Tuesday, October 21, 2008

We'll All Be Happy After The Pulse

The FDA has approved Transcranial Electromagnetic Stimulation to treat depression.

Yes, after all those years of "I've bulk-erased my mind" jokes in my line of work, there may be something to it. --Or it could be a big fat placebo; I'm pretty sure some Big Outfit would do a study of the effectiveness of whacking depressed people with cricket bats if there was a hint of help there and if it did prove to work even a little, some supplier would be making and marketing an official treatment version.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the TV ads: "Zap your unhappiness away!" (Even if it does work, I'd as soon not have Habeeb and Billy-Bob try treatin' the whole nation. That would suck; also, Fox would cancel it).

12 comments:

BobG said...

I've actually been in some pretty intense magnetic fields in my former line of work; the type where you could not be around if you had any type of metal in or about your person that could heat up due to eddy currents. I've had some that actually caused brain activity to seem somewhat fuzzy while in the field.

Somerled said...

Ah, crap, it would probably mess up my pacemaker. But if it was also proven to help reverse balding, I might throw caution to the winds.

I don't mind my increasing baldness until I've forgotten my hat and have spent 20 minutes in the sun.

Drang said...

Have a friend who, while assigned to an Army unit that does not exist, enhanced his rep for being batshit by using the degausers on himself.

Jeffro said...

If it weren't true, would we be allowed to say it on TV?

Call before midnight tonight! Offer will expire without warning!

Anonymous said...

"Transcranial Electromagnetic Stimulation"

Wouldn't you have the same effect if you held a cellphone up to your head 24/7 and have the signal zap your brain every 10 seconds searching for a signal?

Maybe depression is simply cellphone withdrawal. When we're holding the phones next to our heads, we're happy. We we're not, we get depressed. Hmm.....

Anonymous said...

My best friend is a Marine Corps Sat-Comm tech and he tells me you could microwave food if you held it up in front of the satellite dish while it was transmitting. Haha!! How's that for "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome?"

Anonymous said...

Given that I've actually KNOWN people whose depression was so severe- and so treatable- by electroshock therapy that they considered the memory loss worth it, this actually sounds milder and rather less dire in its side effects.

Quigley said...

This totally explains why I am not all bummed out over having to completely rewire my house. All that stray voltage I have been encountering while I remove the bad splices has actually been making me feel quite good. Who knew? ;)

Roberta X said...

Labrat: Good point. Though I've never been all that convinced electroshock actually helps, other than anything is better than being zapped.

RobD: naw, you're just feeling safer 'cos you're taking out all the idiocy! It's warm and happy.

NotClauswitz said...

Heh, "Let me feel your pulse" will have a new meaning.
Electroshock can work to blow out the real crazy-inducing fuzzy-creepy cobwebs and tendency to moult, and get a person on a more even keel away from the knife-edge of whack, but only for a while.

Anonymous said...

I seem to remember something about "substance-abuse" issues being the cause of Dark Angel's demise.

Assrot said...

Hmmm... I think we might all need to go in for one of these 'long about Nov. 5th heh?

Glad to see it's an option. Nothing like a little juice to the old noggin after listening to the Liberal MSM for the past few months.

You could have an "After the pulse" blog meet. The only requirement for admittance would be that you've had your post election ECT. That way we can all be happy, smiley, hopey, changey together right. Soylent green is people.

;-)

Joe

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