TMS Specialist

Neurological Institute of Los Angeles

Private Medical Practices located in Los Angeles, CA & Tarzana, CA

The electrical activity in your brain affects your mental and physical health, so it stands to reason that a treatment that boosts nerve signals can improve your health. That’s exactly how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) works. The team at the Neurological Institute of Los Angeles offer TMS to their patients who need help with a range of conditions, from depression to neuropathy and chronic pain. To learn how noninvasive TMS may alleviate your symptoms, call one of the offices in Los Angeles, or Glendale, California, or book an appointment online today.

TMS Q&A

What is TMS?

TMS is a safe and noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic pulses to change nerve activity in specific areas of your brain. Repetitive magnetic pulses either stimulate or calm down electrical activity in your brain, depending on the frequency used during your treatment.

TMS is routinely used at a frequency that stimulates nerve activity. This treatment normalizes brain chemicals associated with psychological disorders and modifies neural circuits associated with pain signals.

The team at Neurological Institute of Los Angeles recommends TMS when mental health issues and certain neurological and pain conditions fail to improve with medications and other conservative treatments.

What mental health conditions does TMS treat?

TMS has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating depression since 2008. More recently, the FDA cleared TMS for obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar depression.

However, doctors use the treatment for a variety of conditions because brain imaging and electroencephalograms (EEG) reveal electrical activity inside the brain, showing that TMS improves brain activity along with the patient’s symptoms.

TMS helps to improve the symptoms caused by:

Major depression
Treatment-resistant depression
Bipolar depression
Anxiety disorders

TMS also alleviates anxiety and depression caused by conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

What neurological conditions improve with TMS?

Though TMS is a new treatment for neurological disorders, studies have confirmed that it improves chronic pain caused by many underlying conditions, such as fibromyalgia.

Recent studies also show promising results for using TMS to relieve the symptoms of several neurological disorders, including:

Chronic pain
Neuropathy
Migraine headaches
Alzheimer’s disease
Post-concussion syndrome
Treatment-resistant diabetic neuropathy
Epilepsy

Epilepsy is an example of a condition that uses low-intensity TMS to calm the brain and prevent focal seizures.

What should I expect during TMS treatment?

During your treatment, you sit in a comfortable chair and relax while your provider at the Neurological Institute of Los Angeles positions the TMS device next to your head, directing the magnetic pulse to the targeted area of your brain.

As the device sends out repetitive magnetic pulses, you hear clicks and may feel a tingling or tapping sensation on your scalp. In your initial sessions, TMS may cause a headache, but it’s easily treated with over-the-counter medications and usually goes away after a few sessions.

Each session lasts about 20-40 minutes, and most patients get a series of five treatments each week for 4-6 weeks.

If you would like to learn more about TMS, call the Neurological Institute of Los Angeles or schedule an appointment online.