselves about as clinicians is to recognize that those who are currently performing electroconvulsive therapy have no subspecialty training, no formal subspecialty training in biophysics, no formal subspecialty training in the histopathology of electrical injury, no formal subspecialty training in the neuropathology of this treatment.
00:26:57.039 --> 00:27:03.680
And so somebody who does have formal subspecialty training in this, that would be Dr.
00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:04.720
Bennett Amalu.
00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:13.680
He's a neuropathologist, well known for his work in repetitive traumatic brain injuries among sports sports figures.
00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:25.519
McHe said that people who've had a history of electric convulsive therapy need to be considered through the lens of both a repetitive traumatic brain injury and a repetitive electrical trauma.
00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:46.079
I think as clinicians, you know, it's really important when we have a patient sitting in front of us who says, you know, I have lost my ability to read, or I've lost my vocabulary, and I don't feel comfortable speaking to people, you know, leaving my home because those around me, I don't recognize them.
00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:51.119
And I'm having people come up to me and tell me that they know me, but I don't know them.
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.680
I think we need to take them seriously.
00:27:53.839 --> 00:28:08.640
I think we need to refer them for the for the comprehensive assessments, but beyond the neuropsych assessments, I think we need to refer them for central visual uh processing testing, for central auditory processing testing.
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:20.000
A lot of the reason these people have difficulty remembering things is because they might see them, but they don't, it doesn't register and save in a way that they can access it later.
00:28:20.319 --> 00:28:57.680
So tapping, you know, if a person is referred for these kinds of assessments, balance assessment, coordination assessments, kind of typical for brain injury, then we can route them into places where they can receive the appropriate rehabilitation and be able to access the accommodations they need to be able to go back to work and school and to live, you know, even access additional supports if they can't go back to work or school or if they can only do it on a much limited basis compared to what they were previously able to do.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:28:59.039
Thanks, Sarah.
00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:10.880
Yeah, I when I'm listening to you, I I a small part of me was kind of thinking of a crass question of, you know, has has anyone ever talked to you through your foundation that you just didn't believe actually was caused by uh electrical injury like that?
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:16.480
But I I think as you've explained, I mean, the brain is you know so central to all of you know who we are and what we do.
00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:24.240
I I think you're gonna you're gonna believe everyone, which I think is the takeaway here that just believe our patients and and see where that takes us.
00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:24.799
So thank you.
00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:31.039
Well, I think referring them for a comprehensive assessment, then the numbers can quantify, you know.
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:39.119
I mean, I think disbelieving people without even referring them for assessment is criminal, quite frankly.
00:29:39.359 --> 00:30:09.680
I think that we need to be able to say, you know what, that's that's something that I had not considered before, but it's something that I've, you know, the research that we're publishing on this largest survey that's ever been conducted of ECT recipients, you know, we we purposefully interviewed or opened the survey to the the recipients and their family members and friends so that we can compare how the family members were perceiving this experience.
00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:20.240
And and unilaterally, we've seen that the family members and their friends are viewing the CCT experience through the same lens as the recipients.
00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:26.799
So, you know, that kind of augments the voices of these recipients who've been silenced for so long.
00:30:27.039 --> 00:30:36.960
And there's much more than memory loss and executive functioning difficulties that have developed as a consequence of the shock treatments.
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:52.720
And the other thing is that I've I've taken these ideas, bounced them off a vice president of translational research at Hamilton University up in Canada.
00:30:52.960 --> 00:31:04.720
He has researched electrical injury and actually works with electricians, unions and electricians speaks at their events and whatnot.
00:31:05.039 --> 00:31:09.920
And he actually reiterated some of the things that I've said.
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:11.759
Like, he was like, oh yeah.
00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:21.440
And have you thought of it, you know, have you looked at it from the perspective of the oxidization that comes out as a consequence of, you know, repeated electrical injury?
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:29.599
And have you looked at it from the perspective of the you know, repeated inflammatory, you know, responses from the electrical injury?
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:36.400
And, you know, he's he's helped me see it things that I'd never considered, but he'd been following, you know, tracking.
00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:46.640
He'd started working with people who'd been electrocuted at children at a hospital in America, you know, as a as a young surgeon back in the 90s.
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:53.200
He's a trauma, trauma surgeon, and now he's head of VP of research over up at Hamilton.
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:58.799
And so I just, there is a small network of people who understand electrical injury.
