Tuesday Topic, with Christine Rutter

PANIC. The heart races, you have a tight chest, dry mouth, sweating, shaking, dizziness, inability to keep still and an intense focus on your body.

Anyone who has felt in danger - like being followed by a stranger at night - will recognise how the body reacts under threat.

It is the flight or fight instinct. A feeling that disaster is imminent and you must stand and face the fear or flee.

This instinct is aroused in threatening situations where you fear that your person will be harmed in some way. But situations which lead to this are few and far between in everyday life.

So imagine what it is like when these alarm bells ring in your system every day, even though you are under no apparent attack - sitting on a bus full of pensioners, studying in class. Andrea Ashworth, 24, is one of the hundreds of people from East Lancashire who has suffered from panic attacks on a regular basis. Through relaxation techniques such as meditation she has conquered the fear which has haunted her for 10 years but many are still suffering in silence, often not taken seriously by their friends, family and even doctors.

"Society does not take this problem seriously. People think you are fabricating it. The attacks are really frightening," said Andrea, of Haslingden Road, Guide, near Blackburn.

The problems are strikingly real for sufferers, some of whom are taken into casualty convinced they are dying from a heart attack. "You lose all sense of proportion and your heart is beating so fast, you do feel like you are having a heart attack. Like you are dying," said Andrea.

"You don't realise at the time that there is a trigger for the attacks."

She puts her trigger down to the time she jumped off a shed in a back garden with her friends when she was an eight-year-old girl.

"Two minutes after jumping I felt a really weird sensation. My heart was pounding and my temples were hurting me. I didn't know what was the matter with me. I ran into my house shouting: "Mum, I'm dying."

This memory of fear could put her body on red alert at any time.

"The memory of the first attack brought on another. It was just a vicious circle. It could happen any time," said Andrea, a former pupil of Queen's Park High School, Blackburn.

"My heart would beat hard, my breathing would become shallow. I felt stressed-out, anxious and trapped. I lost a lot of weight because I couldn't eat."

Andrea, like many sufferers, feared madness because of the intensity of her panic attacks.

"I felt out of control. My mind was somewhere else. I felt as though I was going mad. After the attack you feel there is something wrong with you, that maybe you have some sort of terminal illness."

She added: " I just felt isolated. I didn't think anybody else was having them." Andrea suffered for years and even visited her doctors to no avail.

"A lot of doctors just don't understand the problem," said Andrea, who has graduated from the University of Central Lancashire with an English Literature degree.

Eventually, through watching TV programmes and reading books about the problem, she managed to control her fear.

She channels it into exercise and t'ai chi and has learned breathing techniques and forms of relaxation such as meditation.

"Once you know your trigger you can learn to control the attacks. You have to work on not worrying and reducing the tension and stress. Don't let the attacks rule your life and stop them before they start."

There is no one theory why panic attacks happen but research has produced causes ranging from inner ear defects, acid production and calcium levels to high environmental stress, family conditioning towards worry and a high awareness of danger.

Andrea is committed to exposing the problem and is responsible for publicity for a new booklet, Understanding and Managing Panic Attacks.

It is published by The Women's Centre, which is currently printing a second edition after the first 500 booklets were snapped up by local people.

Andrea said: "These booklets raises awareness of the problem for sufferers and their families. There seems to be a big need for them.

"They show that sufferers are not alone and that there is light at the end of the tunnel."

The booklets cost £2 and area available by phoning The Women's centre on 01254 583032.

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