I’m curious about the physical and mental symptoms that occur during panic/anxiety attacks. Do any Dopers suffer or have suffered from these? Or have family members that do and could help me understand these better? What were the first symptoms that were noticed, and what finally made you decide to see a doctor? What, in your experience, triggers them?
progresses like so: Uneasiness -> intense fear -> “something bad is about to happen and I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” (feeling of impending doom.) Also sometimes a tingly sensation in my fingertips, lightheadedness and increased ringing in my ears. sometimes fearing that any weird sensation in the upper abdomen/chest area (even just a pectoral muscle twitch) is the onset of a heart attack.
the constant lightheadedness, but it’s not like the doctor actually did anything but say it wasn’t likely that the cause was physical.
hell if I know.
Oh boy, I could write a book.
I’ve been on a posting frenzy and don’t want to monopolize the board, but this here is a topic I can talk about.
I’m 28. I’ve been married for 6 months. My husband is killed in a car accident.
A couple of months go by and I finally get around to going to the bank on my lunch hour to close his business bank account. I’m standing in line. It’s a long time. I’m starting to get worried I’m not going to make it back to work on time.
You know the expression, the grief just washed over me? That’s what happened. It literally seemed to start in my toes and work its way up my body to exit out the top of my head and then do it again and again. I’d never felt anything like it. It took my breath away.
I felt frantic. I was going to pass out or die right there. I found a chair and placed my head between my knees. That didn’t help. My vision went in and out, my heart started to be audible in my ears, my hands, feet and arms were going numb. I knew, just knew, that I was dying.
I very shakily got to my car and rushed myself first to a nearby friends house, because I knew I should not be driving, but they were not home. So I went to the hospital instead.
That was the start. There’s a whole lot of story that follows, but like I said, I don’t want to monopolize.
I’m happy to answer any and all questions that I can. Privately or not, your preference.
A few years ago, for no discernible reason, in November - I woke up in a state of extreme anxiety and it would not go away. Day and night, for almost a month, I was in the ‘flight’ part of ‘fight or flight’. I had chills and hot flashes, the shakes, stomachaches, palpitations, and the feeling of DREAD, 24-7. I couldn’t sleep, basically just zoned out from sheer exhaustion an hour or two a night. I couldn’t eat, everything was concrete and ashes. (I made a peanut butter sandwich every day on whole grain bread, cut it into little squares, and forced a bite down with o.j. or milk every hour, and that is what I lived on, my friends, for at least a week.) Upside: Finally lost some weight!.. I couldn’t sit still! THAT was a new one, I couldn’t sit still, I would have to put on my coat, rush out of the house, and walk briskly around the block several times a day, that made me feel a little bit better for a while. One day I started crying and I picked up the phone and called the doctor’s office. Went in still crying and got a prescription for Paxil. Oddly, I felt better coming out of the doctor’s office. Took the Paxil for several years and it kind of numbed me out (it was NOT a ‘happy pill’), till I tapered off by myself and quit. Now I wonder if I should have done that, I still wake up every morning with extreme anxiety, but it fades fairly quickly…I can’t say what caused all this, it seems to have been a brain thing. I’m high strung and have mild OCD, just a big worrywart all the time, looking for the downside, preparing for the worst. Can’t be happy… My friend was a heavy drinker, she said after she gave up the booze cold turkey she went through something just like it. Her anxiety went away after a month, she’s into healthy livin’ and exercise, all is well with her now. Me, it will never end, but it’s just a pale ghost compared to that one lost month of November.
Thanks for the answers so far.
The reason I ask is I’ve been feeling a strange pressure in my chest for the past few days. Seems to.get worse when I start worrying about stuff, which is pretty much all the time now. Accompanying this is a feeling of heart palpatations/fluttering and shortness of breath. It’s a very strange feeling. I can’t get in to see my doc until Monday at the earliest, so am trying a bit of self-diagnosis. These symptoms were at their worst right before a Spanish test I had to take earlier this week, but they have not gone away completely.
I’ve had two stress tests in the past 4 years, both times the doc said I was fine.
Don’t know what to do.
The palpitations/shortness of breath are quite common in anxiety, I know a lot of people who get that under stress - but of course, you should tell your doctor because it could be something. Or nothing.
