Seeing Clearly Again...Or Am I???

The six Xanax a day that I was taking clearly affected my ability to function and think in a normal manner. No, I wasn't having panic attacks, but maybe that's because I was so out of it that I couldn't think straight enough to have a panic attack! I was able to gather my bearings long enough to contact another physician, one who didn't want to use me as a guinea pig and then boot me out the door with enough medicine in my system to put six normal adults to sleep each day.

The new doc asked me all about my anxiety disorder/panic attacks, and seemed to hang onto my every word as I told him every little detail. He told me that he could help me to conquer panic attacks using a non-addictive medication called Imipramine. Imipramine good, Xanax bad!!! He drilled this into my head before I left and the phrase stuck with me as if it had been subliminally implanted. The really odd thing was that he wanted me to stop my Xanax immediately (in fact, he made me leave my Xanax prescription bottle there with him) and begin the process of allowing Imipramine to get into my system. Talk about pure hell!! I did trust him, and I did forego the Xanax and begin to take the Imipramine as instructed, but since it (the Imipramine) had to build up in my system over several weeks, the panic attacks came back full force and with a vengeance. Once again, my life was a living nightmare, and I could only hold onto the hope that this man whom I'd trusted so very much really knew what he was talking about and that soon I would be better. And do you know what? After about 6-8 weeks, I was better. I felt good again, I actuallly left the house in my dad's truck and enjoyed just driving around my neighborhood, taking in each tree, bush, bird and car as if it was the first time I'd ever seen any of them. I was cured! I was normal! I started exercising regularly, stripped all things caffeine from my life, got eight hours of sleep each night, and I felt great! In fact, after about a year of being on Imipramine, I stopped taking them cold turkey because I no longer felt as if I had a problem and the doc had told me that they were non-addictive so I could just stop taking them whenever I wanted to. Life was sweet, the world was my oyster, and I forgot all about panic attacks. I just wish they'd forgotten about me.