If you suffer from anxiety or depression, you know how debilitating these conditions can be to your mental health. You may have tried different types of therapy or medication, but you had little success or minimal relief from your symptoms.

Maybe you’re looking for a treatment option other than medication? Depression and anxiety often prevent people from leading normal lives, and negatively impact mental health. They can make it hard to get out of bed in the morning, make it hard to concentrate at work and make it hard to enjoy the things you used to love. But there is hope.

Personalized repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (PrTMS) can be an effective treatment for depression and anxiety, helping to reduce symptoms in many cases and improve individuals’ mental health. Mindset PrTMS has merged with Serene Health to offer customized treatment plans to improve brain function for various mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 40 million adults age 18 and older, or about 18% of the population. Symptoms may range from mild to severe and include restlessness, irritability, muscle tension, headaches, insomnia, and nausea. Panic attacks, which are sudden episodes of intense fear and terror, are also common symptoms of anxiety disorders. When we’re anxious, our brains go into a type of fight or flight response, but when the cause of anxiety disappears, the brainwaves return to their normal state.

However, for someone with an anxiety disorder, their brain remains in a state of hypervigilance- or “high alert,” which can affect overall brain function over time. Chronic anxiety changes brainwave activity, leading to under-functioning neuron activity and fewer neurotransmitters. Over time, this can severely debilitate your mental health. PrTMS helps with this by regulating neurons so you don’t experience long-term stress responses that will only worsen over time.

Depression is characterized by persistent sadness and loss of interest in favorite activities. Symptoms may also include fatigue, changes in appetite, sleep disturbances, irritability, and thoughts of death or suicide. Depression is a serious mental illness affecting more than 16 million adults in the United States annually. Depression can have long-term physical consequences. People who suffer from depression are at increased risk for developing chronic physical illnesses such as heart disease. It can also make managing existing health conditions difficult, and this can have devastating consequences.

Untreated depression can also increase the likelihood of self-medication with alcohol and drug use. You may be able to improve your depression symptoms and overall mental health with PrTMS, even if you haven’t had success with other treatments.

To understand PrTMS, it’s important to know what Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is and the basics of how it works. TMS is a noninvasive, safe method of stimulating electrical activity in the brain with a magnetic field. The TMD device, placed near the head, sends magnetic pulses into the brain.

These painless pulses then increase activity in the neurons, improve disruptions in the brainwaves, and brain activity returns to normal. TMS helps people with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder by restoring normal brainwave activity and resulting in the long-term recovery of mental health problems, including anxiety and OCD.

TMS is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating major depression. It’s an excellent option for people who haven’t had success with antidepressants or who are looking for an alternative to medication for their mental health issues.

Standard TMS uses the same magnetic intensity for everyone, while PrTMS significantly improves the procedure by personalizing therapy to meet the brain’s unique brainwave pattern, thereby aiding patients’ mental health.

With PrTMS, there are three steps to optimize your results.

1. Brainwave activity is mapped using an electroencephalogram (EEG). This produces an accurate image of the brain’s electrical activity, allowing the provider to identify brain arrhythmias.

2. A questionnaire is given to patients to help give their team a comprehensive analysis of their symptoms and overall mental health. This allows them to target specific brain areas associated with the patient’s issues.

3. The team’s innovative software evaluates the EEG data and questionnaire. This advanced system gives them the information needed to develop a customized therapy protocol for each person.

While TMS is a one size fits all approach, PrTMS delivers customized TMS therapy to each patient. We perform an EEG to identify the underperforming area of your brain. Then, we program your treatment to target that specific area with the stimulation needed to restore normal brain function. Over time, as the treatment increases nerve function and neurotransmitter levels, you should notice your symptoms and general mental health improving.

We’ll begin with an assessment to learn more in-depth about the mental health symptoms you’re experiencing.

Next, we’ll do a baseline EEG to get a comprehensive report of your brain function. We’ll have images showing your brain activity in 19 critical regions in approximately five minutes.

An analysis of all your data will show us the areas in your brain that we need to target, and from there, we’ll develop your course of PrTMS treatment tailored to meet your specific mental health needs.

PrTMS requires a time commitment of daily treatments- 5 days a week. We’ll do a new EEG at least once a week to monitor your progress and make necessary adjustments.

Treatment lasts 6-8 weeks, depending on your needs. Along with PrTMS, Serene Health also offers a wide variety of other behavioral health and mental health services under one roof and flexible appointments through our telehealth platform.

If you’re struggling with anxiety and depression symptoms, and feel like your mental health is suffering, especially if you’re experiencing treatment-resistant depression, call us or visit www.serenehealth.com to find out more about Mindset PrTMS by Serene Health at 844-737-3638 or book an appointment.