New to the forum -- old hand at panic attacks!

[thriver]

Hello all,

I decided to join this forum after watching "House of Agoraphobics" on television.

I've lived with panic disorder for sixteen years now. I've been roombound, housebound, safe-person-bound, and city-bound.... but at the moment I'm not bound to *much* of anything. I've accomplished everything on my list of top fears (written over ten years ago).

The panic still lurks at the back of my mind occasionally but it doesn't stop me.

I've been on medication for many years now, with little to no side effect and no cognitive impairment. I also have depression and if I go off meds, the depression smacks me much harder than the panic. I will likely be on medication for the rest of my life, and I'm fine with that, but if people on this forum are very anti-medication then I can't see myself being a very active member.

I would love to help anyone who's living with this disorder. "House of Agoraphobics" didn't make me panic, but it did make me cry as I watched the participants struggle. I hope they are all doing as well as possible and I'm so pleased at every step anyone with this condition can take that improves their lives.

I'm not just a survivor -- I'm a thriver! :) and I look forward to "meeting" all of you.

[Bennydog]

Thats great to hear, I have had anxiety/ panic off and on for about 10 years, I am very anti medication, but as of late have been considering it. I have always heard the horror stories of meds but it good to hear some good ones. Which meds do you use?

[wobily_lin]

elo,

A big welcome to the site hun...I'm glad the programme did some gud..you will get great support here n gud advice as well as make lotsa friends....glad ta hav ye onboard..

Take care,
Lin xxx

"Fear is dat lil darkroom, wer negatives r developed", so positive thoughts okies!!!!!

[thriver]

<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">I am very anti medication, but as of late have been considering it. I have always heard the horror stories of meds but it good to hear some good ones. Which meds do you use?

<div align="right">Originally posted by Bennydog - 20 January 2007 : 07:26:15</div id="right">
</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">

Why "very anti-medication"? If you are concerned about the harm a drug can do to your health, that's a valid concern, as is physical dependence and withdrawal from certain drugs. But there is no shame in taking medication short or long term! A diabetic needs insulin every day. So do epileptics (and there is some research data suggesting that some panic disorder patients have a similar electrical storm inside their brains). There is no more "victory" in achieving a high quality of life without medication than with medication. On the other hand, if you can get there without meds, then it simplifies life and takes away the risks that taking any medication entails.

I take Effexor, in the SSRI class of antidepressants, and Klonopin, a benzodiazepine that doesn't have anywhere near the side effects or dependency problems that Xanax does. In fact, many epileptics take Klonopin for their entire lives. But there was a point that I needed to be on Xanax regularly; and I still take it on rare occasions.

There's probably a better place to talk pros/cons of meds rather than in the intro section :) suggestions?

[manmoor]

Hi Thriver,

A big warm welcome to you.

"When There Was Only One It Was Then That I Carried You."

[thriver]

Thanks everyone for the welcomes. :)

[honeybee3939]

HI Thriver

And a BIG warm welcome to you, lovely to see you here, im sure you will get some great advice while making new friends on the way:D

Love

Andrea
xxx

"If you have a worry turn it into a problem, you cant solve worrys but you can solve problems"

[nomorepanic]

Hi Thriver

Welcome aboard and lovely to see you here.

Hope we can be of some help.

Nicola

People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel

[kittykat]

Hi Thriver ,

Welcome to the site , hope you start to feel better.

Take care

shirley xx

'' I am an optimist, but I'm an optimist who carries a raincoat. '' - Harold Wilson

[belle]

Hi...

WELCOME AND WELL DONE for no longer being "BOUND"...!

Sarah

[clickaway]

Hi Thriver and welcome to the forum.

Have a couple of questions for you!

So was House of Agoraphobics shown in the U.S. too? Was it on a main channel?

Also interested to hear about your point on epilepsy. I suffered from epilepsy between the age of 11 and 25, and I still need to take meds to prevent it - I'm now 53. My triggers for epilepsy and for my panic/anxiety are very similar.

Cheers,

Ray


http://www.anxietyrelease.org.uk/

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.
~Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers

[thriver]

<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">
So was House of Agoraphobics shown in the U.S. too? Was it on a main channel?

Also interested to hear about your point on epilepsy. I suffered from epilepsy between the age of 11 and 25, and I still need to take meds to prevent it - I'm now 53. My triggers for epilepsy and for my panic/anxiety are very similar.
<div align="right">Originally posted by clickaway - 20 January 2007 : 21:38:56</div id="right">
</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">

As to question one -- no, the programme hasn't yet appeared in the US. I have very close ties to the UK; that point is a long story. I received a copy of the programme that was taped for me. If the programme does appear in the US, it would be relegated to the Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel; it would not appear on the main channels. I rarely watch US television as I find it to be crap. My opinion, of course!

As to question two -- there have been brain scans that indicate ties between some panic disorder suffers and "electrical storms" and even partial seizure disorder. Google turns up many links; here are a few:

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/18/4/436
http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/w9thruw12.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8654062&dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12875952&dopt=Abstract

From the latter:

"Finally, recent epidemiologic data suggest a significantly greater than chance association between PDA and a history of seizures. To further explore these intriguing links, the present study directly compared a group of 91 PDA (panic disorder-agoraphobia) outpatients with a group of 41 CPE (complex partial epilepsy) outpatients with respect to DD (depersonalisation/derealisation) and other psychosensorial symptoms. The broad similarities discovered between psychosensorial and related phenomena provide further support for the hypothesis that there may be a common neurophysiological substrate linking CPE phenomena with PDA."

There's so much more.

Again, I think panic disorder probably has multiple causes both psychological and physiological.