Sudden Return of Anxiety After Several Years of Peace

About 10 years ago, when I was about 40, I had my first panic attack. I was at work, on an ordinary work day, eating lunch with friends, when I had an intense feeling of unease and discomfort -- no heart racing, no dizziness, no racinf breathing -- just an overwhelming sense of anxiety. But it was unlike any other feeling I had ever had before, to the point where someone called the paramedics to the office. All my vital signs were fine and I felt better, thlough very much ill at ease. The symptoms went away for a week until they happened again -- this time I ended  up at the emergency room. All vital signs normal again. But my doctor put me on Zoloft, with .5 mgs of Xanax to tide me over until the Zoloft took full effect. I had no further symptoms for a couple of years, aside from a wariness of being in certain social settings, which if course wasn't a good thing.

After two years, I weaned myself off the Zoloft and was symptom free for six months when the same feelings, out of the blue, hit me again. I was cowering on the couch at home. This time my doctor, while putting me back on Zoloft, also had me take an MRI, which was normal. I stayed on the Zoloft for another couple of years and then went off again.

This year, after several years of no medication and no anxiety attacks, I had isolated incidents, each time when I was traveling on business away from home. At one point, I contacted my doctor from a conference in Las Vegas and he prescribed Xanax just to get me through the trip.

The outbreaks were sporadic until the last month when they started becoming more frequent -- completely stopped in traffic one day on the expressway on a bright sunny day, when I couldn't move anywhere -- I had an attack. Going to the movies, where we were stuck sitting at the far end of an aisle where I couldn't easily get out, I had one.

I've gone back on 50mgs of generic Zoloft a day, with a tiny dose of Xanax as needed to tide over the rough spots, which pop up almost daily over the last week. It's hard to write about anxiety without getting anxious feelings.

It's a frustrating malady -- I don;t really want to control this with meds forever, do I'm still in the search process for alternatives. Fortunatley, my health in general is good (gotta control the cholesterol a bit a nd exercis more).

Anxiety is a silent, unglamorous, but life altering sickness.