sillygirl - There are several antidepressants used for anxiety and panic attacks. The most common of the SSRIs for these indications are Paxil™ (paroxetine) and Zoloft™ (sertraline). The dose for panic disorder is usually higher than is used for depression, but your doctor will help you decide what dose will be appropriate for you. You will need to take the SSRI every day for it to work properly and to prevent panic attacks.

Your doctor will probably start you at a low dose and increase it slowly to minimize what I call "start-up" side effects. These can be things like nausea (take the SSRI with food to minimize this), drowsiness, headache (more like a pressure in the head that is noticeable, but usually not that uncomfortable), and dry mouth (just suck a candy or chew gum).

One start-up side effect is a bit more bothersome when treating panic disorder with SSRIs. When you start the SSRI you may experience an initial increase in the number of panic attacks. This and the above start-up side effects are just your body adjustung to the medication and will begin to lessen within the first couple of weeks. Normally, after 3 to 4 weeks one experiences far fewer panic attacks than they did before taking the medication. Some say that the difference is like night and day, and is well worth the initial increase in attacks seen at the start of therapy. For those first few weeks many doctors will give a sublingual benzodiazepine like Ativan SL™ to be used if you feel a panic attack coming on. The sublingual form of benzodiazepine dissolves under the tongue and absorbs quickly to take the edge off of the ensuing attack. After the first couple of weeks, as the number of panic attacks subside, you probably will not need to use the benzodiazepine anymore.

Talk to your doctor about this and let us know what you decide. I hope that this is of some help - Cam