Hopefully this story will help some of you out there who don't know what on earth could be happening to you. Mine has been a 19 year journey--ten years just to diagnose. I would like to think that anyone starting out now could get a little faster diagnosis than I did, (10 YEARS???). I believe a lot more is known today. My official final diagnosis was generalized anxiety disorder with panic attacks.

It all started on vacation in Arizona with my husband, daughter and parents. We had gone to Meteor Crater in Arizona . . . high altitude, 110 degrees. I had been outside the observation booth looking at the crater, came inside to air conditioning and suddenly felt "funny." I knew something was wrong and asked my daughter to find my husband. We got a drink to cool off but I was still not feeling well so we decided to drive back to the hotel. I got in the car (which by then was probably about 140 degrees) and then proceeded to become pretty hysterical. I guess I was bright red and everyone thought I might be having some kind of a heat stroke. So next stop: Emergency Room. The doctors observed for awhile and decided it very well could have been heat or altitude related . . . so "Go back to your hotel, drink lots of fluids, and take it easy."

Next day same thing happened at the Grand Canyon. The day after that it happened at lunch. Back to the Emergency Room. It's hard to explain the feeling. You know something is really wrong . . . everything goes haywire, your insides "shake," and you think you could die. Of course now I know what it was, but at the time it seemed like the end of the world.

So we cut the vacation short. My parents flew home. It didn't stop. I owned a business and one day on my way to work THE LIGHT TURNED RED and I was stuck there. That was the longest stoplight of my life! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE turn green so I won't be trapped here anymore! Well, of course it did turn green and I made a U-turn and raced right back to the safety of home. I called my husband and he arrived to find me in a hysterical ball on the floor in the corner of the bathroom.

Next stop was an endocrinologist. He was sure I must have an adrenal tumor and he (and I) spent a year looking for it . . . but with no results. I had every test under the sun, from brain scans to high tech stuff I barely understood. We even discussed the possibility it could be panic attacks, but he really didn't think so. I think now that that was my mistake. When you go to specialist they tend to focus in on their specialty. If I had gone to an internist first maybe I would have been diagnosed immediately. But in his defense, of all the doctors I subsequently went to, he was just about the only one who really cared about ME. He was really concerned and wanted to find the cause. I will always be grateful for his kindness even if he couldn't tell me what was wrong.

Over the next few months it kept happening. Once on an airplane. I was just sitting reading a book when out of the blue it hit. I ended up in the back of the plane on oxygen because the stewardesses thought it might be an altitude thing. So embarrassing! There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the episodes. In a store looking at something on a shelf or at work waiting on a customer. If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to keep my business running and take care of my daughter I think I could have become agoraphobic at this point. But I had to brave the dreaded stoplight everyday, and it wasn't easy.

I have been to Scripps and to Mayo Clinic. Actually at Scripps a psychiatrist decided it was panic attacks probably caused by my parents fighting, (which they were the night before it first happened), and to go home and take antidepressants. At first I believed his explanation, but then decided that it was ridiculous! My parents had always bickered back and forth. Yes, I didn't particularly like it, but it was nothing new, and this certainly wasn't their fault!

I looked up the side effects of the pills they had so easily prescribed and knew they were not for me. Now I know the panic part was right, and maybe if they had presented a better explanation my quest for an answer would have stopped.

Next was Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. (After more doctors, and even a healer, I was desperate!) Because I never had an actual attack in front of a doctor they couldn't find anything wrong with me. Another week of unending tests. But an interesting thing did happen there. I have mitral valve prolapse and was in having an echocardiogram to recheck it. It had never caused me many problems that I knew of other than feeling my heart skip and having to take antibiotics to have my teeth cleaned. The technician came in and said he had been reading my records and symptoms and thought there was a book I should read--one on the connection between mitral valve prolapse and panic attacks. Because of the department he worked in he had obviously seen this before. He asked me to please not mention to my primary doctor that he had told me this. Well, I ran right out and bought the book and there were ALL my symptoms! The doctor however would not acknowledge a connection. (I just said I had discovered the book and did not implicate the nice technician.) I think the doctors must be forbidden to speak of anything not "absolutely proven" at Mayo Clinic.

