What to do when another pannic attack occurs

[Juli363]

I experienced my first panic attack last week and I am scared to death that it will happen again.I think I'm driving myself crazy just thinking about it. Doctor put me on Paxil, could someone please give me some advice on how to handle the situation if it occurs again? If I feel like I did last week, I feel like I am dying and I know it scares my husband, what should he do? Thanks

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

You might ask your doctor for some additional xanax that is quick acting and you can take if you feel an attack coming on. In the meantime, see a therapist and work out the underlying anxieties and pressures that build to become a panic attack.

[julesie]

I have been suffering from Panic Disorder/agoraphobia for over a year...the only advice I can give you is to stick with your paxil and to go to psychotherapy.  The combination of medication and therapy are the only real solution.  I used to have several attacks per day, I now might get one per week.  Although it's not over yet, I am much better now and can only tell you that patience is a big part of this.  You & your husband should educate yourselves more on the disorder.  There is a great deal of info on the internet.  Yes it may feel like you're crazy or dying but believe me, you're neither.  If you feel an attack coming on, try breathing deeply & slowly or concentrating on something, like the second hand of a clock...pinch yourself, you'd be surprised how it snaps you back into reality!

[jerry78]

I suffered with panic disorder for a year.  Cognitive therapy (talk therapy), along with Xanax helped greatly.  You do need to find a therapist that is well-versed in panic disorder and will do talk therapy.  Simply taking a pill will not get to the root of the problem. I   also recommend a book called THE ANXIETY DISEASE by Dr. Sheehan.  Out of all the books I read on panic, and I read many of them, this book is THE BIBLE of Panic disorder.  It is even used by many mental health doctors...Good Luck

[Peagee]

New Statesman Special Report    Monday 11th March 2002
Drug companies, depression and antidepressants.  The rebranding of a disease.   Jerome Burne
“Should we trust the scientific data on the effects of drugs? Not if the case of depression, for which pharmaceutical companies found a new definition, is anything to go by.”

If the directors of drug companies are in the habit of taking their own medicines, then consumption of anti-depressants in their boardrooms should have soared last month. Not least to show solidarity in the face of growing concerns that Prozac-type anti-depression drugs, one of the biggest pharmaceutical success stories of the past decade, may be not only dangerous to some, but also addictive. The magazine Health Which? came out with a warning that patients being offered anti-depressants were often not told "about issues such as withdrawal problems or . . . a possible risk of increased suicidal  behaviour", and the Royal College of Psychiatrists issued new guidelines, saying that only 50 per cent of patients would be "much  improved" after taking anti-depressants, which is little better than a placebo.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the issue of addiction was highlighted when the Food and Drug Administration ordered the company GlaxoSmithKline to warn doctors prescribing the drug Seroxat about the possibility of dependency. The company was also found in breach of the industry code by describing problems with withdrawal as "very rare". All of this came in the wake of a court case last June, brought by the family of a man who, a few days after being put on the drug for sleeping problems, had shot his daughter, his grandchildren and then himself. The court agreed with the family's claim that Seroxat (one of a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) had contributed to his behaviour, and awarded them $6.4m. This was the second case linking SSRIs with suicide to come to court, but more than 200 have been settled out of court.

What makes this all the more alarming is that the drugs involved are so widely used - prescriptions for all SSRIs in the UK run at about 10 million. They are increasingly prescribed for a wide variety of  conditions, such as skin complaints, pre- menstrual tension, weight loss and attention-deficit disorder. But it also raises the more important and wider question:  can we trust the drug companies? Or is there a strong possibility that their business practices could leave both doctors and patients with no way of telling just how safe or effective our medications are?

When it comes to spin, the drug companies make the government look clumsy and amateurish. At the heart of the worries over SSRIs is the growing belief that the drug companies have been less than honest in  their account of the risks involved. But it is not just SSRIs that are given a positive gloss when the evidence points the other way. In January, for instance, Swiss prosecutors began a criminal inquiry into the pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG, "on suspicion of fraud and grievous bodily damage", following the recall last year of the cholesterol-lowering drug cerivastatin (otherwise known as Lipobay in Europe and Baycol in the US). The prosecutors are accusing Bayer of suppressing vital information about the drug's potentially fatal interaction with another drug, which has been linked to more than 50 deaths.

