Panic Attack Help

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Treatment of Panic Attacks

There are a variety of treatment options available to people who suffer from panic attack disorder. These treatments include medications, psychotherapy, and various other techniques designed to help the patient cope with an attack after onset as well as treat the condition to avoid future episodes.

Medications that are commonly used to treat panic attack disorder include SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors), SNRIs (Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors), and Benzodiazepine drugs such as diazepam and lorazepam. The first two classes are designed to affect mood and behavior by preventing the loss of certain chemicals in the brain. Benzodiazepine drugs are psychoactive agents designed to slow the central nervous system and can be fast acting and highly effective in treating panic attacks.

While medications can be an excellent aid to the treatment of panic disorder, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is widely considerd to be the most effective treatment for both panic attacks and other anxiety related disorders. CBT is a form of psychotherapy that attempts to modify a person’s beliefs and assumptions to break harmful thought patterns. The techniques used in CBT vary widely depending on the patient, but commonly include keeping a diary of significant events and their associated feelings, questioning beliefs and assumptions that may be unhealthy, and gradually facing situations that may have been avoided in the past. CBT patients are encouraged to try out new patterns of thought and behavior.

What is possibly one of the most effective methods for treating panic attack disorder is also one of the most extreme. Known as Interospective Desensitization, in this treatment a trained physician induces the most intense, frightening symptoms of a panic attack. With a closely supervised treatment over a period of several weeks the patient begins to learn that there is really nothing to fear from a panic attack and soon the chain reaction that triggers an attack is broken.

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

Tips for Coping with a Panic Attack

There are a many treatments designed to prevent panic attacks, but what do you do when you feel attack start to take over? Below is a list of simple, easy-to-use techniques that can help control a panic attack once it has already begun:

• Paper-bag rebreathing – by holding a paper bag over the mouth and nose while breathing normally, you can stabilize the oxygen to carbon dioxide concentrations in your blood stream. This imbalance, caused by rapid breahing during a panic attack, is the spark that sets off a whole series of other symptoms of a panic attack.
• Abdominal breathing – another breathing technique designed to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the blood, this technique can be combined with the paper bag rebreathing technique above, or used on its own. Basically, you try to avoid breathing from your chest and instead focus on breathing deeply from below the diaphragm through your nose and exhaling slowly.
• Staying in the Present – A common theme of panic attacks is so-called “what if” thoughts. These thoughts focus on potential future situations over which we have no control. Instead, try to remain in the present moment and ask yourself “what is happening right now” and “how do I choose to respond to it.”
• Acknowledg and accept the attack – don’t fight a panic attack -  accept it and realize that there really is nothing bad that can happen to you from the attack itself.
• “Float” with the symptoms – after acknowledging and accepting a panic attack you can then let it run its course to the end without trying to fight or control the symptoms.
• Use coping statements – coping statements are affirmations used as part of an internal monologue like “no one has ever died from a panic attack” or “this is uncomfortable but I can handle it.”
• Call on a supportive person – people who have experienced true panic attacks or are skilled at treating them, as well as loved ones can offer the best kind of support. Don’t hesitate to reach out to them.

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

Symptoms of a Panic Attack

How do you know when you’re having a panic attack? The answer may seem obvious – a feeling of intense fear and an overpowering impulse to escape. Anyone who has had an attack knows what this is like. In this article we’ll take a closer look at the various symptoms of a panic attack and their causes.

Just before an attack the victim will usually feel a sudden and intense feeling of fear. This feeling often has no obvious cause, but is the spark that sets off the chain reaction of an attack. This overwhelming fear causes the brain to flood the victim’s body with the fight-or-flight hormone epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline. Adrenaline prepares the body for strenuous physical activity such as a mortal fight for life or desperate escape from danger. Heart rate and breathing skyrocket and the sufferer often begins to sweat in anticipation of what is to come. However, without some kind of outlet, this leads to hyperventilation. This causes CO2 concentrations in the blood to drop and leads to a decrease in blood pH resulting in tingling, numbness, and a feeling of being dizzy. By now the person having the panic attack will feel that they cannot catch their breath and so try to breathe deeply, usually causing their hyperventilation to become worse. At this point the attack has become a vicious cycle. In addition to all of this, increased adrenaline levels draw blood sugar away from the brain and cause blood vessels to constrict, all of which increases the dizzy, lightheaded sensation a victim will experience.

