Your Ultimate Health Guide

A person with agoraphobia may not leave his home for years. Yet, he welcomes visitors but only if they are in defined places and rooms where help can be sort immediately.

Agoraphobic may experience severe panic streaks when he feels that he is being trapped. He may feel insecure and very uncomfortable with the place. For the most severe cases, an agoraphobic prefers a single room and may become bed-bound until the over-stimulation of his nervous system subsides and his adrenaline level becomes normal.

Also, during attacks agoraphobics may become overly conscious with the happenings in their bodies. Even a slight change in their heart rate may start a panic attack. It is often that an agoraphobia sufferer will interpret the conditions in which he is experiencing the initial attack of agoraphobia as the start of a heart attack. Some examples are climbing of stairs that causes increased heart beat and rate of breathing.

Though agoraphobia is a single condition, it may be associated with some other fears such as :-

1. Fear of loneliness or of being alone

2. Fear of failing to control one self in a public place

3. Fear of difficulty of escaping in specific places

4. Fear of detachment from others

5.Feeling of helplessness

6. Too much dependence on other people

7. Feeling of unreal body

8. Feeling of unreal environment

9. Panic attack or anxiety

10.Unusual temper

11. Agitation accompanied by trembling or twitching

Agoraphobia affects mostly women. There are twice as many female agoraphobics as there are male agoraphobics.