1. What is a panic attack?

A question that is asked quiet a lot is ‘what is a panic attack?’  It is a brief period of extreme anxiety, fear or apprehension. Most people experiencing their first attack say each attack feels like a heart attack or nervous breakdown. At the time people feel what appears to be physical pain, however unlike a heart attack the physical symptoms are not life threatening.

2. How do I know I am having a panic attack? What are the symptoms?

As said earlier, panic attacks can be experienced as feeling like heart attacks or nervous breakdowns. Most of the time they strike for the first time between the age of 15 – 20 and are often a symptom of a bigger anxiety disorder. 
While these attacks seem to copy many of the symptoms of a heart attack, they are not the same. The most common symptom of a panic attack is heart palpitations – a cool way of saying the heart rate increases rapidly – nausea or becoming dizzy, trouble breathing or a loosing breath, and trembling. Feeling numb in your hands, as well as chest and tummy pains, are also common. Overwhelmingly the most common symptom is a sense of a need to escape, or of an intense fear. Often sufferers feel hugely frightened of something, but they are unable to say what exactly it is they are so fearful of. 
When these symptoms grow in intensity it will be very hard to stop the panic attack.

3. How long does a panic attack last?

Everyone is different, and will respond to panic attacks in different ways. Occasionally the initial attack can last for up to 10 minutes before the person feels the anxiety flooding out of them, but other people say while their panic attack decreases after a relatively short time they still feel anxiety and apprehension for a couple of days afterwards. 
Between 40 to 70 per cent of people who suffer from panic attacks during the day will also experience nighttime attacks. All panic attacks are horrible experiences but nighttime attacks are particularly scary as they have the potential to have more extreme or noticeable impact on the respiratory (breathing) systems of someone who is suffering from the problem.

4. How common is this problem?

Believe it or not, panic attacks are actually reasonably common – although to sufferers it certainly does not feel that way at the time! Experts say that panic attacks are a serious health problem amongst adults around the world, with evidence saying at least 20 per cent of American adults – around 60 million people – will go through the problem at some point in their lives.
Women are twice as likely to suffer from panic attacks as men, although in childhood cases boys are just as likely to suffer from panic attacks as girls.

5. What causes panic attacks?

It is difficult to pinpoint causes or triggers of these attacks, because so many suffer from them. The main cause of panic attacks appears to be genes. Panic disorders are often hereditary and mean some people have a greater predisposition or chance of suffering from attacks themselves if the problem runs in the family. Other biological causes of attacks are not inherited.

People with medical conditions such as larger panic disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder can suffer from panic attacks, as can people with other medical conditions such as hypoglycaemia, mitral valve prolapse, hyper-ventilation syndrome and even inner-ear problems. Some medications are also believed to trigger panic attacks. Alcohol and drug withdrawl – including caffeine – can also spark off attacks. The problem is also believed to be more common in those with a negative self-image or a proneness to be passive. Last but not least, significant personal trauma for example the loss of a loved one can also set off the attacks.

6. Why do these triggers mean I have a panic attack?

Believe it or not, from a physiological point of view a panic attack is the body trying to protect itself from harm. A unexpected spike in being scared also results in a unexpected spike in adrenaline, which in turn prompts the “fight-or-flight response”.

The fight or flight response is a well-documented scientific theory, which basically proposes when a person feels scared their body prepares them for extreme physical activity – either the need to run away from a situation really fast, or the need to defend themselves against a threat. When your body goes into fight or flight mode, your heart rate accelerates, you start breathing rapidly, and you may also begin to sweat. Because you’re not really about to fight or escape, the hyperventilation (difficulty breathing) increases the level of carbon dioxide in the body (in the lungs first, then in the bloodstream). This moves all the blood around your body, which can cause some of the other symptoms like lightheadedness or nausea. The release of the extra adrenaline causes lightheadedness too.

Unfortunately it is sometimes a catch-22: Because you feel yourself getting short of breath, you try to take deeper swallows of air, which means more carbon dioxide, which increases the feeling of not being able to breathe properly. In the face of these steps happening in your body it is really difficult to stop panic attacks.

7. How is the problem different between men and women, and children and adults?

It is hard for everyone to stop the attacks. Despite that same feeling of being overpowered by the attack, which causes people to feel like the attack is disadvantaging them or preventing them from being able to do anything to try and stop the attack, there are some unlikeness in how the attack feels for men and women and children. For starters, panic attacks are experienced more by women. They also appear to be more frequent, and more often result in the use of medication to try to stop panic attacks. Women also seem to show more anxiety-avoidance – that is, they will try to keep away from situations where they have had an attack before.

Anxiety avoidance often results in a phobia – an irrational fear of particular situations – and after awhile the mere thought of that situation is enough to trigger an attack. In children or young adults attacks can end up causing lower marks or grades at school, or even skipping school, substance abuse, distancing themselves from parents or other important people around them, and even depression or suicidal thoughts.

While symptoms in adolescents tend to mimic those experienced by adults, panic attacks are often different for younger children. Teenagers often report panic attacks as feeling like nightmares and are more dream-like than an overpowering fear of going crazy or dying (which is sometimes what it feels like for adults), while young children seem not to have any cognitive or conscious thoughts at all.

8. Are panic attacks serious?

Yes – people going through these attacks know they are real and also know they can be emotionally destroying. It is vital to try to stop panic attacks as they can have a significant lasting effect on those suffering from them – if left untreated they can develop into serious panic or emotional disorders, such as agoraphobia, which is the crippling fear of all social situations and interactions.

9. How do I stop panic attacks?
One of the most known treatment designed to stop these attacks is a combination of cognitive-behavioural therapy and a prescription of anti-depressant medication. 
CBT usually involves up to 20 visits with a mental health professional over a number of weeks, and it is designed to try and change the thought processes that cause your condition. The therapy will help you gain knowledge and a sense of control over distorted feelings you have related to stressful situations, help you learn to know and replace panic-causing thoughts, teach you some relaxation moves and expose you to stress-management techniques, and will also include some desensitisation and exposure therapy. While that is a really long, confusing title for the process, the therapy itself is very untroublesome. The professional you work with will ask you to relax and then imagine the things that make you most scared or terrified from the least-stressful to the most-stressful.

This therapy, with antidepressant medication – mainly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – is the most typical way to stop panic attacks. It might sound stupid, but trying to keep a healthy and active lifestyle is also very important. Many studies show the impact eating correctly and getting a right amount exercise can have on emotional disorders, including depression, anxiety and panic disorders.

At the end of the day the very important thing is to remember the goal of treatment is to insure you get better.If you feel something is not working for you, be open and talk about your concerns with your doctor or mental health professional. They are there to help.

10. What else do I need to remember?

Firstly, know that you are not alone. A lot of people of all ages throughout the world suffer from the same thing. Panic attacks are serious, and they are terrifying, but fortunately this can be treated. With the right treatment created to stop panic attacks you can lead a completely normal live.

Also remember there is endless information out there about the problem and how to prevent it from happening – check out your local library, join support groups online, and most of all be honest with the people around you. Tell someone you trust, a friend or adult.  Let them know what you are going through. Tell your doctor the truth too. It is their job to help you, so speak to them about the concerns you have. Doctors are trained in the medical field so take advantage of their knowledge. They may also be able to recommend a specialist in your area with plenty of expertise in the treatment of panic attacks.

Tags: ASKED, Attacks, Frequently, Panic, Questions, Stop

This entry was posted on June 10, 2011 at 10:15 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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