Could the drug companies do such a thing? The editors of the world's top 11 medical journals, including the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, certainly think so. Last September, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors issued a joint statement calling for more openness in the way drug companies report their results and less readiness to hide unfavourable ones. The editors declared that they will now "require authors to attest that they had full access to all of the data in [a] study and . . . [to] take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis".  The point about having "full access to all of the data" is crucial, because it lies at the root of how science works. Only if they can look at the raw data are other scientists able to judge how reasonable is the interpretation. But all too often, the results from drug trials are presented in the form of tables, and the drug companies refuse access to the raw data on the grounds that it is commercially sensitive.

However, the concerns of the journal editors on this point were clearly not enough. In February, the UK's National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) claimed "drug companies have successfully withheld important data". Gauging the efficacy of a drug is fraught with problems, declared Dr Iain Chalmers of the Cochrane Centre, an organisation set up to evaluate the efficacy of medical treatments, "because negative results are rarely published in medical journals". The moral vacuum that results from constant spinning is threatening to suck in not just the academics who are paid to do the work for drug companies, but the whole process of scientific medicine. In an article last September entitled "Dancing with the porcupine", the Canadian Medical Association Journal attempted to set out some principles that ought to apply when pharmaceutical companies are funding academics. The authors start by recognising that such alliances are inherently tricky:  "The duty of the universities is to seek the truth. The duty of the pharmaceutical companies is to make money." But, and this is the important bit, "if either abandons its fundamental mission, it ultimately fails". A broke drug company or a discredited academic is no use to anyone.

The attempt to hammer out some sort of guidelines was set against the background of at least two highly publicised Canadian cases where drug companies had used "intimidating tactics" that had "profoundly affected” researchers’ lives. One involved a lawsuit by Bristol-Myers Squibb against the Canadian Co-ordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment to suppress a report on the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins. The other was the legal threat by AstraZeneca against a researcher at Ontario's McMaster University for her review of medications for stomach disorders. Even if matters don't get as far as the courts, "industry funding creates an incentive to promote the positive and suppress the negative", says the journal. An example is the "landmark article" showing that  industry-sponsored research into certain heart drugs is more likely to  be supportive of their use than is independently funded research. The conclusion argues for the drawing up of some sort of industry/university contract containing clauses giving academics the right to "disclose potentially harmful clinical effects immediately", for a surcharge on contracts to fund a regulatory body, for the setting up of an ombudsman, and so on.

All very well and good, but getting regulatory bodies to respond to concerns about some drugs can be hard work. That, at least, has been the experience of the psychiatrist Dr David Healy who, since 1999, has been engaged in extensive correspondence with the UK's Medicines Control Agency (MCA) over the links between SSRIs, suicide and addiction. Their exchange of letters now runs to more than 100 pages, with the majority of that coming from Healy. As of last month, the agency's position is that there is no cause for concern and that all the warnings that are needed are in place. What makes Healy's campaign of particular interest is, first, that he's no maverick, driven by a belief in herbs or the healing power of madness. He is a mainstream biological psychiatrist and director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine in Bangor, he has written a highly acclaimed history of anti-depressants - The Anti-depressant Era, published by Harvard University Press - and he is the author of more than 100 scientific papers. But he is concerned that patients and the profession are not being told the truth about the risks. His campaign also gains added weight from his experience as an expert witness in two American court cases involving suicide and SSRIs. As a result, he has seen previously unpublished data on trials carried out by the drug companies on healthy volunteers. His analysis of the secret data, the sort that drug companies usually refuse to release, shows that about 25 per cent of healthy volunteers given the drug had some sort of unpleasant psychological reaction. "That suggests that the likelihood of someone committing suicide during their first month of treatment with Prozac is ten times greater than if they were untreated," he says. "That is a level of risk approaching that of a smoker's likelihood of developing lung cancer."

