Panic disorder: the heart that goes thump in the night - and day. (includes related articles on causes of panic and gender differences)

Every night for five years, Sherry Menter would postpone sleep as long as she could. When it beckoned, she would clean the house, sew, read, bake cookies--do anything to avoid the terror she had come to expect once she drifted off. But eventually, sleep overtook her, and with it, the inevitable.

"I could hear a noise like a siren or freight train coming in my head," she says. "I could feel my jaw lock, my teeth grind, and my limbs become totally immobilized, yet shaking uncontrollably, while this freight train comes charging into my head, and by the time the train…