My panic attacks are basically adrenaline dumps. I get sweaty, and feel like I’m about to have a heart attack. Not really sure why I relate it to that but that’s what it feels like.
The first bad one I had I thought I was going to die. Sucked big time.
Lancia, I don’t know if this will help you, but something my therapist had me do to snap myself out of panic, was to snap a rubberband on my wrist. It took practice and didn’t always work, but sometimes it would do enough to get me to quit thinking myself into a panic attack.
Another suggestion is to get busy. Do something, clean the oven, mop the floor. Just something. You have to get out of your head even when you don’t think you’re worrying something to death in there.
Because the ultimate “cure” is just to live through it. You do that enough, you start to know you’ll be okay and you can learn to talk yourself down.
But don’t get me wrong. I can use these tricks sometimes, but sometimes I have to take medicine and go through a very uncomfortable period while the pill starts to kick in. Periods of unusually high stress has me forgetting all these tricks myself.
I hope some of this helps.
I never had them bad, and now I’ve got techniques to recognise them when they start and quell them.
But the first big one I had: that was a doozy. The first one I had was on a subway train that got stuck in a tunnel. But it was circumstantial and went away when the train started moving. The second was a feeling of tumbling and dissociation as I was sitting eating my lunch in a park one day.
But the third one… I was on a long haul flight. Something weird started happening - feeling of dread, head spinning, buzzing in my chest. Heart attack? My palms were sweating, I was dizzy and couldn’t think straight. Was I going to piss myself? Shit my pants? What the hell was going on with me? Oh my god, I was going mad!
The more I worried about the symptoms, the more I actually panicked, which set off more symptoms. It went on for seven or eight hours. And I couldn’t do anything like go for a walk or diall 911 because I was on a plane. I tried to watch a movie but ended up crying hysterically (but quietly). It was years before I realised what had happened to me.
Now I know what they are and I get the creeping feeling of dread, I can go “aha, panic attack coming. Fuck off.” A few deep breaths and it recedes; nonetheless it’s not a nice feeling, feels deeply unpleasant for a minute or two afterwards, but then I’m fine again. Because of this I haven’t gone through one for years.
Oy. First, to answer your worries about your symptoms – yes, they could be symptoms of panic attacks. An over-awareness of your heartbeat, palpitations, lightheadedness, tingling/numbness down one or both sides of your body… all of them are typical of panic attacks.
Unfortunately they’re also some warning symptoms of heart issues, although if you’ve had a checkup (EKG and stress test) in the recent past and your doctor gave you the OK signal, that’s a good sign. If you have any serious doubt and you find yourself having breathing problems and (especially) crushing pain, call 911 (if you’re in the US). It’s better to have EMTs show up and check your symptoms/take you to the ER if necessary. That’s what they’re there for.
I’ve been beset by panic disorder for about four years now. It’s possible what brought it on was, of all things, a vitamin B12 deficiency. I had my first panic attack in 2008 and I seriously thought I was about to die. My heart was racing, I felt tingly/numbness down my face and left side of my body, and my whole body was on edge as if I were standing on a tightrope with hungry lions waiting for me to fall. I felt as if someone had scraped at every nerve ending with a razor. Plus my whole body was buzzing like a tuning fork.
I’ve had anxiety attacks before; I’m very shy by nature, and when at parties or social functions, I’ve felt claustrophobic and overwhelmed to the point where I desperately needed to escape. But this was a whole new level of terror.
I was so terrified that I went to the ER. EKG normal, Sonogram normal, MRI of my chest and legs was normal (they were testing for an embolism IIRC). They were very kind to me there and gave me a valium which finally brought my heartrate down (from 140bpm to 90 or so) and recommended I check with neurology about the numbness and “buzzing” feeling. Luckily when I went to the neurologist, he was smart and after doing some basic motor skills tests, the first thing he said he wanted to rule out was a B12 deficiency. I was like, “are you kidding me? Right, as if a vitiamin problem would cause these symptoms!” But sure enough, my tests came back astonishingly low. I was given a B12 shot and put on a regimen of mega-high dose B12 sublingual (under the tongue), and my symptoms gradually went away. Unfortunately it’s likely that I have permanent nerve damage from the deficiency, and the buzzing still bothers me.