This suggests an astonishing gap between what the drug companies say publicly and what their own data shows. As a striking illustration of this gap between secret and public knowledge, Healy is fond of quoting a story from an American newspaper, the Boston Globe, which appeared in May 2000. It concerned a new form of Prozac, known as R-fluoxetine, which had been patented in 1993 (US patent no 5,708,035) and which Eli Lilly planned to market when the existing patent ran out in 2002. A patent application requires that you say why your new version is an improvement. So what were the benefits of R-fluoxetine? "It will not produce several existing side effects, including akathsia (akathisia) [agitation], suicidal thoughts and self-mutilation . . . one of its [Prozac's] more significant side effects" - precisely the side effects that the company had been denying for a decade.But such information has not set any alarm bells ringing at the Medicines Control Agency. In September 2000, months after the revelation about the patent for a new, non-suicidal Prozac, the agency put out a fresh statement saying that there was no evidence of a link between suicide and SSRIs. Then, in the wake of the large damages award last June, Healy sent yet another long letter detailing his concerns, based on an analysis of the secret data. It was December before the agency replied with a letter, which basically said that all was well, although the issue was being kept under review.

The commercial spinning of results and the apparent indifference of the regulatory agencies are bad enough, but it is Healy's belief that something even more insidious has been going on - something that demonstrates even more vividly the virtually unfettered power of the drug companies to spin not just results, but the way both patients and physicians think about depression.

We are all in favour of marketing these days - political parties, magazines, charities are all regularly rebranded - but is it acceptable to rebrand a disease? We are not talking about a campaign to bring a disease or a condition out of the closet - "I'm incontinent and proud of it". Healy's claim is that there has been a deliberate campaign by drug companies to change our image of depression for the sake of sales of anti-depressant drugs. Fifteen years ago, depression was viewed as a severe mental condition that often required hospitalisation, while anxiety, sadness, worries about social situations and feeling tired all the time were considered milder conditions and treated with tranquillisers such as Valium. With the arrival of SSRIs, tranquillisers fell heavily out of favour because they had been shown to be addictive. In their place were SSRIs - safe, non-addictive and effective. The one psychopharmacological fact everyone became familiar with was that serotonin is the brain's feel-good chemical: too little of it and you feel blue, worried, down, depressed.  SSRIs increase the amount of serotonin available in the brain."The only problem with this story," Healy told an audience at the Institute of Psychiatry in London in February "is that there are no studies proving that serotonin levels have anything to do with depression."

He can speak with some authority on this because, before moving to Bangor, he was researching serotonin receptors at the Department of Psychiatry at Addenbrooke's, Cambridge. "SSRIs can certainly have an effect on mood, and for some people they are very effective. But we don't really understand how they work, and it is not by directly changing serotonin levels."  When SSRIs were launched, they were described as anti- depressants to distinguish them from the addictive tranquillisers. But there was a marketing problem. They weren't actually effective in treating classic depression. What was needed was for them to become the drug of choice for the people previously given tranquillisers. The key to this was the notion that low levels of serotonin were a problem that could be treated as a deficiency disorder, on a par with having low levels of a vitamin or mineral. That old-fashioned benzodiazepines, such as Valium, had dealt with these anxiety disorders by affecting an entirely different brain chemical, known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), was simply
ignored.

Obviously there is an overlap between anxiety and depression, and maybe some redrawing of the boundaries is appropriate, but the point is that what has happened here has nothing to do with research. In fact, there is good evidence that much of what passes for scientific research on SSRIs by the drug companies is nothing of the sort because of the lack of access to raw data. Healy's solution to this problem is more democratic than setting up yet more regulatory committees. He wants to involve a group of people not often considered in these debates - the patients. Or, to be more precise, those patients who volunteer to take part in the drug companies' clinical trials. At the moment, they have no control over the results of the treatments they submit themselves to, often for free. So instead of contracts between drug companies and universities, how about one between the volunteers and the company running the trial? In return for participating for free, subjects should, at the very least, be given the right to see the results and probably also the right to have some say about the purpose of the trial.  That way, a number of studies might get done that would actually be in the patients' interests rather than just the drug companies'.

