Panic Attacks
Posted By: JPF on 2006-10-16
In Reply to: My thoughts - - masy
I have had panic attacks since I was 38 and am now going to be 55. It started with a lot of stress in my life.. work, my sister committed suicide. I went like this for about 8 months before anyone would listen to me. I bought self-help books and i KNEW i had a panic disorder. Went to several therapists, psychiatrists. They wouldn't listen to me.. They asked me a million questions. Finally a friend at work suggested her Internal Medicine physician. I walked in to his office, told him I have a panic disorder. He said you don't look nervous. I said I am having a panic attack as we are3 speaking. I would have 4-5 panic attacks a day every day. I told him I had seen therapists, psychiatrists, etc. He said are you going to keep seeing the psychiatrist. I said NO.. because the first one i went to said " So tell me about your crazy family". That was it for me. I was shocked. So the Internal Medicine doctor put me on medication and my whole life changed.. I felt so much better, was able to cope, etc. Medicine is not for everyone but my panic attacks had blown so out of proportion that I finally became depressed because I could not function even though I went to work every day and many days having to leave work. I am still on medicine and feel great. The Internal Medicien doctor helped me more than the others. He listened to me and said " okay we are going to get you the right medicine and he told me that I needed to be patient. I have changed medicines now with the new one of Paxil and I am sooo much better. I am thankful for the day I walked into his office.
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I would say that you have every reason to have panic attacks what with all the stress you've SM
been under. I take Effexor XR for my painic attacks and atenolol to help control my BP and it keeps my heart rate down. The combination works wonderfully, although I wonder if I've become a little too dependent on it as I sometimes get a little anxious at the thought of being without my Effexor.
I would have periodic episodes of anxiousness going all the way back to my teenage years, but I would always work through it myself. Then a year ago, in the midst of marital trouble and feeling alone as I lived two states away from friends and family, I started having what I now know to be gallbladder pain while I was at work. In my mind, I knew I wasn't having a heart attack, the pain was in my right rib cage and radiated around to my right scapula. But I couldn't seem to convince my body. My heart started racing, my mind was racing. I felt dizzy and short of breath. I went to the employee health nurse who took my BP and it was sky high. She immediately rushed me to the ER which freaked me out even further.
Long story short, I was having a full blown panic attack and I hope that I never experience anything like that again. I ended up crying for three weeks straight, was afraid be left alone, was afraid to leave my house, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, would pace the house with my heart racing, not able to calm myself down.
I saw three different doctors before I found a female doctor who listened to me and told me she knew exactly what I was talking about because her daughter had panick attacks too. She started me on Effexor and set me up with a therapist who taught me breathing techniques and meditation techniques to help calm myself when I feel anxious. One technique, as simple as it sounds, is something I practice almost daily which is deep breathing: in through your nose and out through your mouth and as you exhale allow your body to relax starting from the shoulders down. It seems silly, but it really works. I noticed that I clenched my jaw a lot and so that is were I focus my mind when I'm trying to relax. I focus on the tension in my jaw and start relaxing from there down.
Exercise is another great technique for relieving anxiety and stress. All the experts say that, and it's true. Just getting outside and walking can clear the mind.
Well, I've rambled on and on. Sorry about that. Let me just add one more thing, if you decide to try medication, my advice would be to be patient. Sometimes it takes a few different trials of medication before you find the one that fits. My doctor explained to me that panick attacks are caused by an overactive fight or flight response in the brain and so SSRI antidepressants like Zoloft or Celexa won't do the trick. You have to have a NRI (norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) to calm the response.
I'm not saying you need medicine, but I am saying that you may want to get a handle on it now so you don't have to go through what I did. I can't even explain how horrible it feels to have your mind spinning of control. I felt like I was genuinely losing my mind.
Well, anyway I feel for you and I wish you well.
DOG ATTACKS
I think that pit bulls are sweet puppies (my son had one once and she was a dumpling little puppy) and I loved her, but when she got older I started to see the potential for disaster. We lived in a regular neighborhood with lots of children and even though we were with her (the pit bull) all the time and never left her out I started fearing that if she did get out and attacked somone that I could never live with myself. They are SO strong and have incredible jaw strength. We found her a home in a neighboring state where she lived on a ranch (she loved it) where there were no children. She lived there all her days and never harmed anyone, but I know she could have if the circumstances were right. I have to say that our family has had a near-tragedy involving a dog that we raised from a puppy, cared for him, loved him, and when he was one year old he suddenly, without provocation of any kind, attacked a child (our grandchild) in our yard. He had been around this same child every day for his whole life and his relationship with the child was very good. This was witnessed by several adults and it is only by the grace of God that my husband was able to save his life. The dog jumped on him from behind and took him down on the ground and proceeded to bite and rip at his face and head. He was in surgery for hours and fortunately he has healed and his scars are few. Amazingly, he still loves dogs. My husband said it took everything he had to force this dog off the child and that he had never seen anything like it in his life. This dog was a German shepard, not a pit bull, but still very strong and powerful. I think the point is that all dogs have the potential to harm humans, but some dogs are capable of killing if the circumstances are just right. We don't know why ours did this, but we were humbled and frightened by this experience. We had believed that we "knew" the dog and that he was "safe." I believe that those powerful dogs are best kept away from busy neighborhoods, homes and buildings where there are children and never, ever will I believe that any baby or small child should be allowed to be in close proximity to one of them. Any dog at any time could "turn" and become vicious if the circumstances are right. We still have dogs, but we changed to border collies and Shih-Tzus. I hope that the child that was attacked is doing well. Your post brought back memories and I had to reply. It was therapeutic for me (sometimes I still dream about our dog attacking our grandchild) and a good ad for Shih-Tzus and border collies!
