1. < Depression & Anxiety

How do you know you're having a panic attack

Posted by user_ch783e933 @user_ch783e933, 3 days ago

I'm old and I have high blood pressure but it's been controlled since diagnosis 30 years ago, more or less. It doesn't seem to have damaged my heart or circulatory system so far as I can tell from stress tests I had six years ago, doppler echo, no discomfort or shortness of breath, everything normal. But:

I was feeling really weird early September so I took my BP and it was 200/105. That's not only HIGH for anyone, but I'm five feet tall, weight 110 pounds, and had never seen a number like that. So I called 911. And the paramedics told me this wasn't a hypertensive crisis, it was anxiety and fatigue. They said they'd take me to the ER but the reading had already come down and that all the ER would do is keep taking it and observe me then send me home. So I took half a Xanax and put myself in bed in front of the TV and took a half of my 5.0mg lisinopril. Because I was anxious every time I took it, it never went back down to 120 something over 70 somethng but I didn't see that killer number again at least.

It happened again two days ago. I switched cardiologists and saw the new one a couple of weeks ago, there's a very long wait for this doctor so it took months. He said anxiety spikes are common but we still have alot of increase to do in the lisinopril if needed. Because my resting BP first thing in the morning and last thing at night is in the (at its highest) 120s over 70s (and in my age category a good reading is anything under 130/90) no one wants to increase the medication or I could literally pass out if I stand suddenly. Also, I suddenly developed a weird tingling in the pads of my feet out of nowhere and had an MRI last Saturday that hasn't been read yet but lisinopril can cause this and I'm so intolerant of meds that the other BP meds I've tried do bad things and changing this med is going to be difficult.

But two days ago, I was doing something (it was very cold here, 5 degrees f) and my fingers and feet suddenly felt cold (the tingling thing is worrying me so this upset me) and I was totally unaware of what happened to me. There was ZERO thought process. I went from something in my usual day to thinking there's something wrong with me. My fight/flight mode must have been in high gear and i didn't EVEN KNOW IT. I just decided to take my BP, pretty stupid thing to do but I didn't KNOW I was having a panic attack. So the BP reading was 180/100 and that toally freaked me out. I called the cardiologist office and talked to his PA. I took it again and it was coming down. She told me anxiety spikes are very common and that wasn't even high compared to others she'd seen but that I had to come back in and we needed a team effort. She gave me the number of the psychiatrist in their practice to try to get a med that would help lower my overall anxiety to prevent the spikes from going that high. The office just scheduled another appointment in 3 weeks and I have an appointent with the psychiatrist in February also.

So sorry for the long story but obviously no one could understand this without knowing what happened. My question is: how do YOU KNOW you're having a panic attack when you're in the middle of one? I'm always upset, I suffer from compicated grief and complex PTSD from losing my 23 year old daughter in 2011 and that is never going to change. Losing your child kills you. Im surprised to still be alive to be honest. Just as with other forms of mental illness, apparently it's possible to be having a panic attack and NOT KNOW IT. I'm totally alone so there's no one to talk to and no one to tell me I'm having one. What can I do to identify it so this doesn't keep happening? Does anyone KNOW?

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cheryl333 | @cheryl333 | 1 day ago

The first time I had a panic attack I thought I was about to due. It is such an overwhelming fear and our " fight or flight" system kicks in. Our brain tells our body to prepare to fight or flee. Massive amounts of adrenaline are released which has the immediate effect of making our heart race like crazy and mine would have episodes of irregular beating where it would be thumping hard, and then stop, I'd hold my breath wondering if this was it, my heart had stopped and I was done for. Then it would suddenly thump really hard and skip around . I was just having palpitations which are common in panic attacks due to the adrenaline dump. I woukd also sweat, shake, have to pee. .lol, and I would gave this strange feeling that I had to tell myself to take a breath. Breathing was no longer under Involuntary control. No...I was convinced I would pass out from lack if oxygen if I did not tell myself to breath. I would do this for a little bit and my heart rate would go way down. And i mean waay down. I'm sure my blood pressure dropped too. I didn't know it, but I think I was doing a kind of self meditation.
Unfortunately, even though I knew what was happening and that I wasn't dying, that knowledge didn't keep me from having panic attacks. Maybe it does for some.

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user_ch783e933 | @user_ch783e933 | 12 hours ago
In reply to @skim3737 "It sounds like medication might be a good place to start. Your description of subconscious panic..." + (show)
@skim3737

It sounds like medication might be a good place to start. Your description of subconscious panic attacks makes me understand what you're dealing with more accurately. I hope your doctor's can find a med that helps you. When I first started having them, I was in my early 20s without any health problems so went to my PCP from childhood and he put me on an old tricyclic antidepressant called tofranil for 6 months to stabilize my brain chemistry. Not sure this is a standard med but might be a starting place to talk to your doctor about.

