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Chelee · 11-24-2006, 11:50 PM

Kerry, Yes...full blown panic attacks are very frightening. I have had them. I started having them around age 30. They came on out of the blue. I was terrified of having another one because you really feel like your going to die. Its just as you described...hard to breath, heart starts pounding and your not sure if your going to pass out.

I was put on xanax at that time...it took care of them. But you mentioned being on ativan...it should do as much as xanax I would think. But you do have to remember...your under an awful lot of added stress now. Nothing about dealing with bc is easy. The daily stress of all this takes a toll on a person. Talk about major anxiety once DX with bc. Do you just take the Ativan to sleep? Never during the day time for anxiety? You should talk to your doctor and tell him/her what happened and see if they will give you some meds for this. They have several different medications that are used just for anxiety attacks. They all work well. Please see your doctor because the fear and anxiety of just worrying about it happening again is just too much to deal with on top of everything else. There is help out there for this.

If you have any other questions please feel free to email me or PM me. I will gladly help you any way I can. Hang in there. I know how you feel and its scary.

Sending you warm healing thoughts.

Chelee

11-24-2006, 11:50 PM	#3
Chelee Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Southern, CA Posts: 2,511	Kerry, Yes...full blown panic attacks are very frightening. I have had them. I started having them around age 30. They came on out of the blue. I was terrified of having another one because you really feel like your going to die. Its just as you described...hard to breath, heart starts pounding and your not sure if your going to pass out. I was put on xanax at that time...it took care of them. But you mentioned being on ativan...it should do as much as xanax I would think. But you do have to remember...your under an awful lot of added stress now. Nothing about dealing with bc is easy. The daily stress of all this takes a toll on a person. Talk about major anxiety once DX with bc. Do you just take the Ativan to sleep? Never during the day time for anxiety? You should talk to your doctor and tell him/her what happened and see if they will give you some meds for this. They have several different medications that are used just for anxiety attacks. They all work well. Please see your doctor because the fear and anxiety of just worrying about it happening again is just too much to deal with on top of everything else. There is help out there for this. If you have any other questions please feel free to email me or PM me. I will gladly help you any way I can. Hang in there. I know how you feel and its scary. Sending you warm healing thoughts. Chelee __________________ DX: 12-20-05 - Stage IIIA, Her2/Neu, 3+++,Er & Pr weakly positive, 5 of 16 pos nodes. Rt. MRM on 1-3-06 -- No Rads due to compromised lungs. Chemo started 2-7-06 -- TCH - - Finished 6-12-06 Finished yr of wkly herceptin 3-19-07 3-15-07 Lt side prophylactic simple mastectomy. -- Ooph 4-05-07 9-21-09 PET/CT "Recurrence" to Rt. axllia, Rt. femur, ilium. Possible Sacrum & liver? Now stage IV. 9-28-09 Loading dose of Herceptin & started Zometa 9-29-09 Power Port Placement 10-24-09 Mass 6.4 x 4.7 cm on Rt. femur head. 11-19-09 RT. Femur surgery - Rod placed 12-7-09 Navelbine added to Herceptin/Zometa. 3-23-10 Ten days of rads to RT femur. Completed. 4-05-10 Quit Navelbine--Herceptin/Zometa alone. 5-4-10 Appt. with Dr. Slamon to see what is next? Waiting on FISH results from femur biopsy. Results to FISH was unsuccessful--this happens less then 2% of the time. 7-7-10 Recurrence to RT axilla again. Back to UCLA for options.