I also was checked out by a cardiologist and put through a stress test, which was something I’d dreaded. My heart was fine. However, my doctor put me on a beta blocker for the anxiety, which I kinda wish he hadn’t, because once you’re on one of those, it is incredibly difficult to wean off of them. As I learned to my detriment this year.
Anyway, fast-forward to this year. I’ve had major depression for a while now but over the last year I’ve gotten worse (and I wasn’t being treated). I was running low on my beta blockers and I was trying to step down on them as slowly as possible. But I wasn’t feeling very well and my heart was fluttering/palpitating. Then came the return of my panic attacks: this time accompanied by intense head/ear pressure. Back I went to the ER. Again a normal EKG, though this time my blood pressure was alarmingly 180/150. They put me back on a full dose of beta blockers, and told me to follow up with a GP re: my anxiety issues and the ear pressure.
The doctor I went to was very patient and she said that my physical issues were almost certainly related to my depression and anxiety. Finally I went back into therapy and was put on Prozac for the depression. BIG MISTAKE. Though I got a brief lift in my mood, this was swiftly followed by a sharp escalation in my anxiety, to the point where I was having constant waves of adrenaline flooding me. Now, by now I’m intellectually aware of what my panic attack symptoms are, but the thing about panic attacks is that your body is giving you horrifying signals while your mind is trying to calm down… and unfortunately, the body usually wins out (at least with me). That’s what panic disorder is: not just having panic attacks, but the fact that you’re now dreading the next attack, and so you end up avoiding everything that will remind you of the physical symptoms. I was constantly checking my heart rate (not helped by the fact that I have tinnitus that varies with my pulse, so basically I can always hear my heart beating in my ear. Every time my heart rate went over 90, I feared that it was the start of a heart attack.
Last month was basically one long panic attack, and for the first time ever, I genuinely thought I was losing my sanity because of the constant terror and dread. I’ve been depressed all my life, but this was the first time I actually felt crazy. I spent most of the time lying in bed sleeping because that was the only way to escape.
Fortunately my psychiatrist changed up my medications to put me on Klonopin (a benzo, which I’m now slowly tapering down from) and Elavil, an old school anti-depressant. Plus I have Xanax for when I’m right in the middle of a panic attack. (That’s only as-needed, though. It’s a short-acting drug and isn’t good for long-term use.) Slowly the panic attack incidents have lessened, thank goodness, though they still crop up now and then.
I finally decided to sack up and go see my cardiologist for another test just to rule out my heart issues. I did and once again, after an EKG, echo and stress test, he told me I’m not at risk for a heart attack.
So whew, there’s my long story. The awful thing about panic attacks (versus anxiety attacks) is that they usually come out of nowhere. They’re not really brought on by an actual issue that I’m worried about, at least not consciously. They’ll start out of the blue, and it doesn’t matter if I’m walking down the street or watching TV or writing or reading or whatever. This unpredictability is what makes them so debilitating, because if you can’t predict them, you can’t really prevent them. And this means part of me always feels the next one is lying in wait, ready to strike.
Oddly enough, one thing that helps me? Playing video games. If I’m able to distract myself, the feeling does go away. And that’s what helps convince me that I’m not having a heart attack or stroke. As far as I know, heart attacks and strokes don’t fade away just because you’ve distracted yourself by shooting bad guys in a videogame.
I’m really sorry for this ridiculously long dissertation, but this is a very timely thread considering what September was like for me.
I wish you the best when you speak to your doctor! Again, if you find yourself able to distract yourself in some way (watching TV, listening to great music, or even running cold water on your hands or face) and the symptoms go away, you’re probably not having a medical crisis. But if you really do have doubts, go to the ER and let them check you out. Better to be safe than sorry.
Edited to add: BTW, the (many) webpages that say that panic attacks only last ten minutes to a half-hour? BULL. SHIT. I don’t know why this incorrect information is cluttering up the web but it is absolutely not true. Mine usually last three or four hours of hell, and this is not uncommon. You can have sort of rolling waves of panic that last the whole day.
Thank you all.
