Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Prevention
By Mayo Clinic staffThere's no sure way to prevent agoraphobia. However, anxiety tends to increase the more you avoid situations that you fear. If you start to have mild fears about going places that are safe, try to practice going to those places before your fear becomes overwhelming. If this is too hard to do on your own, ask a family member or friend to go with you or seek professional help.
Also, if you've experienced panic attacks or have panic disorder, get treatment as soon as possible. Because panic disorder and agoraphobia are closely related, getting treatment for panic disorder may prevent the development of agoraphobia.
In addition, if you take medication or are already in therapy or counseling for panic disorder, continue to follow your treatment plan. If you develop any symptoms of agoraphobia, get treatment as soon as possible, which will help prevent symptoms from getting worse over time.
- Agoraphobia. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR. 4th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2000. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed March 10, 2009.
- Hollander E, et al. Panic disorders. In: Hales RE, et al., eds. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed March 10, 2009.
- Ciechanowski P. Overview of phobic disorders in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 3, 2009.
- Shearer SL. Recent advances in the understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders. Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice. 2007;34:475.
- Agoraphobia. In: Moore DP, et al. Handbook of Medical Psychiatry. Philadelphia, Pa.: Mosby; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/125211023-6/0/1243/85.html?tocnode=52436571&fromURL=85.html#4-u1.0-B0-323-02911-6..X5001-5--section6_797. Accessed March 10, 2009.
- Richardson WH, et al. Herbal drugs of abuse: An emerging problem. Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America. 2007;25:435.
- Hall-Flavin DK (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. March 12, 2009.