An average attack usually lasts about 5-10 minutes, but it can be different from person to person. Some may experience cycles of panic attacks that peak and fall repeatedly over the course of several hours. It is not uncommon for sufferers of this type of attack to also have smaller “limited symptom” attacks between major attacks.

Panic attacks can affect different people in different ways. Experienced sufferers may be able to ride out the episode with little or no visible symptoms, while first time victims may feel that they are dying or having a nervous breakdown and call for emergency help.

Though frightening and seemingly uncontrollable, by taking an objective look at the different stages and symptoms of a panic attack a victim may be able to exercise their own will over the situation and break free of the cycle.

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

Click here for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

Causes of panic attacks

Symptoms of a panic attack are easy to spot – rapid heartbeat, quick breathing, powerful fear – but what actually causes an attack to occur? Here is a list of the top ten most common causes and contributing factors to panic attack disorder.

•  Long-term predisposing causes (i.e. heredity) – Panic disorder has been found to run in families, but many with no family history are also known to develop the disorder.
• Short-term triggers – difficult personal losses such as the loss of a loved one or other drastic life change could trigger an attack. Also, narcotics such as marijuana and certain mushrooms are thought to be possible triggers for panic attacks
• Biological causes – generalized anxiety and a host of other well known anxiety related disorders are associated with panic attacks. Also vitamin B deficiency from malnutrition or parasitic infections have been known to trigger panic attacks
• Phobias – Persons with serious phobias often experience panic attacks when faced with the things they fear.
• Maintaining causes – lack of assertiveness, “what-if” thought patterns, and mistaken beliefs (thoughts like “these symptoms are harmful and dangerous”) are associated with panic attack disorder.
• Lack of assertiveness – This has been shown to be common among frequent panic attack sufferers. While generally polite and respectful, the sufferer is typically very passive in social situations.
• Medications – Medications can have an anxiety-inducing effect in various ways such as when a person first begins treatment and is becoming adjusted to the medication. Also, after a treatment period has been completed and a person is trying to wean off of the prescription can be a dangerous time. Common examples of known anxiety inducing medications are Ritalin and nearly every known SSRI antidepressant. Medication induced episodes of panic attack disorder are often temporary.
• Hyperventilation syndrome – Breathing from the chest through the mouth can cause lower carbon dioxide volume in the bloodstream and trigger a panic attack. This type of attack is often accompanied by light-headedness and heart palpitations.
• Situational panic attacks – This is a type of attack where the sufferer associates a certain situation with panic attacks based on a past experience of having an attack in that same situation.
• Pharmacological (drug) triggers – Chemical substances such as alcohol or caffeine can contribute to a wide variety of potential triggers and set off a panic attack. Drugs may also become the trigger for a panic attack if the person has a phobia of the particular substance in question.

CLICK HERE for the #1 Panic and Anxiety Resource

CLICK HERE FOR THE #1 Panic and Anxiety Disorder resource

People with Panic disorder often can be successfully treated with therapy, particularly Cognitive Behavioural and/or anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants.

Some panic attack sufferers and even some doctors recommend breathing into a paper bag as an effective treatment of panic attacks. This balances the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood. Too much oxygen and too little carbon dioxide, caused by breathing too fast or too deeply through the mouth, contributes to the chain reaction of symptoms that occur in a panic attack.

 Medication

The benzodiazepine class of drugs includes diazepam, lorazepam, alprazolam, and clonazepam. These drugs are highly effective and very fast acting in stopping panic.

Some doctors may prefer to prescribe an antidepressant, particularly an SSRI (such as paroxetine, sertraline, fluvoxamine, escitalopram or fluoxetine), which after an initial titration period may be effective at reducing anxiety.SNRIs such as Venlafaxine can also be prescribed. Studies have proven they may be more effective than the SSRIs for anxiety. NaSSAs such as Mirtazapine have also been found to be effective, particularly with people whose anxiety and panic causes insomnia.

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