For instance, even though the suicide issue has been discussed since the early 1990s, there has never been a trial specifically to test it. Nor have there been any studies to distinguish which patients benefit from which anti-depressants. Healy's own studies involving giving SSRIs to healthy volunteers have found that certain personality types - as established by questionnaire - seemed to do better than others on them. Teasing out those differences could make prescribing a far less hit-and-miss affair than it is at present. The recently publicised issues of dependency and withdrawal have not been tested properly either, because the companies have always denied that there is a problem. Making patients partners in the trials, rather than just clinical fodder, could restore a genuine spirit of scientific inquiry. The result could be far more accurate information about the safety and effectiveness of our drugs than the spun results on which both doctors and patients have to rely at the moment.

[DoubleMSenior]

I've suffered from Anxiety Disorder for 17 years.  I was first on Paxil, but then was switched to Celexa and Buspar (to additionally treat depression).  I am a 30 year old female.

I only recently started cognitive therapy and treatment, because I felt embarrassed and ran the gamut of feeling I was the only one with this problem.  I never really knew there were medications and help...

For years I would panic at high school football games, social dances, dates, parties.  I never had a good time.  Getting through it and getting it over with was the "good time" for me.

I urge anyone who may be at the onset of anxiety disorders to seek help.  I may have gotten help "late" but not too late.  It's never too late to get rid of the anxiety and panic...It's a whole new life for me now!

Good luck.

DoubleMSenior

[Peagee]

I'm very glad to hear it works for you and all the best to you :)  But everyone is different and some people are going to find that the effects of the drugs are disabling and far worse than the reason they took them in the first place, but at least now they can make their own informed choice, rather than rely on one side of the picture (if they are lucky enough not to already be in that predicament).   A lot of hospitals are now having to deal with patients suspected of heart attacks, strokes, MS, brain tumours, etc who are actually suffering from side effects of drugs.  And its important that people learn the negative sides of what they are about to take IN ADDITION to hearing about the positives.  In some cases disclosure of facts can literally mean the difference between life and death.  

Hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Paula

[Tootsy831]

Sorry I haven't been on computer much lately..I hope you are feeling a little better by now from you Panic Attacks..I know they can be horrible..I ended up at the ER almost 16yrs ago when I first started to get them, I actually thought I was dying..Since then I have come a long way with the panic disorder, I still get them now and then, but know better how to handle them..I also see a therapist monthly for anxiety/depression/panic disorder/agorphobia..I also take Xanax which has really helped with the panic problem..But it is good to read the books as mentioned above, it helped me know that I wasn't the only one experiencing them..I also learned how to control them better..I still go back and check my book now and then when I start to get too many too close together - it really does help..
Best of Luck to you....Please post and let us know how you are doing.........Take Care.........

[niffy]

my father (58) years has been suffering from depression for the past 20 years. He was on anfranil for some time and for the past 4 years he has been on seroxat (paxil). He has panic attacks almost daily...he was put on ativan and valium in combination with seroxat. He is now trying to taper off seroxat by taking 10mg every other day.(he was initially on 20mg). we find him terribly irritable with a very bad temper. His panic attacks are also returning quite frequently. Is there anyway we could help him to make this tapering off period better for him? or does he really need medication? cuold someone help me advice him and guide him. The psychiatrists in this country aer opf no help.

[Peagee]

Just popped by to see how the board is doing LOL and so am answering you (LOL, I wasn't going to come here for a while yet and won't be back here often now).  I guess you're in the UK?  Cos you're calling it Seroxat.  I'm from the UK too.  Here's my site - it has an Information Site about UK stuff on Seroxat (Paxil) (as well as stuff on the American side).  
http://paxilsupport.homestead.com/Index.html  
Have a rummage round in there - there's the UK lawyers dealing with a group action, and references to David Healy are there - he's based in North Wales.  You can email me at   paula.***@****    
if you think I can help with anything (I'll try).   The anger and stuff are a very common withdrawal symptom.  The panic attacks MIGHT be what I call "wired up" feeling, and what I believe is termed AKATHISIA. Anyway, email me if I can help at all.

All the best.
Paula

[Anoif]

Juli363,

Sorry to hear about the panic attack.  I remember my first and how frightening it was.  

