Salience's strategy of patient care is completely inadequate by design. The technicians are always friendly and do their jobs to the best of their ability, but they are not qualified to help patients who are suffering due to the need to pause treatment or at the very least change their dosages because the treatments are actually working! I had an on-going emotional suffering during treatment that I could only describe as going through a meat grinder, but there was never any assistance from someone at Salience who could actually help. This was the case even when I got to the point of checking the "suicide risk" box on the surveys. Instead, I was gently but unbelievably chided by the house physician (a very pleasant person) who could not understand my need to drop my dosage because the treatments were working. The suffering from a high dosage was both physically apparent and emotionally unspeakable. In order for these treatments to actually help a patient, there needs to be on-going support, perhaps checking in every couple of days, from someone who knows how to help and who expects to change the patient's dosages. If this is not done by the in-house psychiatrist at Salience, the referring psychiatrist must be aware of this need so he or she can expect to provide it if they refer a patient. Alternatively, at the very least, the patient needs to be aware of the probability that they must change dosages and to be on the lookout for telltale signs. Because of: 1) literally decades of trial-and-error experience I have had with these medications and how they affect me, 2) undaunted diligence and desire to get well, 3) an inexhaustible support system, not to mention 4) the trust by my local psychiatrist for me to self-monitor my own dosage, my support system and I were able to succeed at benefiting from the treatments. This would not have been the case if left up to the current Salience support system. If Salience wants more patients to be able to finish their course of treatment, and if they want more patients to benefit from treatment, they must address these issues for anyone like me. I do not believe I could possibly be alone in such an experience.
I was always one of the most difficult cases any of my many doctors had ever encountered and was only getting worse after trying almost all the antidepressants, DNRS, energy therapy, vitamins, herbs, and many other things. But this treatment has been different. Having seen amazing success at this point after 1 1/2 courses of TMS treatment, I am almost off of all antidepressant medications, and even my thyroid medication has had to drop to almost nothing. If my case does not entirely resolve after the completion of the second round of treatments, I expect I may need a small dose of an anti-anxiety medication and possibly a small dose of stimulant on an on-going basis. This is truly unbelievable success, despite the admittedly harrowing pathway I have had to take through these treatments to get to this point.