These are the only attacks that you
hear about, not just because this is the only breed that attacks. Pitbulls are just so exploited, and half the time when they say it is a pitbull attack it isn't even a purebred pitbull. I don't care what breed that I hear attacks, that doesn't make me believe that it is the whole breed. It use to be Chow Chows a few years ago, and I have owned two of them and never had a problem. Just sad how people play into whatever they hear on the news.
Anyone know anything about heart attacks?
A friend recently broke a date with me without letting me know and is saying his father had a heart attack on Saturday and almost died. Said he had a panic attack and couldn't let me know what was going on. He has never been close to his dad at all and hasn't seen him in several years. Was happy as a clam the next day after having a panic attack the day before. Now today, Monday, a day and a half later, says his dad is out of the hospital and back at home and did not have anything done, no angioplasty, no stents, nothing. Is this possible?
Have a question about heart attacks..
My husband had sharp shooting pains running down his left arm last night for just a couple of minutes. He asked if he was having a heart attack and I told him that was a symptom and i'd take him to the ER but he said he didn't want to go. That stopped and then a little while later he said he wasn't feeling well and went to sleep. Was that a symptom of a heart attack? If the pain subsided, is it likely to come back again - and with a vengeance or could it have been something else? He says he's never had that before. Said he didn't hit his elbow or pinch a nerve or do anything to cause it. When it happened we were driving down the road when he started vigorously rubbing his arm.
Those pit bull attacks are ashame...sm
I don't know why these dogs attacked. I don't know if these dogs were provoked or what. It is hard for me to imagine a dog just attacking for no reason. I can't imagine my dog ever doing that. I know other people who have pits as pets and they have never had a problem with attacks. I think every good owner should know their dog inside and out and know their little quirks. Now I could see a pit bull attacking an owner who was sometimes mean to them or mistreated them in some way. I could see them getting enough and attacking. A lot of times I think that is really behind attacks and we don't know that. Still a dog never should kill a human. When you own a pit you have to have the utmost respect for the fact they could kill an animal or human if they wanted. They are physically capable but most are not emotionally capable.
My dad had a couple different pits and I have learned my great grandfather had pits for many years. He would only have one at a time. He took his pit hunting hogs and the pit would hold the hog and my great grandfather would put a rag over the dogs nostrils to cause him to have to let go of the hog and he would do whatever it was he then did with the hog. I didn't ask details. But what I am saying here is this was an man who was in close interaction with a pit and was right there when they attacked hogs and he intervened and had to pull them away from the hog by cutting off breathing from the dog so he would let go. He was never attacked or bitten. My dad said that was never an issue. The dogs knew he was the master and they never got out of line. If these were as unstable as some are made out to be and some may be but if they were really that unstable they could have attacked and killed this man. But he never had to worry about this. All of his pits loved and respected him as their owner. Now one deciding factor could be he never mistreated his dog. Never ever. He always treated them good. I think this may be why his dogs never showed him anything but kindness. Again there are some dogs (pits and others) who are unstable. They are just flat out mean and would do anything. But not all dogs are like this. My husband often says when people say aren't you worried CJ could hurt you one day. He says no I KNOW in my heart with everything in me this dog would die before he would hurt one of us. This pit is the most loving affectionate dog I have had the joy to own. Don't ask me how I know.. You would have to know CJ.
Why these attacks? I find YOU 'interesting!...sm
sm
I concur. He may be experiencing anxiety attacks, which would
most definitely cause profuse sweating. As already stated by others, probably the best "medicine" he can receive is TLC provided by you.
Don't panic.
How is it invested? All 401K's have various investment options. Is some or all of it in stocks? In guaranteed income funds? In a money market? You should NOT take it out of the 401K. The 401K is just a basket that holds investments, and you are penalized heavily if you take it out of the 401K before retirement age. You can move around your investments within the 401K, though, which may or may not be a good idea. I would tend to hang tight for now.
How about the feeling of panic as you
are about to turn left across traffic and get on an on ramp? I always suddenly panic and wonder if I'm about to meet traffic coming off because I'm trying to go up an off ramp.
