At the Library: Getting through depression without drugs
By Redding Pilot on February 19, 2016
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Martha Rhodes’ struggle with depression spanned 30 years and countless medical interventions with prescription drugs, but an alternative treatment finally helped control her symptoms and put her on the road to health.
Rhodes’ story, 3,000 Pulses Later: A Memoir of Surviving Depression Without Medication, will be presented at the Mark Twain Library on Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m.
A resident of Danbury, Rhodes is a wife, mother and former advertising executive. She is now a proponent of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression.
TMS is typically used when other depression treatments haven’t been effective.
For Rhodes, the treatment was so effective that she now devotes her time as a TMS patient advocate, and her book has been cited in The New York Times, Psychology Today (online), and U.S. News and World Report. Rhodes has given dozens of presentations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.
“I want to create more awareness that depression is a chronic illness — especially treatment-resistant depression — and encourage patients to find the therapy that works for them, because there are new alternatives to traditional treatments,” Rhodes said.