St. John Mental Health Clinic of Houston
N/a Houston Office
St John Mental Health Clinic of Houston Copyright © St. John Mental Health Clinic of Houston. 2025 | All rights reserved.
If you are looking for a treatment that will work to relieve your depression when other methods have failed, consider MagVenture TMS therapy. TMS stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation, a different kind of depression treatment.
At St. John Mental Health Clinic, we offer hope to candidates for MagVenture TMS therapy in Houston who cannot find a satisfactory treatment for their depression through antidepressants and talk therapy. Dr. Martha St. John, board-certified psychiatrist, has treated depression with TMS therapy since it was first cleared by the FDA in 2013. Using this form of treatment, she has helped many patients find freedom from depression.
MagVenture TMS therapy uses magnets to generate alternating magnetic fields that create tiny electrical impulses in the treated area of your brain. These impulses reawaken dormant or dysfunctional nerves and synapses (nerve connections) to bring back a normal, non-depressed mood for candidates in Houston.
TMS treats only the area of your brain that controls your mood without disturbing the rest of your brain or body. This means it has very few to no side effects.
Treatments are done while you are awake and completely comfortable. There is no need for anesthesia and no downtime after a treatment session. Depending on your treatment protocol, a treatment will take five to twenty minutes.
TMS therapy can help many people who live with treatment-resistant depression, but only some people are appropriate candidates. First, patients need to have failed to find an antidepressant or medication combination that works to relieve their major depressive disorder (MDD). Depression is considered treatment-resistant when patients either don’t respond to antidepressant medication or find their medication’s side effects intolerable, even if the meds worked to treat depression.
Most, if not all, research on the use of TMS in depression has been done on patients who failed to find relief using at least two to three antidepressant medications and have been given the diagnosis of treatment-resistant depression. To date, FDA clearance for the use of TMS in treating depression has included the need to be treatment resistant.
Usually, a candidate for TMS therapy is at least 18 years old. The FDA recently cleared some TMS therapy protocols as an add-on treatment for adolescent major depression when other therapies do not completely relieve their depression.
Some reasons you may not be a good candidate for MagVenture TMS in Houston include:
At your first consultation with Dr. St. John, she will discuss your past medical and family history to evaluate whether you are a suitable candidate for TMS therapy.
Recent case reports and small studies show that TMS can be safely used for pregnant women with major depression that does not respond to other treatments. The magnets are placed far away from the developing baby, and the magnetic stimulation does not travel throughout the body. TMS is not like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as it does not induce an entire brain and body seizure. The magnetic field strength generated by the TMS device is far below the safety limits recommended for pregnant women, and no radiation is involved. TMS therapy can also treat postpartum depression.
Most adult patients with treatment-resistant depression are candidates for MagVenture TMS therapy in Houston. Adolescents 15 or older could also add TMS therapy to their care plan when medications and talk therapy are not proving to be entirely effective. Make an appointment today to determine if TMS therapy at St. John Mental Health Clinic can help you. With its great ability to treat depression, MagVenture TMS therapy may be the treatment you have been searching for.
St. John Mental Health Clinic of Houston
N/a 
Copyright © St. John Mental Health Clinic of Houston. 2025 | All rights reserved.