But even after finding this, when I got back home I pretty much hit bottom. I was finally officially diagnosed when a doctor actually saw me having an attack. They put me on a tranquilizer. I remember an episode of such utter panic that I couldn't let my husband leave the house to go get the medication. I knew if he left I would die! Kind of a Catch 22!

Since then I have worked to get myself "balanced" nutritionally and off of medication (tranquilizers.) Basically here are some of the things I have learned that might be helpful if you are going through this.

1.You will probably not have the same problem I had getting a diagnosis. Doctors seem to be much more knowledgable about it now. Just try to get to a doctor that has had some experience with this. But you will probably get different opinions on the cause of your problem. Some doctors will say it's an emotional problem, i.e. caused by something stressful going on in your life. I may be wrong, but I do not believe this, at least in my case. My doctor told me it was a chemical imbalance (autonomic nervous system) and I believe mine is helped along by the mitral valve prolapse. I also had a heart specialist tell me MVP was probably the cause. Once you know what you have and you know when you have an attack you are not going to die, then you have much more control over the attack when it happens. There are coping mechanisms you can use to control it until it passes. I used some very good tapes. I worked with a nutritionist to get my body back in balance, and I take a lot of supplements. (You don't want to be drinking caffeinated coffee or eating sugar if you're having panic attacks.) I believe that 6 years of birth control pills, 2 years of allergy shots, and a lot of antibiotics just threw my body out of balance.

2. You would never believe how many arrogant, obnoxious, patronizing doctors I have run into. If your doctor is not helping GO TO ANOTHER ONE.

3. There is a lot of guilt associated with this. When you don't know what is happening then you don't want to go anywhere because it might happen when you're out . . . and on and on and on. It's called negative thinking and it perpetuates itself. You're family pays a price for that. When you can't make plans in advance, don't want to go to the movies, etc. then it is very hard for them to understand. BUT NO ONE CAN EVER UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS LIKE TO HAVE A FULL BLOWN PANIC ATTACK UNTIL THEY HAVE THEIR OWN. And I would never wish that on anyone. Try to explain but don't beat yourself up too badly if you have not conquered it yet and they can't understand. Thank God I have a wonderful daughter and an understanding husband. He was with me every step of the way through all the tests and the panic. If you are currently going through this I hope you are also blessed. I can't imagine trying to do it alone. It's practically impossible to even drive yourself anywhere when you are in the midst of this.

I'll never forget driving in the car one day listening to Dr. Laura. A woman called in wanting advice. She was having panic attacks and there were things she couldn't do and her family didn't understand. What should she do? Well, DR. LAURA YELLED AT HER! She needed to get over it, take control of her life! She wasn't being fair to her family! Good old Dr. Laura was going on the assumption that this was something this woman could absolutely control if she just would get a grip! I wanted to jump through that radio and strangle her! And I felt so sorry for that woman who received her oh so "sage" counseling.

There are still times that I have some problems. I don't like driving over bridges or through tunnels. My daughter and I were out shopping. I was driving when all of the sudden there was a bridge ahead and I couldn't pull over in traffic to let her drive! It wasn't exactly a panic attack but I was saying "Oh no, I can't do this" in a pretty excited way as we headed onto that bridge. She was trying to be calm and tell me I could do it, but I'm sure she probably thought she was about to die!!! I remember the total concentration I had trying to conquer the fear and keep us on the road. The adrenaline goes and the heart just about pounds out of the chest! It was a very scary experience and one that we both laugh about now. But it sure wasn't funny at the time, especially to her! Can you imagine the terror of being a passenger in that circumstance?

Menopause seems to be throwing a little monkey wrench into the mix now, and if I don't eat right or get enough sleep it affects me. The generalized anxiety is sometimes there but I haven't had an actual panic attack in many years. You never forget the feeling but you can get on with your life. I hope you can get there faster than I did. Don't let it get you down and don't give up!!

Posted by elizabeth | Filed under: Panic Disorder

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