A panic attack
can present as a heart attack, with the same initial symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain, clammy and sweaty, irregular or rapid heart rate, etc. The first thing done at the hospital would be stat blood work and an EKG. Depending upon what these showed, then an MRI with or without contrast would be done. A mandatory 24 hour stay is required for all chest pain admissions. I've been working in a cardiopulmonary dept. as a respiratory care practitioner for 6 years and have seen this many many times. So if it makes you feel any better, he could be telling the truth about this.
And Kim has a panic disorder and is agoraphobic.
It's no secret she has a bunch of mental disoders. As I said, the poor kid. Can't win.
I would have hit that panic button if she said pregnant!
This is exactly what is happening all over the states, people in a panic, not me - I told her just to check with her physician next week. If it is not a mysterious box or package being found and a panic about that, it is this or something else, all the time. I was actually relieved to hear what she said!
Before you push the panic button sm
This is a recession, quite possibly the mother of all recessions. It may turn into a depression, but it will run a very distant second to the Great Depression, IF it does.
Pre the GP (Great Depression) you several things going on that are NOT true today. We had come out of WWI not that long before. It had been a very bloody war, the first war with mechanized destruction. What the Doughboys witnessed was for them what we saw on 09/11...unimaginable death and destruction. It changed how they viewed America.
When these boys came home from the war, they came back to the farm, by and large. We were an agrarian country and with the exception of east coast, there were hardly any factory jobs and most people worked the land. Plenty of places all over the country people worked on "shares" and they were not all in the deep south and they were not all black. There was not nearly the land/home ownership that there is today. Most of these dirt farmers lived in poverty and barely scraped by enough to eat twice a day. When the great Dust Bowl came through Oklahoma, it took the enormous clouds of dust eastward and dumped it into the Atlantic Ocean. This was a man-made disaster and the story of the Joads in the Grapes of Wrath centers on the Dust Bowl and the farming habits of families, like the Joads caused them problems. It was their fault that the top soil blew across FDR's desk in the Oval Office.
There was no infrastructure to speak of, in those days. There were roadways, but not the spider web of paved roads there are today. Goods were carried on the rails, not over the roads. You didn't have Walmart or Kroger. You had the store "in town" and the Sears-Roebuck catalog. If you couldn't find it there or could not afford it you either cobbled something together or did without. You can look the Coal Miner's Daughter about being so low-down dirt poor it is unbelievable. That movie is quite cleaned up and Hollywood presentable. You could look at the sparse surroundings of the ranch house in Broke Back Mountain where Ennis goes after Jack dies, and while the time frame is more modern, the very plain, only the very basics of life appear in that ranch house. They are both a bit sanitized, but reasonably realistic.
Today, Americans live extraordinarily different lives than we did 80 years ago. Most people have a vehicle. Most people have more than a dirt floor shack to live in. We, have thanks to the Great Depression and FDR's recovery plan, electricity, roads, water, sewage and other sanitation. We take these things for granted, but we should not. The GP did bring some food shortages, not because of the depression, but because of the lack of infrastructure combined with people on the move to find work to subsist. The food shortages you are thinking of came with WWII and rationing...another problem secondary to lack of infrastructure and subsistence farming where there was not enough food produced to meet the need.
If you are going to stock up on food, let be for more common sense reasons. If you put your money in the bank, you will make 2% or 3% return on $500. If you put that same amount into nonperishable food (think canned goods), you make a better return on an investment. You don't earn 2% or 3%, but you can end up leveraging against future price increases that will meet and exceed what interest you make from a bank, which is nothing right now. You will need food whether you buy it now or buy it later. Squirreling away extra under the bed or whatever place you can find room, is a wise investment...financially and in peace of mind.
Right, but dont panic. Thousands die from flu every
nm
Daughter called, said don’t panic but you know that TB case?
Daughter and husband divorved last year and the guy from Atlanta being treated was the SIL divorce lawyer in October of last year. As she met this guy she was telling me this morning no really close contact (being in a room is close enough for me though), no outward signs of illness on his part. I did not freak, rather told her to call her doctor. My former SIL has sickle cell disease and he is in the hospital with a flare as we speak. SIL recognized the guy on television, told the personnel at the hospital and now, you guessed it, he is in quarantine. It is really a small world, isnt it?
Remember Me? Caught Between Pride and Panic?
Well, my daughter has been accepted at her #1 college choice, and we're going to the Accepted Students day this weekend.
In her Creative Writing class in school, they were assigned the task of summing up their Senior year in six words and then to illustrate it. What she came up with blew her father and me away! I hope those of you who have had children leave home will get an inkling of the emotional impact this had on us. Suffice it to say, there was not a dry eye in the house! See below.
Be careful if you have a tendency to anxiety/panic. Wellbutrin
people who suffer with anxiety/panic.
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