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:10.000
And I think that as we start kind of, you know, including that even in our intakes, you know, do you have a history more than, you know, we're very used to saying, do you have a history of surgeries?
00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:14.240
But if we can say, do you have a history of electrical injury?
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:36.640
You know, whether it's transcranial magnetic stimulation or whether it's electroconvulsive therapy, I think that including that in our intake form would even be able to open our mind or open our eyes to just how many people have been exposed and how many people might need a comprehensive assessment that they've not yet had access to.
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:38.880
Sarah, I wanted to ask you the last question.
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:41.839
I have something you said stimulated a thought in my mind.
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:55.440
And I'm wondering, does your foundation have any interest in working with those who are developing these clinical practice guidelines to shape some of your concepts and ideas around improving that product?
00:32:55.599 --> 00:33:03.440
I think, you know, the enduring message would be from your unfortunate experience associated with ionic injuries: how can we shape future clinical practice guidelines?
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:06.640
Is that something your foundation is interested in doing?
00:33:07.039 --> 00:33:07.680
Of course.
00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:37.200
I mean, the FDA said that that, I mean, technically, they're not even supposed to be using ECT outside of uh clinical trials right now because the FDA's final ruling, the final 2018 final order said that without special controls, without pre-market approval safety studies, and without product development protocols, this cannot be used outside of having registered an investigational device exemption with the FDA.
00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:38.000
Just asked.
00:33:39.599 --> 00:33:42.720
Sorry, that I was Siri was very interested in what you said.
00:33:42.799 --> 00:33:44.559
So she said, sure, just ask.
00:33:45.759 --> 00:34:01.119
So, you know, I I really think that as we develop, you know, if they can if they choose to develop those product development protocols, these are manufacturers who historically have said that they're they have no that research is not their business.
00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:19.679
But I really think that, you know, I'm totally willing to help people and and determined to help people understand how electrical injury impacts the human body and the measures that need to be taken, not only to prevent the injury, but also to help those who have who've already been injured.
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:21.039
Thank you.
00:34:24.719 --> 00:34:26.320
Oh, thank you again, Sarah.
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:27.599
This is really great.
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:34.880
I appreciate your time and and just you know sharing your your vulnerability and and just again, like you said, to really kind of highlight this.
00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:44.400
Because again, even for myself, I've been practicing as a mental health nurse since you know 2008, and and it's been eye-opening to kind of hear about this sort of thing.
00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:52.800
I've I've always been nervous about ECT treatment and and and kind of the effects of it, and to to kind of learn more about this has been eye-opening to me.
00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:56.000
So thank you very much for sharing your information.
00:34:56.159 --> 00:35:07.360
And uh we'll be sharing this you know, contact information, I'm sure, you know, kind of make available if anyone wants to reach out to the Ionic Injury Foundation and to Sarah Hancock and and the research that she's doing.
00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:13.039
And I think that's adding to the body and and like Sean, you were saying, adding to that guidelines and such.
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:14.480
So really appreciate it.
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:15.199
Thank you, Sarah.
00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:17.840
And and thank you all for listening to Peploz Ghost.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:21.199
We've got a couple of other episodes that we're gonna finish up the rest of the year here.
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:22.079
Really excited.
00:35:22.159 --> 00:35:23.760
We're gonna get dive into Dr.
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:24.960
Sean Convoy and Dr.
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:26.320
Melissa Chapman Hayes.
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:28.880
So get them on the couch is kind of what we're saying.
00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:32.639
So let's uh let's crack them open and see what see what see what we got.
00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:34.719
But look forward to doing that in the next few weeks.
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:39.119
And but thanks so much, and we'll come back for another episode of Peplow's Go Soon.
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:40.000
Take care, thank you.
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:47.360
Too much thought like this, too much the comment, oh they feel it before it's true.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:51.360
We're caught until those thoughts are finally leaving, so you can be you, uh.
00:35:51.599 --> 00:35:53.119
They feel it before it's true.
00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:57.760
We're caught into those thoughts of finally leaving, so you can be you, guide discovery.
00:35:58.400 --> 00:36:02.320
Identifying challenging your beliefs, for beliefs, frame in your mind.
00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:04.079
Negative thoughts release, let it go.
00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.960
Cognitive stories decrease until they seeks.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:13.920
Identifying challenging your beliefs, for beliefs, framing your mind.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:15.679
Negative thoughts release, let it go.
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:21.039
Cognitive stories decrease until they seek it.