I don't want to discuss drugs since it appears to be a minefield and I have no expertise in that area.  I can recommend some cognitive programs which I found really helpful however.  The best to my mind is Lucinda Basset's "Overcoming Anxiety and Depression" program.  It consists of about 20 cassettes and comes out of the MidWest center for Anxiety.  Its quite expensive (about 400 $ but is very powerful and worth every penny). Other books are "What to say when you talk to yourself" and "The Panic and Anxiety Workbook by Bourne"

From the therapy that I have had, the best methods I've learned of getting through or averting a panic attack are as follows:

1. Breathing: breathing from the diaphragm slowly as soon as the symptoms start.  There is a technique called square breathing you could check out (4 counts in, hold for 4 counts, 5 counts out and wait 4 counts) or variations on that theme.  I know it sounds hokey but it really helps.

2. Self-talk: when I feel one starting I have a choice: either to freak out further because I think I'm about to have a panic attack, or to calm myself down.  So obviously I choose the latter.  Nobody has died of a panic attack.  Its just an overdose of adrenalin in your body.  It will pass.  There are tools to control it.  You are not going to die (I know it feels that way).  You could write out on a card the negative thoughts you have when it starts and counter them with rational positive thinking.  This is not telling yourself stories.  Its the negative thinking and feat that are irrational. You can't die from a panic attack!

3. Certain lifestyle choices can help or hinder your progress. Alcohol and refined sugars are not good for panic or anxiety. Caffeine is an absolute no-no. Exercise and relaxation/mediation are good.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can do for yourself, other subjects to research are positive thinking, managing expectations and positive visualisation.

Your meds should help you short term but I know I wanted to get a better handle on why this was happening and how to modify my behavior so that I felt in control. These methods along with therapy helped.  I am also part of a support group which has been so great.

I felt like such a freak when it first started - like I was failing and that I had to hide and be embarassed about what was going on.  Now I know that everybody has anxiety and its just a question of degree.  Mine seems to be very easy to trigger so I have put in some safety valves.  The other people I have met in the support group are all particularly caring, sensitive and intelligent people and many are extremely successful so don't beat up on yourself.

Its not an easy path but I celebrate every improvement and appear to have changed for the better.

These are my opinions and I have no professional knowledge but I hope this helps and encourages you.  

[vinny1951]

10 years ago I had my first panic attack. In my case it came because of an MRI test in which I was enclosed in a plastic tube. I just freaked and cursed at them to let me out.

Since then I have learned as much as possible about them. I always carry xanax for emergencies. In my case it is the fear of having another one which causes me the most problems. Whenever I am in a situation where I can not easily escape I start feeling the beginings of a panic attack. I could not even take an elevator and in moving my company I chose low floors in the buildings so that I could take the stairs. I drive even though it is much cheaper, faster and more convenient to take an express bus because I can not be on a bus or train or plane.

What I have learned is that panic attacks can not hurt you. I do deep breathing when I feel an attack coming on. By understanding what is happening to you it is much easier to bear. I had my second panic attack on an airplane before I had xanax. As soon as they shut those doors I wanted to bolt from my seat, push the attendant out of the way, open the door and jump to freedom. My thought process went something like this:

If I give in to my attack I will look like such a fool and crazy person in front of all these people. If I just sit here nothing will happen at all. I will just feel weird. I then took my mind off of it by reading and it worked. It still works for me when I am in elevators and have even been stuck in them 3 times (which is why I carry xanax with me). Luckily I single handedly was able to push my way to the front and open the doors and get everyone out. I have never been stuck for longer than 15 minutes. I thought that I was bad in that situation but others in the elevator were screaming and crying. I looked around and I was the calmest person in the elevator and I was the one with the fear of them.

Anyways, just having the xanax available helps and I strongely suggest that you learn what causes them and what is going on with your body. If you can convince yourself that nothing bad will happen from a panic attack that will go a long way to making your feel better and reducing or eliminating the attacks. As a testiment to what I say I have a huge backlog of xanax sitting in my medicine cabinet because I have gotten so much better that I rarely need a pill anymore.

