diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index ce2a883e1..f614f4422 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ should now look like:
 - [#1399](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1399): Add `read_repairs` statistics to riak plugin.
 - [#1405](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1405): Fix memory/connection leak in prometheus input plugin.
 - [#1378](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1378): Trim BOM from config file for Windows support.
+- [#1339](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1339): Prometheus client output panic on service reload.
 
 ## v1.0 beta 2 [2016-06-21]
 
diff --git a/plugins/outputs/prometheus_client/prometheus_client.go b/plugins/outputs/prometheus_client/prometheus_client.go
index d5e3f1ced..804ae1fad 100644
--- a/plugins/outputs/prometheus_client/prometheus_client.go
+++ b/plugins/outputs/prometheus_client/prometheus_client.go
@@ -25,8 +25,7 @@ var (
 )
 
 type PrometheusClient struct {
-	Listen  string
-	metrics map[string]*prometheus.UntypedVec
+	Listen string
 }
 
 var sampleConfig = `
@@ -35,6 +34,14 @@ var sampleConfig = `
 `
 
 func (p *PrometheusClient) Start() error {
+	defer func() {
+		if r := recover(); r != nil {
+			// recovering from panic here because there is no way to stop a
+			// running http go server except by a kill signal. Since the server
+			// does not stop on SIGHUP, Start() will panic when the process
+			// is reloaded.
+		}
+	}()
 	if p.Listen == "" {
 		p.Listen = "localhost:9126"
 	}
@@ -44,7 +51,6 @@ func (p *PrometheusClient) Start() error {
 		Addr: p.Listen,
 	}
 
-	p.metrics = make(map[string]*prometheus.UntypedVec)
 	go server.ListenAndServe()
 	return nil
 }
@@ -118,24 +124,26 @@ func (p *PrometheusClient) Write(metrics []telegraf.Metric) error {
 				continue
 			}
 
-			// Create a new metric if it hasn't been created yet.
-			if _, ok := p.metrics[mname]; !ok {
-				p.metrics[mname] = prometheus.NewUntypedVec(
-					prometheus.UntypedOpts{
-						Name: mname,
-						Help: "Telegraf collected metric",
-					},
-					labels,
-				)
-				if err := prometheus.Register(p.metrics[mname]); err != nil {
-					log.Printf("prometheus_client: Metric failed to register with prometheus, %s", err)
-					continue
-				}
+			mVec := prometheus.NewUntypedVec(
+				prometheus.UntypedOpts{
+					Name: mname,
+					Help: "Telegraf collected metric",
+				},
+				labels,
+			)
+			collector, err := prometheus.RegisterOrGet(mVec)
+			if err != nil {
+				log.Printf("prometheus_client: Metric failed to register with prometheus, %s", err)
+				continue
+			}
+			mVec, ok := collector.(*prometheus.UntypedVec)
+			if !ok {
+				continue
 			}
 
 			switch val := val.(type) {
 			case int64:
-				m, err := p.metrics[mname].GetMetricWith(l)
+				m, err := mVec.GetMetricWith(l)
 				if err != nil {
 					log.Printf("ERROR Getting metric in Prometheus output, "+
 						"key: %s, labels: %v,\nerr: %s\n",
@@ -144,7 +152,7 @@ func (p *PrometheusClient) Write(metrics []telegraf.Metric) error {
 				}
 				m.Set(float64(val))
 			case float64:
-				m, err := p.metrics[mname].GetMetricWith(l)
+				m, err := mVec.GetMetricWith(l)
 				if err != nil {
 					log.Printf("ERROR Getting metric in Prometheus output, "+
 						"key: %s, labels: %v,\nerr: %s\n",