
Treat Depression with the Fisher Wallace Stimulator? - evilsimon
http://www.fisherwallace.com/pages/depression-treatment
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lingben
> Stimulates the Brain to Produce Serotonin

except that the serotonin model of depression has been disproven without a
shadow of a doubt:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISptt3CRAqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISptt3CRAqc)

the device may have some effect as placebo but if that's what you're going
for, there are many other cheaper alternatives

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themodelplumber
> except that the serotonin model of depression has been disproven without a
> shadow of a doubt

Serious? Man, that would probably piss a lot of people off. Is this like air
quotes "disproven" or a pretty solid actual seal of peer-reviewed disproval?

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Havoc
Given that it's a YouTube link I'm going to go with not peer-reviewed.

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shkkmo
...and you would be wrong. The papers he references in his talk are peer
reviewed. The lecture, of course, is not :)

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daenz
Does it make me paranoid that a red flag for me is that this site seems to be
trying extremely hard to look legitimate?

    
    
      * BBB seal
      * "FDA cleared"
      * Harvard and NYU name drops
      * CBS, Fox, Wall Street journal

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duaneb
It's 99% the BBB seal, I think, which is basically a membership of people who
pay to get that certificate. It's entirely meaningless. It's right up there
with the "NORTON SECURE" certificates you see all over the place on sites that
have no idea what they're doing.

Frankly, though, this is a medical device, and I want all the resources I can
find on how effective it is. It'd be far more worrying not to have "FDA
cleared" on it, for example.

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olivermarks
That's a really depressing piece of industrial design for $699

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SrslyJosh
"20 minutes twice a day"

Or you could spend that time exercising, which costs less and has other
benefits.

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ars
Someone depressed is not going to exercise, it's just not going to happen.

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derefr
We really need a specific term for "thing that gets you well enough to be able
to follow the regular advice people give."

This is technically the meaning of "crutch", but somehow that has acquired a
negative connotation. Maybe something like "bootstrapping treatment"—something
that allows you to pull yourself up to the regular treatments.

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shkkmo
This is not a new device, just a new re-branding of an existing CES device:

"Invented by brilliant engineers Saul and Bernard Liss in the 1980's, the
Fisher Wallace Stimulator® received FDA clearance in 1991 for the treatment of
insomnia, anxiety, depression and pain. "

"After Dr. Liss passed away in 2006 at the age of 84, Charles Fisher and
Martin Wallace purchased the patents to the device and named it the Fisher
Wallace Stimulator®."

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mikelyons
What I want to know is, by what method is it stimulating my brain? Is it just
a vibrator?

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michaelmior
> The device delivers mild electrical stimulation to the brain through sponge
> electrodes placed above the sideburns. When used on the head, the device has
> been shown in medical studies to stimulate the production of neurochemicals,
> such as serotonin, GABA and endorphins, which are responsible for improving
> mood and sleep and suppressing chronic pain.

~~~
derefr
In other words—given that it's attached to your temples—it probably just gives
you a bit of Electrical Stimulation Therapy that relaxes the jaw muscles
running through the area, thus somewhat alleviating the subclinical TMJ most
people have, and thus temporarily eliminating the resultant low-level chronic
headaches people with TMJ get. This would feel good; feeling good releases
endorphins.

(This is also why people massaging your temples makes _some_ headaches go
away. Those headache are TMJ.)

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jacobsimon
pretty sure that's a stud detector

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tach1k0ma
_holds device to self_

... Yep, you're right.

