Sleep problems

[DBrown]

A little background before I start. 2 years ago I had a panic attack and was put on Paxil for 6 months. So for the last year and a half I have been off Paxil and have had no attacks.
Now in the last 3 months I have had problems sleeping. When I start to fall asleep my body will jerk and it will wake me up, this will continue for some time until I can not stay asleep. Then my body will start to tremor uncontroled for about a hour until I wake up my wife to help me stop by just rubbing my back until I fall asleep. Before the tremors start I feel very light headed.
This will happen also if I try to stop myself from falling asleep during the day and then when I go to bed that night I will go through the hole thing again.
What is going on I have never had this problem in my life.
I am a 40 year old with very few problems in my life except this.
Any help would be appreciated.

[HFHS RG - MD]

I would assume that your panic attacks presented in a different form than what you indicated. However, the symptoms of panic attacks may change in time.
Panic attacks may be a component feature of different psychiatric disorders - Anxiety disorders and/or Mood disorders like Major depressive disorder. And both disorders have a risk of recurrence. It is unknown as to the predicatability of their recurrence.

I recommend consulting your psychiatrist for an evaluation and a possible re-treatment with Paxil.

[DBrown]

Thank you for your reply. What do you think about using St. John's Wort to replace Paxil? I just started it 5 days ago.

DB