[Fergie]

Living with panic attacks is hell on earth. The fore going are just some things that I observed about the reason and control of them. First, came the subconscious feeling of "abandonment" underlying my attacks. I fainted in school during my parents divorce and all that entailed, and refused to go back for months for fear of fainting again.  And there started the "fainting in public" syndrome. And when I found myself alone or even with people in a crowded place, my mind would start taking me where I dreaded going. I'd start worrying about it and I would begin to feel the sweat popping out, heart galloping and all the other symptoms.

There's no point in going into my life as a panic-ee. At 35 with 6 children, I went thru a stage where I couldn't grocery shop - good old agraphobia and some nights I would be in bed and feel an attack coming and my husband would have to sit up with me for hours until I could feel it passing.  In the meantime,I would sit there practically comotose rocking.

ONe night we were going out to a dance and I was spending the afternoon getting the kids ready for the sitter etc when I felt it coming on again.  I had had it!!!  I threw myself on the bed and yelled, "Come on, come and get me!  You *%@#* come on and make me faint or lose it, I don't give a damn! I know it won't make me die so come on and do your thing!!!  I just laid there and suddenly felt it all going away.  I'd beat the monster down!

My take on the panic attack is that when you're somewhere and  start consciously or subconsciously getting the thought, it  just takes over and the ADRENALIN starts pumping and gushing. That is the culprit.  Next time you feel an attack coming on, say to yourself "it's just me making myself pump adrenalin.  I know the cause and so I'm not scared and the attack will go away" You just have to throw up your hands and say "come and get me, but I know who you are and I'm not going to help you pump!" Lie or sit quietly and look it in the face and don't fight.

I was able to stop my 25 years of disabling panic attacks, but I'm not saying you are me or all panic attacks are alike.  In my life, I've found that it's pills side effects that have caused me problems.  I still have a chemical imbalance and bouts of cyclic depression every month and would love to feel joy with life always, but ALL the Prozak and Zoloft and every sample in her closet made me get more depressed so that cross I have to bear, but if I still had panic attacks, too.......

Who knows, my solution might help one or two people.  The doctors won't agree with me as it's too simplistic, but I've wanted to tell people about this that might benefit and now I have.  I don't even know who will see this, but my thoughts are with all sufferers of full blown panic attacks.

[themexican]

I HAD MY FIRST PANICK ATTACK WHEN I WAS ABOUT 16 OR 17 AFTER I HAD SOME EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS INVOLVING DEAD PEOPLE AND HUMAN BONES I SAW BUT I'M OVERCOMING ALL THAT WITHOUT MEDISINE COUSE I DISCOVERED THAT MEDICINE ONLY SLOW DOWN MY BRAIN NOT WORKING REAL GOOD INSTEAD WHEN I'M ABOUT TO HAVE A PANIC ATTACK I SAY TO MY SELF "DON'T BE SUCH A @#**@# FEEL LIKE DYING SO EVERY ELSE IS GOING TO DIE AND IF YOU KEEP DOING THIS YOU'LL JUST BE DEAD ALIVE SO GET F*** UP AND TAKE A COLD SHOWER" AND I DO THAT I STILL HAVE SOME PHOBIAS NOTHING REAL SERIOUS YOU SHOULD TRY THIS

[mad horse]