Went to the urgent care today. They did an EKG and a bunch of bloodwork, looking for the enzyme markers that signal heart problems. All clear. I was telling the doc about my day-to-day life, and she told it sounded to her like it was enough to trigger panic attacks in anyone. She have me a script for Xanax,which I’m hesitant to use, but at least I have a fairly concrete diagnosis. I will make an appointment with my regular pcp in the next week or so.
Anybody have experience with Xanax? I understand it is incredibly addictive, and the withdraw symptoms are worse than those associated with heroin.
I can’t take SSRIs because of this - they cause intense akathisia in some people. I’ve taken exactly two SSRI tablets in my life and both times it happened and was worse than the depression. My doc told me to put up with it; I told the doc no way.
I had my first panic attack around 2004. I was shopping with a family member, when I started to feel really extremely dizzy, nauseous, my vision went strange, everything felt less real. I didn’t know what was happening, but I just knew I absolutely needed to get away now!
I had another one a few weeks later. I looked up my symptoms on the internet, and discovered panic attacks fit my symptoms the best. I read up on them, about how they can never cause actual harm no matter how bad they feel. And also read relaxation techniques.
Because of what I’ve learnt, I’ve never had a panic attack as bad as the first two. Actually knowing what’s happening helped the most for me.
It must run in the family, because my dad got diagnosed with them a couple of years later, he’s been having them for decades, and I found out that my brother has also had them. I’ve never officially been diagnosed myself. But I match all the symptoms, and relaxation techniques help reduce how often I have them and how bad they are.
I had my first panic attack walking up the stairs to my doctor’s office. It was terrible, I thought I was dieing and I was afraid that I’d fall and fall between the stairs.
I was going to see a new doctor because our wonderful mod, Lynn Bodini (apologizes if I’ve mangled the spelling), PM’d me and said that she thought I was suffering from depression. I figured that if strangers on a BB could see that, maybe I should do something about it.
So, I’m going to do something positive and my idiot brain sent me into a panic attack on the way to get help.
Now I want to run this odd stress reaction by this group and see if anyone has experienced it.
My stomach tightens up and starts producing gas. Gas which then comes up and not out, but into my chest muscles. Hurts like hell. I have to bend, turn, press in different places to burp and make it come out, which is only a temporary solution because it just keeps going until I somehow manage to relax and get past the overall reaction thingy.
When it first started happening to me about 15 years ago, I took a lot of pepto trying to kill what I thought was a stomach acid problem. I’ll still usually chew a couple of tums, but for the most part, it is an exercise in trying to keep the pain to a minimum while trying to distract or relax myself to get past it. Sometimes I accomplish that and it goes away, only to come roaring back when my mind goes back to the original stressor.
Anyone else ever experienced anything like that?
I have had two that I can recall. Both brought on by feelings of claustrophobia. The first was while having an MRI of my head. The second while waiting for a plane to take off, jammed into the hated window seat.
I had the usual physical symptoms both times.
I asked to quit the MRI and was slid back out. The tech told me I’d have to wait weeks for another appointment with something to calm me down. I figured quitting would make next time worse so I told him to put me back. And I got through it.
On the plane I was just at the point of jumping up and telling the crew that I had to get off when I realized that I would miss the concert I was going to and would have more problems next time.
Both times I was able to get through it using meditation/relaxation techniques that I knew. With the MRI I ended up interested in the whole experience. On the plane I had to “work hard” at relaxing but it wasn’t a long trip luckily. A few days later when I flew home I was, like usual, totally unconcerned.
I have taken Xanax some time ago. I was moaning to my doctor about the shitty state of my life at the time. He convinced me that I was depressed and that a short course of Xanax would get me back to normal. I only took 2 and for 2 days suffered overwhelming feelings of agitation. I know how hard it is to get off many antidepressants once your on them, so I stopped immediately.
Stupid of me to be talked into it because I don’t really believe that drugs are the answer for depression.
I started having them a few years ago after double pneumonia. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I had been thrown off a cliff. Heart pounding, couldn’t catch my breath, etc., couldn’t go back to sleep for hours, if at all.
My doc also put me on Xanax 0.50. I have been taking them for almost three years now, but only when an attack starts. They work really fast and I don’t need them more than 3x per week and sometimes as little as 3x per month. I have never had to escalate the dose and most times a 30 pill scrip will last me in the neighborhood of 3-4 months.
