Interesting. Mine never “turned on or off” so quickly – there would always be a minute where it was “coming on”, where it could either progress or subside. It is during this period where I feel that anyone would feel naturally fearful about the possible progression into a full-blown panic attack. I’m curious – for you is there no such period?
ETA: ThelmaLou just posted a good example of what I’m talking about. (Though for me the “coming on” is more of a feeling of unreality/dysphoria)
I’ve only had about 4 or 5 in my life. For all of them I was home and just cried them out. The last one was due to a reaction to Welbutrin, and I had it while driving in my car. I was able to pull over and call my brother. I was pretty much done by the time he got me, and when I got home I had a glass of vodka and laid on the floor with my dog.
God, I do not miss those things. I almost, almost got one recently but my brother helped me calm down.
Sorry for all of you who are chronic sufferers. It’s a miserable thing.
My mistake – I was just WAG-ing.
Hmmm. I suppose there is some warning but I don’t always recognize it. However the conscious fear of what might be happening is rarely a contributing factor - mainly because it has happened so many times I know what to expect.
There have however been instances where there has been a sort of synergistic interplay between a purely biological attack and concerns about my health or welfare. I can usually talk myself down regarding the irrational fears, but there is no way of ameliorating the neurochemical type of attacks. I either ride it out for however many hours it takes or I treat it.
Yeah, this “it only lasts for 10-15 minutes” baloney that you read on the medical sites is a crock. If it only lasted for 10 minutes, I could easily live with that drug-free. But it can go on for hours and hours if I don’t catch it early with a xanax. I mean, if it only lasted for 10 minutes, then how come so many people go to the ER? Wouldn’t it be OVER by the time you GOT to the ER?
Totally. I’ve never understood that “10 minutes” “fact” either. Where does that come from?? Mine typically lasted 30 minutes, but some lasted hours.
Agree with the 10 minute thing – my panic attacks are often triggered by anxiety often hours before having some often trivial errand to run, and almost always last until I’ve completed my task and am on autopilot coming back to my place. Maybe that’s more typical of panic disorder with agoraphobia, rather than straight panic attacks without agoraphobia; don’t know.
Another thing mentioned above that’s helped me consistently is going places with a friend or family member – something about talking to someone in general with whom I’m friendly and who cares about me can bring me down, and the act of experiencing what might have been a bad experience and “surviving” without incident is probably beneficial in restructuring negative perceptions.
Stop Running Scared is a good book – I got a copy for three or four bucks off Amazon a few months ago, on a recommendation from someone at the SDMB. Lisa Edelman has at least one very helpful book as well.
I’ve had a genuine, medically diagnosed panic attack once. The reason I’m so sure of it was because it was induced in a clinic.
I had a huge pain in my right knee, so bad that I was having to walk with a cane. I went to the clinic to have it evaluated by a doctor. He wanted to “tap” my knee. I have a pretty major needle phobia, and the prospect of a large needle plunging into my knee caused a full-blown, hamster-in-a-mason-jar panic attack.
Turns out that it was gout. A doctor friend I talked to later said “Yeah, the young guys always want to try the most invasive stuff.”
Having one now. 
Rats. Took a xanax. Waiting for it to kick in. I woke up in it. Makes me afraid to go to bed.
My wife gets them, originally stemming from a bout of food poisoning that struck in the middle of a 7 hour road trip. Add in getting motion sick on a train and then morning sickness on another trip before we knew she was pregnant. It created a strong association between travel and sickness, and then went on from there.
Mostly anxiety attacks result in getting sick, and can also come from things she is excited about- not just negative stress. They can also come despite knowing that there is no rational reason for it. There will be some trigger, and then no convincing the body otherwise. Like a previous poster, she has found that if she can get to sleep it will give her a “reset”. She’s been doing well with Xanax, but she has to take it at the very first signs.
It’s tough for her, but we have seen worse. On a flight to Dallas, we had to divert to Houston to deal with a woman who tried to open the emergency exit door mid-flight (physically impossible to do, but it is the thought that counts). She apparently thought she was dying, and ran up and down the aisle a few times calling to her deity. A seatmate said she mentioned being stressed about meeting some sales quotas or something, and it apparently grew into a huge anxiety attack. It’s sad, but I would hope that it wasn’t her first. If she had some kind of documentation for the condition, it might have gotten her some leeway with the Feds.
Zorte, you are so right that taking a xannie at the first whisper is important, because once it gets going, it’s hard to overtake it. And logic/rationality are useless.
I get them now and then. Often they are purely physical, with no real panicky thoughts attached to them. I just get short of breathe, a racing heart, and a general weird feeling. It scared the hell out of me the first time it happened, but I eventually realized I probably wasn’t having a teenage heart attack. If I’m in emotional distress, I’ll get more emotional panic attacks.
I’ve never thought of medicating them. At most, they last an hour or two. There really isn’t anything that I can’t handle for a couple of hours. I have enough understanding of what is going on to be able to say “Ok, I know what this is. This is a panic attack and it’s something that happens now and then. I’ll have a bad few hours, but by morning I’ll feel fine. I can get through this.” I’m glad you all found a solution that works for you, but personally Xanax scares the hell out of me.
I believe some people don’t know what a panic attack is, not directing to anyone here as I didn’t read all the comments. In my experience, it just hit me like a bolt of lightning, I was trembling and I couldn’t stand straight, if I didn’t lay down I would black out - which in my opinion would have been the better option. Heart is pounding and all you want to do is calm down. It was impossible to focus on reality as your so frightened, you have good reason to be if your own mind is attacking you. Anyway it didn’t last no longer than a few minutes, if it lasted too long (hours?), I would have just taken my life, just to let you know how serious it felt. That was the “worst first” time. I figured how what triggered it and haven’t had a serious one since.
