A panic attack without panic?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have had panic attacks before and in addition to the physical symptoms there is also a “panicky” feeling (duh). In the past, the panic attacks were always triggered by a situation.

Last Saturday and today I when sitting in front of my computer at home (about 10:30 a.m.) I had a rapid onset of many of the classic systems of a panic attack but without any particular feeling of panic. The only thing approaching panic was when the symptoms made me wonder if I was having a heart attack or something. But even that was really more just anxiety about the way I was feeling than panic. Although I am in a more or less constant state of stress, both times I was just quietly surfing the web and not feeling particularly upset or stressed out.

The only way I can describe how I felt is mainly a feeling of shakiness, a little tightness in my throat, a bit weird feeling in my chest and my pupils appeared constricted.

On Saturday, after the worst of the feelings were over I remained a bit shaky for much of the day. I went to my local watering hole to self medicate myself, but even so I didn’t feel normal for another couple of hours (about 5 p.m.).

I plan to see a doctor because I never go to one and I need a checkup. Since I don’t currently have insurance, I have been trying to get recommendations for a private doctor since I think that would be cheaper than going to a “doc in a box”. I haven’t been to see one yet though.

So today, after feeling pretty normal all week, it happens again. After about 45 minutes and totally out of character for me (Mr. Denial), I swallow my pride and call 911 intending to ask whether I should go to a clinic. They aren’t allowed to provide any advice but offer to send a medic over. At least they’re free, so I say bring them on.

They measure my BP (190/100 I think - yikes!). I believe my heart rate was described as racing (although I didn’t really have a feeling of a pounding heart). They hook up electrodes to my arms and legs and a couple to my chest, followed a little later by four more on my chest(!).

They didn’t provide a lot of details, but the guys with the machine made comments about something “jumping” (my heart rate I guess) as well as something being “steady” or “solid” (heart rhythm I assume).

So anyway, I guess I’m going to live. Just a case of “vapors” or something that the poor medics must see zillion of times a day. The medic’s recommendation was to go to a doctor and get some Xanax and find an outlet for my stress. They offered to take me to the hospital, but since I wasn’t hearing anything life threatening I declined. My BP was down to 170/100 by the time they left.

Just mundane, pointless stuff I felt like sharing and wondering how I can have a panic attack without feeling panicked.

2

Find a good doctor (ask your friends about their doctors) and, when you you visit the doctor, ask about essential tremors.

Good luck!

3

IANAD but, as someone who’s been having a lot of anxiety attacks lately, I have done some research on the topic. Attacks usually happen about two weeks after a period of high stress. Mine often happen when I’m totally relaxed and just hanging out. A lot of the time, the “panic” associated with a panic attack is fear that you’re having a heart attack. Since you’ve had them before, you probably recognized the symptoms and didn’t freak out. Another common symptom is if you’ve woken up in the middle of the night recently with an elevated heartbeat.

Finding a good doctor might help but I just have to bitch a little bit as a warning. When I went to my HMO doctor, he spent 90% of the time confusing me with technical jargon and convincing me that I don’t need any expensive tests or treatment. If you go to a doctor, just describe the symptoms and make them do whatever tests they need to find out what’s wrong. If there’s something more than anxiety, make them find out now.

4

I have these too. I’ve had blood tests and all sorts of other tests and they found nothing physically wrong with me or my heart. I’ve found that cutting caffiene and extra sugars out of my diet helped me sleep better, kept me from getting less hyper or anxious and reduced the frequency of these little mini heart-attack things. I do have some Lorzepam, but I don’t take any medication regularly – I talked the Dr. into giving me the Lorzepam for the very rare instances where I get extremely worked up and can’t calm myself down by other means.

It could be serious, but it also could just be psychological. I wouldn’t get too worked up about it until you have more information, because that will just make it worse. (Which is partly what happened to me – after I had my tests, just knowing I wasn’t dying alone was enough to alleviate much of the anxiety.)

5

You sound so much like my girlfriend in your description of your symptoms I had a hard time believing you were not her! She has a thyroid condition which sometimes causes the kind of panic-less panic attacks you describe, and in fact she’s reading this over my shoulder; when she came to the part where the medic recommended Xanax, she started shaking her head “no, no, no, tell him to get his thyroid checked”.

“TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), free T3, and free T4, and also have the doctor palpate the thyroid to rule out a nodule which could be the cause of spurts of thyroid hormone.”

I agree that you should not start off with a mood-modifier pharmaceutical until you’ve ruled out physiological conditions of which the events you’ve described could be a symptom.

6

Thanks for the replies.

I decided to get out of the house shortly after posting the thread. Unfortunately, I tried to play mediator between two dear friends and got reamed. We are all good now, but it didn’t help my stress at the time. You know, no good deed goes unpunished.

I’m tired now and am going to bed. I’ll give an update tomorrow.

Thanks again.

7

Before going to bed, I wanted to say that the idea about checking my thyroid is a good idea and is something that could explain some other things.

I also appreciate the comments about how these weird feelings could be delayed from the high stress moments.

Also, the comment about caffeine may be relevant. I used to drink coffee all the time, but not for a while. My “episodes” occurred two out of three times that I have had coffee recently. (Although I think that is more a contributing factor than the cause.)