Disease Mongering - Are Panic Attacks An Invention Of The Pharmaceutical Industry?

True agoraphobia is an invalidating disease but a paper by Giovanni A. Fava and associates of the University of Bologna, published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, questions the excessive emphasis on panic which has been attributed in the past decade and the role of pharmaceutical industry in this attribution.

[Cash]

There's no question pharmaceutical marketing has its own agenda. One company we all know magically started advocating a cervical cancer vaccine after its cash cow got pulled. Convenient.

But some of this is because medical conditions are exculpatory, so people can abdicate responsibility if they get medicine for things.

[Ajepa]

"Pharmaceutical Industry" Please don't leave out the major news media, and the advertising contained therein. If you don't have the whitest teeth, the nicest hair, the most money, etc, etc, etc. you must be out of touch. No wonder kids act and dress the way they do. Too bad we can't be happy with who we are and how we look.
Rohayhu Wendy.(You look just fine!)

[My Opinion]

To those who don't experience panic attacks, you don't realize how lucky you are. I have no desire to take any medication at all, not even an aspirin. But without the med's I'm prescribed, life, particularly work life, is hell.

[hetrevillion]

I have social phobia. I get in a crowd and break into a cold sweat and start to have tremors in my hands. I shop at Wal-mart at 4 or 5 a.m. because the crowd of customers is lowest then. I can stand it for about 30 minutes before symptoms occur. If I don't leave, within another 30 minutes, I will be shaking too bad to pay for my groceries and my clothes will be soaking wet.
I cannot hold a job due to my symptoms. I take 3 different medications with, to my disappointment, no improvement. I will talk to my doctor (VA) at my next visit and try to get off the meds. I cannot go to movies, restaurants, church, or any event with crowds. This is truly debillitating and I don't wish it on my worst enemy (my brother).

[Adrian in Tacoma]

I might need something for my restless hemorrhoid syndrome, but prefer to turn my left cheek - instead of having my plastic surgeon make me a completely new Oslo Norwegian...

[Dave]

Do you suppose that possibly "these people" (quoted in the article) are just shills for someone elses rip-off agenda ? Insurance companies come to mind first....

[KBX]

Oh, did somebody call for a Panic Attack? Try WORKING for a big pharma company. Want to be pissed off? Sales and Marketing get way more money than research.(AMHIK and take a wild geuss which side I worked for) We won't even get into HMFIC golden parachutes and merger of the day...

[long gone]

I had a remarkable case of this in my twenties. Absolute gripping panic, which progressed until I couldn't go to the store. I could not eat in front of anyone or look into someones eyes. The feeling was like the moment you see a bear over you in the woods, but there was no bear. I had not been like that prior. Sleeping at night was my only escape. I am beginning to think it was situational anxiety. My situation was a very heavy religious guilt over an inability to "pray away the gay." I felt doomed. No way out. I accepted myself, found a partner, graduated from college. Have been fine ever since. Gave presentations before medical boards and group presentations, worked for 20 years on a burn unit and am happily retired. How's that for losing the anxiety? Have not been on any meds, nor need any. So many life situations are highly anxiety producing. Abusive marriages with "no way out." Childhoods that produced fear. I hope more is learned to help those suffering.

[joyce in los angeles]

If you have experienced panic attacks and can't walk around without them, you wouldn't wish them on anybody. Truly awful.

[calikathy]

what did they do about them before, because i have them and if my doctor doesnt see it he doesnt believe. time for a new one i guess.

[The Rest of Us]

Cash wrote:

But some of this is because medical conditions are exculpatory, so people can abdicate responsibility if they get medicine for things.

And some would prefer to shove a lofty pedestal beneath their holy arsses that would surely give the rest of us Acrophobia. This sort of thinking comes from minds too shallow to form but a puddle and whose ignorance is only magnified by their arrogance.

