YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I had severe panic attacks multiple times a day for years until I finally went on antidepressants several years ago. This made the panic attacks go away almost completely, but ironically made my depression a lot worse. After several years of dealing with the antidepressant drugs and making changes when the effectiveness (on my depression) got to be too much or when other side-effects made changes necessary, I finally decided to ween off the drugs altogether. The drugs cause quite a few symptoms in and of themselves and I was really feeling like they were doing me quite a bit of harm. I also know from experience that antidepressants can have some pretty serious withdrawal symptoms.

I was very fortunate that I didn't have nearly the trouble withdrawing as I expected. I had a few weeks of feeling really "high" all the time, but nothing I couldn't live with - luckily Christmas break and then quite a few snow days from work made it easier to get through.

Overall, I feel so much better now except the panic attacks are back. I've only had one that was pretty severe, but I'm still having at least moderate symptoms every day. I do yoga every day and would like to exercise if it wasn't below zero with over a foot of snow on the ground. Does anyone know of any herbal supplements that help with panic that don't make you feel like a zombie?

Have you tried Valerian Root, Lemon Balm or Kava Kava? I know there are more, but I've had enough success with those in combination with a consistent meditation practice; I haven't had much more reason to delve much further into the herbal realm.