Posted by Buzz Aldrin2 on April 16, 2001, at 12:09:11
Let me give some background before I ask my question:
About five weeks ago I experienced two occurrences
of heart palpitations and what I thought was a heart
attack. My heart would feel like it had "twitched",
and then it would pause for a few moments which would
make me feel like it had stopped working. This would
cause me to panic, hyperventilate, and my heart rate to
take off. Both times I went to the emergency room
because I truly thought I was going to die. After
numerous tests by the ER docs, my GP, and a
cardiologist, it was determined that I was experiencing
premature ventricular contractions combined with panic attacks. (I had never had panic attacks before this)
The cardiologist
said it was caused by stress, which seemed to make
sense because all of this coincided with an impossible
deadline approaching at work, and me also having
stopped my regular schedule of cardiovascular exercise,
which is my main form of stress relief. My GP gave me
a bunch of Zoloft and stepped me up to 25 mg/day.
He said I needed to relax and the Zoloft, along with
exercising and avoiding any kind of stimulants, would
help me do that. He also gave me some Ativan in case I
had another panic attack, which I did. I actually had a
few more, but I would talk myself out of them before
Ativan could take effect. Now to the question: the Zoloft
seemed to be affecting my sleep, causing very vivid
dreams where I was actually having trouble remembering
if certain trivial events had actually occurred of if I
had dreamt them. This isn't really a problem, and I
actually find it very interesting. It also seemed to make
me a much lighter sleeper, which I did not like. I would
have trouble getting to sleep at night, intending to go
to bed at 10 but not falling asleep until midnight, and
if something woke me up early, I would have trouble getting
back to sleep, only being able to stay in that weird
half-in/half-out twilight sleep, never back to full blown
sleeping. I informed my doctor of this, and he
suggested trying Prozac and gave me a bunch of that,
telling me to take 10mg/day. I am a little concerned
about Prozac because of all the bad publicity I have
heard. He told me not to worry, and that I was taking
little enough doses where I could stop taking it easily,
but I am still a little concerned. He also said I would
be surprised how many executives at my company are or
have taken an SSRI.
Now here are the questions:
Are Zoloft and Prozac dangerous? Is it typical for a person to just
start having palpitations and panic attacks without any
panic attack history? I used to enjoy work-related stress in a weird
kind of way, is it possible that I burned myself out
on it? Thanks for any info!
poster:Buzz Aldrin2
thread:60075
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010411/msgs/60075.html