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This is far more complex than that, it's a lifetime capped with a horrific tragedy that I've been dealing with for almost 14 years and my mind is giving up. I've tried six medications, sophisticated present day medications, I'm not depressed, this is full out my life is over but I'm still breathing stuff. I am totally unaware that there is a panic attack occurring. I attribute it to something physical which it might very well be since I do appear to have a possible interaction between my vertebra and a specific conduction canal. But instead of thinking, oh there it goes again, how annoying (and it isn't remotely life threatening btw) I think nothing and my subconscious mind goes to work. My blood pressure sky rockets. Real mental illness is often totally not available to the conscious awareness of its victim, shockingly. Panic attacks are a symptom of emotional dysregulation and I've never had anythng like this in my over 70 years of life. It's not going to be easy to find a medicationI can tolerate that will address this, I hope this psychiatrist I'm consulting soon has sufficient understanding of psychpharmacology because I'll be honest, I haven't met one that does and I've met quite a few for my daughter and then for myself trying to survive her death. Which I no longer want to do.

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user_ch783e933 | @user_ch783e933 | 12 hours ago
In reply to @methel "I can have both panic attacks and legitimate epileptic seizures. My personal rule of thumb is..." + (show)
@methel

I can have both panic attacks and legitimate epileptic seizures. My personal rule of thumb is that panic attacks build gradually. I can feel myself getting more and more tense until the anxiety spills over into physical symptoms. But I don’t get epileptic auras and so I’m feeling totally fine and suddenly, a seizure hits out of nowhere. Same thing on the way down. The seizure ends suddenly but the panic attack subsides gradually. I don’t know if this is just me, or generally true.

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I've never had a seizure but I spoke to a woman whose 19 year old son is having a psychiatric crisis for some time now. She developed seizures as a side effect of the enormous crippling stress. I used to have panic attacks as a child and young woman which involved premature ventricular contractions. They were actually associated with my GI tract which is not uncommon at all. They scared me, when your heart is skipping beats it's very frightening. In my early 20s I started seeing cardiologists now and then, all of whom told me this is benign. In my 30s I was still doing that but not as often. In my 40s they returned but I wore Holter monitors and had stress tests and doppler echograms which showed my heart was just fine so since then I just started to ignore them and that worked. This is different. The PVCs freaked me out but I still functioned and I was young so the possibility of dropping dead any second wasn't statistically significant. Now, it is. People my age drop dead all the time. So when this starts, my subconscious kicks into high terror and my blood pressure SKY ROCKETS into territory google tells you is IMPENDING DEATH. But it isn't. Not that it can't be eventually. High blood pressure spikes are not benign things, they can do damage, and if you're having them often at my age this is not good, which is why my cardiologist hooked me up with yet another psychiatrist none of whom seem to really know about medication. Dropping dead isn't the problem, being paralyzed lying on the floor trying to reach all my Xanax so I can take them at once is the problem.

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1 reply
methel | @methel | 11 hours ago
In reply to @user_ch783e933 "I've never had a seizure but I spoke to a woman whose 19 year old son..." + (show)
@user_ch783e933

I've never had a seizure but I spoke to a woman whose 19 year old son is having a psychiatric crisis for some time now. She developed seizures as a side effect of the enormous crippling stress. I used to have panic attacks as a child and young woman which involved premature ventricular contractions. They were actually associated with my GI tract which is not uncommon at all. They scared me, when your heart is skipping beats it's very frightening. In my early 20s I started seeing cardiologists now and then, all of whom told me this is benign. In my 30s I was still doing that but not as often. In my 40s they returned but I wore Holter monitors and had stress tests and doppler echograms which showed my heart was just fine so since then I just started to ignore them and that worked. This is different. The PVCs freaked me out but I still functioned and I was young so the possibility of dropping dead any second wasn't statistically significant. Now, it is. People my age drop dead all the time. So when this starts, my subconscious kicks into high terror and my blood pressure SKY ROCKETS into territory google tells you is IMPENDING DEATH. But it isn't. Not that it can't be eventually. High blood pressure spikes are not benign things, they can do damage, and if you're having them often at my age this is not good, which is why my cardiologist hooked me up with yet another psychiatrist none of whom seem to really know about medication. Dropping dead isn't the problem, being paralyzed lying on the floor trying to reach all my Xanax so I can take them at once is the problem.

Jump to this post

My panic attacks started in my 20’s and continued off and on depending on the other stressors in my life. I didn’t get the seizures until much, much later when I developed a meningioma and the resulting surgery left a scar on my brain. The good news is that the AED controls the seizures very well. And the bad news is that I have to control my panic attacks.

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