In my opinion—
In order to stop them, you must figure out whats causing them. For me, they attack when I go too deep in my mind, asking myself “what if” questions (paranoia). Sometimes I confuse my “what if” with “it is” and gives me the impression of a false reality which is when I notice the attack coming. Simply getting out of my head works for me. Sometimes, I stay in longer to “study” this false reality. Then the effects from the marijuana drift away leaving me not wanting anymore, but always going back.
I find it interesting none the less. Stepping into the unknown and all. 
Some people will probably say their attacks just come out of no where. Wouldn’t you agree that those people were having trouble fighting ignorance? If you can’t put a reason behind the attack then they will always come back randomly. Make one up if you have to, you will believe it eventually or… the truth will come out and set you free. (subconscious maybe? i dunno)
Tommy Chong
Sometimes you just need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. I just don’t like seeing people on pills. Someone told me you can get hooked on xanax. Does anyone here know how xanax becomes addicting? I’m just curious, is it like a chemical or nicotine?
I don’t believe my attacks ‘come out of nowhere’; I’ve been told by several therapists that they are the result of suppressed childhood trauma (given the crap that happened to me that I do remember, it’s no wonder I’ve repressed nastier stuff than that!)
Xanax can, indeed, be addicting. But I’m not afraid of becoming addicted at the levels I take. I’m prescribed .5mg three times daily. That means a one-month 'script contains ninety .5mg pills. But a bottle lasts me at least two months, sometimes close to three.
I have had them since I was ten years old and I thought I was having a heart attack. They’ve gotten much worse in the past five years, so I have them almost daily. What worked for me the most was Zoloft. While on it I had some general anxiety but my panic attacks became manageable. Now that I’m off the med I have found that I am better able to control them than I used to be, but I also practice a LOT of avoidance rituals.
I have a horrible needle phobia too, Gaffa. It has made my life really hard, and the older I get the worse the phobia is. What’s worse is I’m reaching that age where I really need to go to the doctor regularly but I can’t because I haven’t found one who understands. My last one pretty much told me he wouldn’t continue to see me unless I got over it. Unfortunately he had no suggestions as to how.
Hmmm… it seems to me this doctor needs to go fuck himself. Some healer!!
{{{{{RGG}}}}}
I’m always interested when threads / posts concerning panic attacks come up here because my experience seems to be different than what most folks are talking about. Mine were totally neurochemical and without meds (citalopram and xanax) there’s no way I could have dealt with them. I had no mental or emotional anxiety attached to them, I simply lost all control of my breathing and absolutely had to be in my home. I wonder if I had a different form of it? Anyway I’ve been off the meds for about a month and the doctor says the attacks could come back or I could go my whole life without ever having another one. Anybody else have the same experience?
My dosage for the Xanax was very low, I think .25 mg and I would take it twice a day. I found that if I waited for the symptoms to start it was too late. Maybe you could ask your doctor about prescribing a low dosage for you so can ward them off before they start? Then again, if you’re suffering from a different kind than I was this advice isn’t exactly helpful. Either way, I hope you feel better, **ThelmaLou **
LOVELOVELOVE your screen name, now that I know where it came from. Whenever I say it out loud to myself, it just cracks me up!
I also take only .25 mg of xanax (white pill- but I get the orange ones, which are .5 mg and break them in half so they go farther). I never take more than .25 in a 24-hour period, but you are so right that you have to take it at the first sign of anxiety (physical or mental). You have to nip it in the bud.
Clearly from all of these posts, the panic attack can take different forms. I certainly wouldn’t question the “authenticity” of anyone else’s. Some seem to be triggered by physical sensations, some by thoughts or feelings… the common feature is that they SUCK!!!
I haven’t had a panic attack since that last one I posted about. Thanks.
Yes, I’ve been having chronic anxiety attacks as long as I can remember; only figured out what they were when they started getting unbearably bad in high school. Here are the things that work for me. IANAD, so anything I say is just from my own experience and I don’t mean to sound authoritative.
I learned to recognize the feeling that I was about to have a panic attack, which for me is that I start shaking; my heart races; and I feel too hot, short of breath, and sick to my stomach. I let this be a cue that the negative thoughts I’m about to have don’t belong to my rational mind, and that I shouldn’t listen to them or take them to heart. (I made a thread about this a while back.) Once I say that to myself, I don’t make any bad decisions based on those thoughts, and I might be able to push them out of my mind before they start to reinforce themselves if I’m lucky.
Part of the problem with anxiety attacks is that I become focused on a spiral of negative thoughts, so I find something else that requires my complete focus, like playing a video game, cleaning out my desk, or counting in Chinese in my head. I don’t like reading a book because it’s easy to become distracted.
I try to find someone to talk to. This usually doesn’t help calm me down, but as you said ThelmaLou being alone while panicky is scary. I once came and posted a self-pitying thread here while I was panicking 
and even that made me feel a little better.
When I was going through my divorce I had panic attacks. I’m sure they were caused by stress, but they came randomly. I didn’t have to be thinking about something stressful, usually when I was doing some kind of routine task.
The doctor put me on citalopram and diazapan, one I took daily and the other when I felt an attack coming on (I can’t remember which was which, it was a long time ago). The one I took during an attack made me drowsy and a little buzzed. It also helped to call a friend when I felt one coming on. Once I was driving home from school when one hit and I didn’t have my pills on me. I called her and made her tell me silly stories about her cats. It helped to visualize that and get my focus away from the attack.
Since the divorce, I’ve only had a few more and I try to make it through them with deep breathing and focusing on something else.