What causes onset/disappearance of claustrophobia?

[Johninch]

As a child between 5 and 12 I sometimes couldn’t get to sleep because I saw the walls of the room closing in on me. It was very frightening. I suppose it was claustrophobia, but I didn’t have any other similar problems, for example I could climb up monuments and castles with very narrow winding staircases without any effects. Then at about 60 I got a big shock when having to lie in an MRI machine, because I could hardly stand the confinement. 5 years later I got another shock when climbing the staircase of a monument, which got narrower and narrower, but I made it and could just about get down.

So if my claustrophobia is coming back, I have 3 questions:
- Does the risk of claustrophobia increase with age?
- What changes in the brain take place to cause a tendency towards claustrophobia or a tendency away from claustrophobia in the same person?
- Is there a medicine which I can have in my pocket, just in case I get an unexpected attack in a plane, or if I want to climb a monument or take an MRI?

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[Greg Bernhardt]

These are all good questions a doctor can confidently answer.

In the meantime look over the wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claustrophobia