[an american]

After reading the article, and comments, I am not surprised how the issue is not commented on yet. I have panic attacks and GAD. Sometimes, unfortunately, people take advantage of others in this free enterprise system. As can be the perspective here. The author of this article obviously doesn't know about panic attacks but he or she is allowed the opinion. They are just trying to get a stir, and some recognition for themselves. Fact is, the pharm. companies are in for the money too as everyone else is. But, are they providing a legal service to the public? Yes. They give us a wide diversity of products that can apply to almost every disorder diagnosed today and it is getting better. A reminder to the author, "when you point your finger, there are three pointing back at you" Nothing like mongering for a story, even if it steps on peoples toes.

[Dave]

hetrevillion wrote:

I have social phobia. I get in a crowd and break into a cold sweat and start to have tremors in my hands. I shop at Wal-mart at 4 or 5 a.m. because the crowd of customers is lowest then. I can stand it for about 30 minutes before symptoms occur. If I don't leave, within another 30 minutes, I will be shaking too bad to pay for my groceries and my clothes will be soaking wet.
I cannot hold a job due to my symptoms. I take 3 different medications with, to my disappointment, no improvement. I will talk to my doctor (VA) at my next visit and try to get off the meds. I cannot go to movies, restaurants, church, or any event with crowds. This is truly debillitating and I don't wish it on my worst enemy (my brother).

Please, if you are getting medication from your doctor but not getting psychotherapy along wth the medication please consider finding a good cognitive therapist. The combination of psychotherapy and medication has been found to be the most effective approach. As a therapist I have worked with many patients who suffered from panic attacks who are now living normal lives. I get very angry when i find a doctor prescribing meds without the therapy. Good luck.

[Virgo]

If meds are helping whatever situation, Thank God there are some. Good Luck and God Bless us more.

[papa joe]

I believe that the reason so many people now days suffer from anxiety related problems is just this sort of fear mongering that goes on. Not only by large corporations trying to scare people into buying their products, but by the press to make the news more interesting and by politicians to further their own agendas. The first decade of the 21st century should be known as the fear mongering decade.

[Virgo]

From personal experience, vitamins (especially B-Complex)SURBEX-T (OTC), Amino acids, natural enzymes, and minerals help to overcome. Food is good, but sometimes you can't eat enough for proper nutrients to help with different symtoms; and sometimes there is not enough time. TRY it, besides the medication.

[Scaredy Cat]

Y'all scare the h*ll out of me.

[ksp]

I remember the first panic attack I had. I was 15 and in a history class at school. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe and it felt as if the walls were closing in on me. I had all I could do to keep from running out of the class room and out of school. Going shopping was always a nightmare. Many times I left a shopping cart in the store and ran out. Any one who does not suffer these attacks is the luckiest person in the world. I have been on Zoloft since 2001 and it works although the side affects can sometimes be unpleasant. But its better than freaking out in public.

[Once-ler]

hetrevillion wrote:

I have social phobia. I get in a crowd and break into a cold sweat and start to have tremors in my hands. I shop at Wal-mart at 4 or 5 a.m. because the crowd of customers is lowest then. I can stand it for about 30 minutes before symptoms occur. If I don't leave, within another 30 minutes, I will be shaking too bad to pay for my groceries and my clothes will be soaking wet.
I cannot hold a job due to my symptoms. I take 3 different medications with, to my disappointment, no improvement. I will talk to my doctor (VA) at my next visit and try to get off the meds. I cannot go to movies, restaurants, church, or any event with crowds. This is truly debillitating and I don't wish it on my worst enemy (my brother).

Peace, man. I hope you can overcome this some day. I also don't like crowds, but I'm more of a misanthrope than agoraphobiac.

[hetrevillion]

Dave wrote:

<quoted text>
Please, if you are getting medication from your doctor but not getting psychotherapy along wth the medication please consider finding a good cognitive therapist. The combination of psychotherapy and medication has been found to be the most effective approach. As a therapist I have worked with many patients who suffered from panic attacks who are now living normal lives. I get very angry when i find a doctor prescribing meds without the therapy. Good luck.

I appreciate the thought and would like to follow your advice, but the VA doctor I go to doesn't want to prescribe therapy (cost constraints, maybe?) so I am restricted to meds only, since I cannot afford paying for therapy myself. I am on disability and it barely pays my living expenses. If not for the VA, I would not have medical treatment available. They also treat me for depression, diabetes and chronic pain management. Thank God for the VA, slow and awkward as it may be.