szuszi

dear tigerstx, i'm a veteran of panic -- i'm 47 and my first panic attacks began at 20, though i didn't know at the time what they were and neither did doctors or anyone else back then though I never stopped talking to anyone or anything until I got the help I needed -- I thought for a long time I was dying from heart attacks every day -- in the end I took myself to the ER countless times, certain that death was imminent. In the beginning, everyone else and ambulances took me. They never found anything. What I will tell you that they've known for quite some time and don't know why this is, is that there is a very high incidence of mitral valve prolapse and panic disorder. It didn't surprise me to hear that you have it -- I have it too and so does a large percentage of people with panic, most of them women.

After the daily fears of imminent death passed, I thought for many, many years I was losing my mind, literally going to lose my mind. I went through all kinds of psychotherapy, went to allergists, to PMS clinics in Boston, to heart surgeons, to specialists, to hypnotists, to surgeons, to anyone, anywhere that I thought might possibly help steer me in the right direction. Remember, back then no one talked about panic or anything like it because then they really believed you were losing your mind. I didn't care -- I just wanted help. And I finally got it when I thought I could no longer live my life anymore. Someone steered me to the head of Yale biopharmacological psychiatric research -- I saw him literally in the labs with the mice and rats they did research on. He saved my life and I am forever indebted to him.

This man now heads up the psychiatric research in the same field at Southwestern Medical University in Dallas, where he went several years ago. I was devastated to lose his guidance but perhaps he's close to you? Let me know if I can steer you toward him and perhaps he can lead you in the right direction. He is, in my book, a saint and a hero.

Don't give up -- there is help for you out there.