What causes onset/disappearance of claustrophobia?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Johninch
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
1 reply · 4K views
Johninch
Messages
131
Reaction score
1
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?

.
 
Biology news on Phys.org