Dear panick people,  I have just had my first panick attack, which led me to hyperventelate, think i was dieing, say good bye to my husband and my children, and be taken away in an ambulance, left in hospital for three days, had an abdominal operation, pumped with pethadine and was told by one nurse that i was a mad cow, and the doctor told me to see a physco.  If that is any good for your nerves then the doctors and hosptial staff certainly overloaded me with extra anxiety, which kept me having more panick attacks, thinking i was dieing, and i seemed to snow ball into thinking i was going insane.  If it wasn't for the internet, i would have continued to think i was going insane, which would have led me to more panick attacks, and more anxiety.  I have been out of the hospital for two days now, and i am still getting cramping legs, dissyness, heart palpertations, and i feel like my head does'nt belong to me anymore.  However after just reading some of your stories, i am trying to rectify how i feel, and its great to know that i am not the only one that has been taken away in an ambulance, for these attacks.  My poor husband has certainly put up with it all now.  I still don't think i am up to looking after two kids on my own just yet, but i think i am starting to understand what is happening to me.  One thing that i read off the internet that has helped me to understand is saying that my brain has just injected 20 cups of coffee into my blood stream, and i will say to myself that i will pee it out later.  A also went and saw my Gp who, has put me on a simular drug to prozac, i have'nt taken it yet, as i feel that i am still coming down off the pethadine they gave me in hospital.  However i believe it is a chemical imbalance in my brain which sends out too much adrenaline into my blood stream.  This is not going to stop me doing anything i have already told myself that.  I have just purchased a lovely big house, have my horses at home with me, have a caring husband and two great kids, i am not going to let a little bit of adrenaline F---- my life now.  And even though i have never really been a person who likes going out much, i am going to face this head on.  Thanks for all of you out there who has written your thoughts down on the internet, you have helped me so much.  If i get panicky, i just hook up on the net, and keep reading, this is helping me for now.  As i am a horse trainer, i know alot about fight and flight responses in animals, and about training.  When i train my horses i have to repeat the same sequence of training and thought pattern in my training, to get the horse to over ride his own fight and flight mechanisum, and to listen and trust me.  It takes about 10,000 reps before the horse listens to me without thing of fleeing first.  I think this is the same for us to, except now i have to train my own brain to listen to my own brain, so i don't panick  and have another attack.  I will just keep on repeating that this is not going to kill me, its just an override of a natural response, and i must learn to control how i feel.  Now keep repeating that into your brain 10,000reps.  I have also read that vitamin c b and iron will also help rebalance the brains receptors.  I must admit before this event happened i was always thinking of looking after every body else, except myself.  Sorry now i am going to look after myself first, the family is going to come second for a while...........

[mad horse]

Dear panick people,  I have just had my first panick attack, which led me to hyperventelate, think i was dieing, say good bye to my husband and my children, and be taken away in an ambulance, left in hospital for three days, had an abdominal operation, pumped with pethadine and was told by one nurse that i was a mad cow, and the doctor told me to see a physco.  If that is any good for your nerves then the doctors and hosptial staff certainly overloaded me with extra anxiety, which kept me having more panick attacks, thinking i was dieing, and i seemed to snow ball into thinking i was going insane.  If it wasn't for the internet, i would have continued to think i was going insane, which would have led me to more panick attacks, and more anxiety.  I have been out of the hospital for two days now, and i am still getting cramping legs, dissyness, heart palpertations, and i feel like my head does'nt belong to me anymore.  However after just reading some of your stories, i am trying to rectify how i feel, and its great to know that i am not the only one that has been taken away in an ambulance, for these attacks.  My poor husband has certainly put up with it all now.  I still don't think i am up to looking after two kids on my own just yet, but i think i am starting to understand what is happening to me.  One thing that i read off the internet that has helped me to understand is saying that my brain has just injected 20 cups of coffee into my blood stream, and i will say to myself that i will pee it out later.  A also went and saw my Gp who, has put me on a simular drug to prozac, i have'nt taken it yet, as i feel that i am still coming down off the pethadine they gave me in hospital.  However i believe it is a chemical imbalance in my brain which sends out too much adrenaline into my blood stream.  This is not going to stop me doing anything i have already told myself that.  I have just purchased a lovely big house, have my horses at home with me, have a caring husband and two great kids, i am not going to let a little bit of adrenaline F---- my life now.  And even though i have never really been a person who likes going out much, i am going to face this head on.  Thanks for all of you out there who has written your thoughts down on the internet, you have helped me so much.  If i get panicky, i just hook up on the net, and keep reading, this is helping me for now.  As i am a horse trainer, i know alot about fight and flight responses in animals, and about training.  When i train my horses i have to repeat the same sequence of training and thought pattern in my training, to get the horse to over ride his own fight and flight mechanisum, and to listen and trust me.  It takes about 10,000 reps before the horse listens to me without thing of fleeing first.  I think this is the same for us to, except now i have to train my own brain to listen to my own brain, so i don't panick  and have another attack.  I will just keep on repeating that this is not going to kill me, its just an override of a natural response, and i must learn to control how i feel.  Now keep repeating that into your brain 10,000reps.  I have also read that vitamin c b and iron will also help rebalance the brains receptors.  I must admit before this event happened i was always thinking of looking after every body else, except myself.  Sorry now i am going to look after myself first, the family is going to come second for a while...........

