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How do you know you're having a panic attack
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: 11 hours ago | Replies (24)Comment receiving replies
You certainly are on the right track trying to figure out how to identify and approach what you are experiencing. Your past experiences sound heartbreaking and please accept my condolences on your loss.
I can just relate my experience with panic attacks and anxiety, which occurred many years ago. For me, I felt like I was going to die. Unless, you’ve experienced it it’s difficult to describe. They started soon after I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I was going through some other personal issues. Mine appeared for no apparent reason. I could be driving, shopping, working, etc. I realized later caffeine was a trigger. I gave it up for one year.
After a particularly severe attack and ending up in the ED of a large hospital where they checked me out completely….heart, lungs, blood, etc. they found no problems. After consulting with my primary and having treadmill test to be sure heart was ok, she diagnosed panic attack and prescribed a short term med to take as needed, which I used judiciously.
I then began my search to learn as much about anxiety and panic attacks as I could. I learned how to talk to myself when I felt one approaching. I found comfort that I would not die from it and that I would be alright. Eventually, they left. Years later I started feeling similar feelings approaching and I started talk therapy. Great decision and it helps so much with my regular anxiety. I keep a low dose med just in case, but only need it every couple of times a year. I was offered prescription for a daily med to treat my overall anxiety, but chose to avoid that if I possibly can. I will take it if I need to. I manage pretty well now with working out daily, nutritious diet, talk therapy and keeping an internal dialogue that I’m ok. A therapist can provide tools to help you talk yourself through it.
Have they offered to let you wear a heart monitor? To me, once you have the confirmation it’s anxiety causing the symptoms, you can gain the confidence to manage it.
Good luck with your recovery. Some people get a lot from support groups.
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I've worn many heart monitors over the years because I have PVCs which are also worsened by anxiety (which they CAUSE so there's a real problem) and mine are cardio/gastro (meaning, my stomach causes the heart to "skip a beat") so I've learned to basically ignore them. I even had three during a nuclear stress test, totally unremarkable, not even a blip on the report so alot of people have them. Heart monitor doesn't explain spikes in BP and even a 24 hour BP monitor doesn't explain them, just shows them. Both times this spike occurred, I took my BP under extreme stress. Cardiologist's PA told me it's the STRESS, a normal healthy reaction to stress is elevated BP. They want me to try to get some control of my anxiety so the spikes won't occur because significant BP spikes over and over again can cause damage but I'm old already, I'm going to drop dead one day sooner than later. It's not like when I was young, especially in my 40s while raising my daughter, when I had PVCs butnever took my BP which I bet was sky high also. I can't tell myself this isn't going to kill me because one day it will, whatever "it" is. I probably won't be alive in five years. So telling myself well I'm young and this isn't going to kill me doesn't work. I'm not young and it certainly might kill me. What I do now is anticipate a higher BP reading and try to avoid taking it in the middle of the day because now I'm anticipating it's going to be high and so it will be.