Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, painless therapy that can help treat mental health disorders. TMS is noninvasive and doesn’t require an anesthetic or sedation. You’re awake and alert throughout the treatment and can continue your usual activities afterward.

TMS uses magnets, much like the ones you find in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines. The TMS device transmits short pulses of magnetic energy into areas of your brain involved in mood regulation.

These magnetic pulses go through your skull to the targeted parts of your brain, stimulating underactive brain cells. TMS encourages connections to form between the cells that help improve your mood.

You might benefit from a TMS treatment if you have depression and other treatments aren’t helping. Depression causes intense, persistent sadness and feelings of hopelessness, self-loathing, and despair.

This common mental health condition may become so severe patients can’t enjoy anything in their lives. You might be unable to work, have problems sleeping, and find every day endlessly bleak. Many people feel so ill with depression that they consider suicide. Two treatments that can help with depression are medication and talk therapy.

Medication helps rebalance the brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) that control your mood. Interpersonal psychotherapy enables you to work through traumas and problems that trigger or worsen depression, while cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) teaches you to alter negative thought processes.

These treatments are successful for many people. However, some find they don’t help, and others suffer unpleasant medication side effects. If you have problems like these, the Nurocoach team might recommend TMS, which can help with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

When you visit Nurocoach for TMS treatment, your provider performs tests to ensure the coils that transmit magnetic energy are in the right place on your head.

When your TMS treatment begins, you hear clicking sounds and sense a light tapping on your head from the magnetic pulses passing through your skull, but it shouldn’t be painful. The only after-effect you might experience is a slight headache.

Each TMS treatment takes 15-20 minutes. Most patients achieve the best results with five TMS treatments each week for 4-6 weeks. You should experience a significant reduction in depression following TMS, with around half of patients finding they recover completely.

To find out how you can benefit from TMS, call Nurocoach today or book an appointment online.