At first they would make me feel a little buzzed as the panic attack faded away, now I just notice the fade away, no buzz. I guess if I was chasing a buzz that would be a problem, but I just want that horrible “OMG I’M DYING” feeling to go away.
IANAD …YMMV and all that.
That’s great news about getting the all-clear re: your heart. Knowing that can make a big difference. They probably made you wait a few hours re: the enzyme test, right?
As I mentioned, I have a Xanax prescription but it’s only as needed. Xanax will help you in the now (particularly if you take it sublingually – if you’re having a panic attack, put it under your tongue and let it dissolve, rather than swallowing it; the membranes under your tongue will absorb the meds faster than going the longer digestive route). But I wouldn’t take one every day, because yes, Xanax and similar pills (such as Ativan) are very addictive. There are better meds for long-term use. Even Klonopin (clonazepam) or Valium (diazepam) is better, because they’re a bit more longer-acting. But even they aren’t ideal and they too are hella addictive.
Actually I take my bottle of Xanax with me in my pocketbook, and just knowing it’s there is a nice security blanket. I’ve been assiduous about only taking them when I know the symptoms start to feel overwhelming. (I’ve had one 30-pill prescription since June, and I still have ten or so pills left.)
Basically as not mentioned above, learning some distraction techniques (the rubber band, or as I mentioned, cold water running against your hands), not to mention breathing exercises, can be of tremendous help. Exercise is considered excellent therapy too.
But it might help to seek a therapist who can help you through some of the stress issues in your life. Best of luck to you!
“Put up with it”? Oh hells no. Good for you for not accepting that. What did you switch to, if anything?
I can totally relate to that “worse than the depression” … that’s exactly how I felt. Last month when the anxiety was positively crippling, I was like, “I wish I could just go back to being plain ol’ miserably depressed. Man, those were the days!”
In fairness, my psychiatrist put me on Prozac originally because fifteen years ago I actually had a very good response to Prozac, with the only side effects being restless leg syndrome – that’s I guess the akathisia you mention – and yawning a lot, despite not being sleepy. (Weird, right?) At the time the RLS was annoying but certainly didn’t trigger any panic attacks.
So I don’t blame him for trying me out on an SSRI that I’d had good experience with in the past. But sadly it’s clear that nowadays my anxiety is the chief problem, because Prozac and Zoloft triggered it like whoa. I think that’s why he finally moved me to the old tricyclate (Elavil), which is kind of old-fashioned. My regular GP isn’t thrilled with that course, actually, and mentioned trying another SSRI, but no freakin’ way. I’d love to, because honestly for about a week before the anxiety backlash started in, I really did feel a lightening of my mood, and it was definitely noticeable. Prozac clearly wanted to work, but my anxiety wouldn’t let it.
For some they absolutely are. It really depends on each case. For situational depression (something brought on by a certain circumstance, e.g. grief or a lost job or similar) it’s probably easier to work one’s way out of depression without meds. For those of us who have clinical depression – lifelong, likely inherited depression – meds can and are a godsend. Though usually they’re used in conjunction with therapy, because medication alone won’t be enough… one might need coping mechanisms if you’ve faced a life of misery and think yourself doomed to continue it.
Shoot, missed the editing window… I mean tricyclics, not tricyclates, duh.
Also hopefully I didn’t make it sound as if grief or job loss is easy to get over. I know first hand they aren’t. But I think those are situations that can gradually be worked through without medication, at least it’s more likely than for those with depression that doesn’t appear to have a specific cause (as is the case for many of us with lifelong depression).
Exercise and CBT. Panic was never really a crippling problem though, it was pretty rare, but I had depression. I’ve been right as rain now for more than a year, fingers crossed.
My drug-induced akathisia was way worse than restless leg though. The first time I took an SSRI I was at work and started tripping out in meetings, jumping around in my chair, feeling like I was upside-down on Planet Zog, not able to speak because I was so spaced out. The worst thing was they were my meetings - I was the boss!
Then during lunch I just had to get outside - and ended up walking around the city aimlessly in a state of high agitation until I came to my senses and found myself going up and down an escalator in a shopping mall, flapping my hands and laughing to myself. Crazy shit! Never ever again.