Panic attacks and agoraphobia

hi all , i took sertraline ( zoloft) 3 yrs ago due to health anexity that leads to deppression . i started with 50mg the after week or 2 upped to 100

i had sleepless nights due to thoughts of not sleeping make me fear and panic with panic attack symptons so the doc gave me ativan to help me through .

after 8 weeks on 100 i started feeling flashes of hope thoughs started to fade away until everything was normal and back to myself 100% .

i stopped gradually and went for 2 months with no medication i felt very good and all by a sudden a silly thought just banged on my head and hear we go again panic attack , shaky , sleepless nights with anixity and back to my doc to take 50mg of sertraline and ativan and all over again all the fears thoughts that is there all day which makes me have panic with low apppetite .

is it going to work again this time ?

i have 4 kids and i need to be happy for them .

plz any advice will be appreciated .

hi. I am sure if it worked once it will do again. it may take a little longer, it may give you a different set of side effects but that is all they are just side effects that will pass as they did before. try flipping them and instead of them getting you down look upon them as something positive, as in it is just the meds working their magic. it must be hard having 4 children when you feel like this but use them as your motivation, take it slow and easy, do not fret about what you can not do, you got there before and you will again x

thanks sue for your positive reply . will keep reading it to boost me up .

Hi Sue,

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I'm glad to know there will be some results after much debate whether to start on medication or not. The thoughts feel like my brain wants to purposely throw things at me to make me go into a panic. I'm trying my best to not let them have as much power as they have had.

far when I used to have panic attacks I felt like I was dying, could not understand what the hell was going on, so afraid I was just going to faint, in the street or shop and be left in a heap or crash my car, I just to get home as soon as I could and hide in bed, work colleagues got left in the lurch, shopping got left in shops and social trips got canceled. one day I thought to hell with this if these feelings are going to do me a damage then so be it because this is no life, the next time I had a panic attack I stopped what I was doing at work and very calmly felt the sensation rise from my stomach, up to my chest and neck down my arms and out through my fingers and then it was gone, I did not run, I did not hide, I just thought ok if thats the worse that can happen bring it on and after doing this a few more times my brain got the message that I was in control not the other way round, same with anxiety I tell it it can either sit quietly with me or go away, not fighting it but viewing it as a naughty child, same with your thoughts they can be there but nit control you, difficult to do at first and they will try to distract you but if you can manage it worth trying x

yes sue you are right , once i accepted the new me with the panic it goes faster but i have to say that may be the medication helps me to understand not to panic bec if i am not on the med i will panic really badly .

my panic now is bed time i get scared thinking about what if i couldnt sleep and i start panicking and shaking and so which makes me dont sleep . this is my thing .

i hope the med kicks in quickly and can do the sorting as before .

Thanks for sharing and I'm happy you were able to take back control of your life. It sounds like you had a good approach to tackle it head on.

This is the third time in my life having panic disorder with agoraphobia - the last episode was 8/9 years ago. I had forgotten how traumatizing panic attacks are and how debilitating mental health issues could be. It was a blip in my past and I didn't expect the condition to resurface. I know I have overcome it before so I'm telling myself that this episode will also be a thing of the past, even if it takes months to build back up mentally.

Hi dodo,

Thanks for sharing your experience and I'm happy it is working for you. Are you experiencing those symptoms at the 8 week mark now? I had brain fog and head pressure last night, slept a bit more than the previous night (4/5 hrs instead of 2). The nausea and reduced appetite is still strong, but my head isn't as "heavy" today. I also some shaking and heart racing, but it's hard to differentiate whether that's my anxiety or a side effect. Hope you feel better soon.

im not on week 8 yet , its only my day 3 but i had this medication started 3 yrs ago so i started feeling relaxed from the rushing thoughts that trigger my anixiety and turn it to panic and deppression at week 8

i hope it works this time .

hoping the same relive to you too

Yes I hope it has the same effect for you this time around. I'm also on day 3 so it makes sense that we are feeling the same things!

Hang in there.

Hi alexandra,

Thank you for sharing and I'm glad the medicine has been successful for you. That's good advice about not being hard on yourself. I feel like I am (having time-sensitive commitments like uni). Trying to be patient, though. The attempts I've had going outside the past 5 days (just on my street and back) have made me feel not ready yet and it's frustrating.

Could you ask someone to accompany you to the uni for some time? It helped me to be outside with a person I trust.

It's an hour commute unfortunately, but I do have someone to accompany me when I start going outside again which will help