Panic Attack Medication: What Is Best For Me?
If you are one of those living with panic attack symptoms, you know it can almost take over your life. Living with the fear that you will have to suffer through another period of grief, pain, and discomfort is sometimes enough to bring on a panic attack. When it comes to treating a panic attack, some medication has been known to significantly reduce the symptoms, enabling people to continue living a life that is not ruled by the fearful unknown. The following provides information about some of the most effective medications available to consumers.
Alprazolam (al-PRAZ-zo-lam)
This medication is one of the more common prescriptions for general anxiety treatment. It is a benzodiazepine, which is used to treat short term panic attack symptoms in many people every day. This medication is not meant to treat ongoing and daily forms of a panic attack, but is very useful to people who experience these symptoms periodically.
Azapirones (a-zah-PIE-ronz)
Azapirones is a drug which works on the central nervous system by relieving the many symptoms of anxiety. This drug can be found in many antidepressants and is the reason many people who normally would not take antidepressants do, because of their panic attack symptoms. It is used to calm the nervous system, putting it somewhat into sleep mode.
Benzodiazepines (ben-zo-die-AZ-a-peens)
This is a tranquil medication, used to help fight anxiety and insomnia. The drug is very potent, and a fear of becoming addicted to it is shared with both physicians and patients. For extreme cases of anxiety, this is the medication most commonly used, but it's also something that can significantly alter your mood or personality if not used properly or for longer periods of time than prescribed.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)
These are a newer type of anti-depressant introduced into the US in the 1980s beginning with Prozac. They work differently to traditional antidepressants and they do so by increasing and assisting the brain to maintain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin which is often found to be low in people sufferering from depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety and panic disorders.
Which Panic Attack Medication to Use
The severity of the panic attack, will influence which medication a physician will prescribe for you. Remember that you should not determine which medication to use. It is essential to consult a doctor about what is best for you. Using someone else's medicine may help your symptoms in the short term, but in the long run you need a solution for long term results. Taking someone else's medicine for your undiagnosed panic attack would be considered as being very irresponsible. Because of the nature of the problem your doctor will probably prescribe more than one medication over a period of time so as to ascertain what is best for you. Using the least amount of medication to control your panic attack symptoms is the most beneficial, so most doctors will recommend starting with a low dosage and work their way up from there until the best solution is found.
Pain Control In Chronic Non-Cancer Patients
Why would an article with such an esoteric title be of interest, of importance and relevancy to more than just Pain Management health care workers. Shouldn't such an article be of more importance and interest in a Professional Journal than it would be to the educated general populous. What is behind the idea of publishing it on the Internet, situated so that many more than just medical minds would come across it by happenstance.
A large percentage of the general population is thought to either listen to, watch, or read any of the many ways the News Media bombards us with what their financial backers' opinions would have us know. Therefore we must assume that this same population should, by now, understand how the median age of death, in our country as in others, has been prolonged. We attribute this increasing life expectancy, over the previous few centuries, by all of the many scientific advances, by the formation of and stabilization of standardized-religion, and by the many laws of behavior, in-acted to prevent man's destruction of his/her fellow man/woman.
For these and other reasons, the percentage of the population living over the age of 65 increases with every passing decade and century. At this point I hope that you can begin to better understand the importance of pain control in chronic non-cancer patients. Since the percentage of the population over 65 is getting larger with each passing decade, it is becoming more common place to know or to know of an individual requiring pain control for a chronic non-cancerous problem.
Breakthrough pain in cancer patients is associated with poor outcomes, a greater incidence of hospitalization, more difficult to treat pain syndromes, and, of course, the inevitable patient dissatisfaction with therapy. None of the previous characteristics are found, in general, amongst the non-cancerous patients.
Breakthrough pain in non-cancerous patients is known to be prevalent, severe, and it shares several characteristics with cancer patients, such as that it is typically rapid in onset and frequently encountered. Studies have shown that nearly three quarters of patients with non-cancer pain have significant episodes of breakthrough pain.
For the general population, is not important what the actual treatments are for pain control in chronic non-cancerous patients. What is important for everyone to understand is that a growing part of our general population will be suffering with chronic non-cancerous pain. We need to start to modify and/or drop, when appropriate, our misconceptions of individuals (young and old) that complain of chronic pain that proves to be non-cancerous in origin. We must study how individuals on narcotic therapy do when attempting to continue with accepted normal daily functions. Such functions would include work, play, and care-giving. I feel that we will be surprised how much of a normal life these individuals can live if given the chance.
