I was lucky when I had my Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound Surgery (MRgFUS) to try and treat my depression that I did not have any serious side effects. Throughout my past 9 years of living with this disease, I have been very prone to having side effects in many of the treatments that I have tried. Most medications that I tried gave me intolerable side effects of one type or another. When I had Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT, or electro-shock treatments), I had very rare and serious side effects that left me in an acute confusional state for three days. Thus, there was a decent chance that I would end up with a side effect from MRgFUS.
The neurosurgeon and study psychiatrists were very good at explaining all the likely side effects that I might possibly encounter. One of the more likely side effects was the possibility of having headaches that could last for several weeks. This wasn't the result of the lesions that MRgFUS creates in your brain, but a consequence of being bolted extremely tightly into a frame that holds your head in the focused ultrasound machine inside the MRI. The bolts (or pins) can cause damage to the muscles in your head and thereby cause headaches for quite some time. I was fortunate that I only had a headache immediately following the surgery. I was give a couple of extra strength acetaminophen and the headache went away, never to return.
Other possible side effects that they warned me about, and are doing tests to see if I have, are problems with my short-term memory and verbal memory. Now, I haven't done any post-surgery testing of my memory yet (that will come three months after the surgery, I believe), but I haven't noticed any problems remembering things or had any difficulty remembering words or what I wanted to say. It seems very likely that I am not having any side effects related to memory. This is a good thing because memory side effects would be a permanent effect of the lesions created in my brain.
There is something that has been happening though that may be a side effect of the surgery. Shortly after the surgery I started to have more difficulty sleeping. Now, I have not been a good sleeper for a number of years, and this is on account of my depression. In addition to waking up to go to the washroom, I usually briefly wake up once or twice a night to glance at the clock and fall back asleep. I also have been a light sleeper, waking up in the morning feeling no better than when I went to bed. However, since the surgery, this has gotten worse. I am now waking up several times during the night and am having an even lighter sleep. This has been getting progressively worse over the three weeks since the surgery.
Just because these additional sleep problems started after the surgery and have been getting worse since then, that doesn't mean that they are caused by the surgery. Correlation does not imply causation. However, there is at least the possibility that it is caused by the surgery and I have let the research manager of the study know about my sleep problems, so that she can make a note of it. I have my one month follow-up appointment with the neurosurgeon and study psychiatrist next week and I will certainly be discussing this with them. Perhaps there is something that they can prescribe to help me get a better night's sleep. I am hoping that this is not caused by the surgery, as it would likely be a permanent effect of the lesions in my brain, although one that can probably be dealt with through medication, unlike potential memory problems.
Overall though, considering the side effects that were possible with this surgery, I am happy that I have not had to deal with some of the more difficult ones.
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