[Unnilhexium]

It is normal to suffer from panic attacks along with alucinations? (visual and sound ones). It has happened to me many times and I've told this to my doctor, but she hasn't said anything about it?. I was diagnosed of a bipolar disorder within other things, may be a wrong diagnosis, or an incomplete one?

This happens to me specially when I'm alone or going to sleeping, but also sitting in front of the computer and walking in the center of my city, in both cases, being alone. Despite the last one seemed to be more of a paranoid feature of my personality, I felt everyone arround was planning to hurt me in some way, that everyone was looking at me, that a group of people that, when I turned back, weren't there, were following me...I couldn't move for arround 15 minutes, I wanted that feeling to stop.

For a while I have panic attacks nearly every day...I don't relate them to any particular fact along those days. Lately they have stopped...But, for how long?. I also suffer from angst crisis and because of them my doctor prescribed me clonazepam.
Unfortunately, I usually take it too late, when the crisis has already started, and I'm almost unable to move, breathe and sometimes even to cry.

[the teacher]

Even afer having an echo, stress test, and ekg done i still have daily quick chest pains that do not last more than 2 seconds. They usually happen when i make a sudden movements. I have suffered from panic attacks for about 1 year and once i had palpitations. Ever since then i have convinced myself that i have a heart problem even after all my tests came back normal. I continue to think like this because of these quick chest pains that do not last more than 2 seconds. HAS ANYBODY ELSE HAD THIS. PLEASE WRITE BACK

[butterfly31]

I was just wondering if there is anyone out there that can tell me if zoloft has made you feel like your seeing double, really bad headaches, and also feel like your dying, I just started taking it not even a week ago and its like I am worse now than when I was on paxil, Paxil didnt help after being on it for 3 months, Now I am getting to the point every little thing gets to me,, Sitting in a resturant people behind me can be talking and its very irretable and just the slightest movement of paper or things like that bother me. I snap easy at my love ones, and it's just not like me to do this. I dont know what else to do, I have been dealing with anxiety attacks for over 3 years now and just finally started taking meds for it after it was getting to the point of no return, I also think more and more of suicide now than I did before I started taking the medicine is this normal?? Please someone help I dont know how much more I can take.

[Barbie doll]

I am not a Dr. but from experience, I felt irritable on zoloft too, I could have killed someone, I felt psychotic,  I read that alot of times ant-depressants can have that effect on people who suffer from manic depression, it take the depression part away but magnifies the manic part... you should be evaluated for manic depression....

[enuff]

SOOOO HAPPY TO HAVE FOUND THIS SITE.  I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MY
EFFEXOR STORY.  HAD FIRST PANIC ATTACK 2+ YEARS AGO.  STARTED EFFEXOR ABOUT 8 MONTHS ON.  AFTER 2 WEEKS AT 150MG ENDED UP PASSING OUT, HITTING MY HEAD, AND GOING TO THE ER.  I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY HEALTH PROBLEM AND HAVE ONLY VISITED THE HOSPITAL.  AFTER MANY TESTS INCLUDING AN MRT I WAS RELEASE AND TOLD IT WAS JUST AN EPISODE OF SYNCOPE.  JUST AN ATTACK OF DIZZINESS? I GUESS.  AND 3 MONTHS LATER UPON GETTING UP ON MORNING, I FOUND THE LEFT HALF OF MY FACE WAS PARALIZED.  TURNED OUT TO BE BELLS PALSY.  ALL OF THIS I FEEL TO BE EFFEXOR SIDE EFFECTS.  9 MONTHS LATER AND THE PALSY IS MOSTLY GONE.  HAVE STARTED TO GO OFF THE EFFEXOR VERY SLOWLY.  I UNDERSTAND THE HEADACHES AND ZAPPING FEELING WAY TOO WELL.  THANKS TO ALL OF YOU AND HANG IN THERE!!!