What Is Panic Disorder?

The major symptoms of panic disorder are repeated sudden attacks of extreme fear and discomfort. Usually, it is associated with severe physical symptoms.

Physical symptoms of panic disorder

• Hyperventilation or breathlessness
• Dizziness
• Headache
• Palpitations (racing heart beat)
• Chest pain
• Restlessness
• Sickness
• Tremor
• Excessive sweating

Does Cigarette Smoking Harm Your Fertility?

You may be dreaming to have a cute baby. Do you know that smoking can destroy your dream?

Cigarette smoking has harmful effects on your fertility. It can adversely affect your ability to become pregnant as well as continue the pregnancy to term. Both direct and indirect smoking have a negative impact on the fertility in the same way. Adverse effects of cigarette smoking are more obvious in elderly female.

Smoking causes infertility as well as delays the conception in smokers than non-smokers. It can impair the normal reproductive function of the ovaries, and destroy the eggs. Toxins of the cigarette smoke are associated with early menopause too. Some toxic substances can interfere with the oestrogen production and induce genetic abnormalities in the eggs. Long-term smoking can irreversibly damage your ovaries. Smoking is also strongly linked with a raised risk of ectopic pregnancy and spontaneous miscarriage. If you are a pregnant smoker, you are prone to give a birth to a premature baby with a low birth weight. If someone smokes in your home, your infant has a higher risk of getting sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

How Does Cigarette Smoke Affect Your Cardiovascular System?

Cigarette smoking (direct or passive) is a main cause of ischaemic heart disease. It is strongly associated with increased risk of stroke too. Smoking impairs oxygen delivery to the myocardium and lowers myocardial cell use of energy (ATP or adenosine triphosphate). It also causes dysfunction of endothelial cells and increased platelet activity. This process speeds up the development of blood clots in the arteries (thrombosis), causing an ischaemic heart disease or a stroke. Heart failure, heart rhythm abnormalities (arrhythmias), and even death can result from an ischaemic heart disease. Up to one fourth of strokes are directly related to cigarette smoking, which raises the risk of stroke three-fold in smokers than non-smokers. However, the risk of developing a stroke goes down quickly after smoking cessation.

How to Support People with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?

If you are a family member or a carer of a person with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), you can play a significant part of the management. Usually, their health-care professional asks them whether they would like you to be engaged in their care. If the person would like to manage on their own, health-care professionals should respect their privacy and preference.

What Happens If Psychological Treatment or Medication for GAD Doesn’t Work?

If the first treatment option (applied relaxation, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), or medication) doesn’t manage Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) well, your health-care professional should provide another treatment option, which has not been offered before.

If medication is helping you, but you still have some symptoms, you may be provided one of the psychological treatments (CBT or applied relaxation) along with the medication.

If none of the treatment options has helped you manage GAD, the health-care professional may arrange an appointment with a specialist.

Medication for Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

If you chose to have medication than psychological management, or psychological treatment didn’t help you, your health-care professionals should provide medication. They will offer a kind of anti-depressant known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Fluoxetine, Sertraline, Citalopram, Fluvoxamine, Paroxetine, and Escitalopram belong to the SSRI group. Anti-depressants can be an efficient management for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). Taking an anti-depressant doesn’t mean that you have depression.

If the initial SSRI doesn’t work well, or you have adverse effects, which are troublesome, you should be provided a different SSRI or another kind of anti-depressant known as a serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). Duloxetine and Venlafaxine are members of the SNRI group.