R
rossboy
New member
Founding Member
Hello, I am trying to get a true picture of what state treatment for depression is in the UK now. Hopefully you can help me out, I will explain.
We live in France and have done for the past 7 years. My wife (45) is suffering a very bad bout of depression and panic attacks. At times she is suicidal although she has never seriously damaged herself. She has had several bouts in the past (starting when her daughter was born 23 years ago) the last one being about 10 years ago after a hysterectomy when we lived in England. At that time she was treated with antidepressants etc at home by our GP with nothing else being offered. A very difficult process which put a great strain on the whole family for a long time. This time she is in hospital here in France but after 2 years now is still in a specialist clinic with very good nurses and a good psychiatrist who sees her every day and adjusts treatment as necessary. She gets a certain amount of occupational thearapy, although I think that’s one area that could be improved on, but the grounds are lovely with good wooded walks etc. She has in the last 2 years had just about every antidepressant and anti anxiety treatment available, some working for a short while. She has been home several times in 2006 but not for more than a few weeks before she shot back down again. In 2007 she entered hospital on the 5th of Jan and is still in there.
Her family are telling me to bring her back to the UK because the treatment is now better than in France, but they can give me no proof. My point is that here she is receiving very good treatment in a nice calm caring enviroment. If I move her back to England it will wreck our lives here and put a heavy financial strain on us, but I will do it if it gets her better.
I should point out perhaps, that for the last 6 months she has been in a dedicated psychiatric clinic in the south of France, but we live in the north. I moved her because of our sector, she was in a psychiatric ward of a general hospital before, which was sometimes chaos because of the mixture of different illness’s all mixed up together. So as you can see it’s not like it’s easy here as I am staying down here to visit daily and driving back (11 hours) home for few days every so often to keep things running.
The doctor is muting E.C.T but my wife has a horror of it because she had it before in UK, true it was 23 years ago, but it was badly done and had no effect anyway. What are your thoughts on that because again I'm getting completely mixed stories about it from members of her family in the UK, one says they don't use any more and another say's they know someone who it just worked for, so.... you can see my problem I would very much like to know other peoples recent experiences in the system there in England, (particularly in the south around Oxford) what do you think?.. Help please

We live in France and have done for the past 7 years. My wife (45) is suffering a very bad bout of depression and panic attacks. At times she is suicidal although she has never seriously damaged herself. She has had several bouts in the past (starting when her daughter was born 23 years ago) the last one being about 10 years ago after a hysterectomy when we lived in England. At that time she was treated with antidepressants etc at home by our GP with nothing else being offered. A very difficult process which put a great strain on the whole family for a long time. This time she is in hospital here in France but after 2 years now is still in a specialist clinic with very good nurses and a good psychiatrist who sees her every day and adjusts treatment as necessary. She gets a certain amount of occupational thearapy, although I think that’s one area that could be improved on, but the grounds are lovely with good wooded walks etc. She has in the last 2 years had just about every antidepressant and anti anxiety treatment available, some working for a short while. She has been home several times in 2006 but not for more than a few weeks before she shot back down again. In 2007 she entered hospital on the 5th of Jan and is still in there.
Her family are telling me to bring her back to the UK because the treatment is now better than in France, but they can give me no proof. My point is that here she is receiving very good treatment in a nice calm caring enviroment. If I move her back to England it will wreck our lives here and put a heavy financial strain on us, but I will do it if it gets her better.
I should point out perhaps, that for the last 6 months she has been in a dedicated psychiatric clinic in the south of France, but we live in the north. I moved her because of our sector, she was in a psychiatric ward of a general hospital before, which was sometimes chaos because of the mixture of different illness’s all mixed up together. So as you can see it’s not like it’s easy here as I am staying down here to visit daily and driving back (11 hours) home for few days every so often to keep things running.
The doctor is muting E.C.T but my wife has a horror of it because she had it before in UK, true it was 23 years ago, but it was badly done and had no effect anyway. What are your thoughts on that because again I'm getting completely mixed stories about it from members of her family in the UK, one says they don't use any more and another say's they know someone who it just worked for, so.... you can see my problem I would very much like to know other peoples recent experiences in the system there in England, (particularly in the south around Oxford) what do you think?.. Help please
