How Do I Treat Panic Attacks?

Panic attacks are a manifestation of anxiety, also known as acute anxiety attacks. Sudden severe discomfort in the patient may include chest tightness, breathlessness, palpitations, sweating, upset stomach, trembling, tingling in hands and feet, dying, going crazy or losing control, about one quarter of an hour each . The attack may have no apparent cause or no special situation. There are also some people in special situations such as crowded people, shops, public vehicles. It is characterized by recurrent intense panic attacks, frequent death or panic, and severe autonomic symptoms.

Panic attack

Panic attacks, also known as acute anxiety attacks. Sudden severe discomfort in the patient may include chest tightness, breathlessness, palpitations, sweating, upset stomach, trembling, tingling in hands and feet, dying, going crazy or losing control, about one quarter of an hour each . The attack may have no apparent cause or no special situation. There are also some people in special situations such as crowded people, shops, public vehicles. The latter is called agoraphobia with panic attacks.

Panic Attack Definition

Panic attacks clinical manifestations

Panic attack

The typical manifestation is that when the patient is performing daily activities, such as reading a book, eating, walking, meeting or doing housework, he suddenly appears a strong sense of fear, as if he is about to die. This tension makes the patient intolerable. At the same time, the patient feels palpitations, as if the heart is about to jump out; chest tightness, pressure on the chest area; or difficulty breathing, blocked throat, as if breathless, imminent suffocation. As a result, patients will scream, call for help or run outside, hold their heads, and sometimes experience excessive ventilation, dizziness, facial flushing, sweating, gait instability, tremors, numbness of hands and feet, gastrointestinal discomfort and other autonomic symptoms, and exercise Sexual uneasiness. This attack, usually 5-20 minutes, is relatively short, and can resolve on its own. After remission, the patient feels that everything is normal, but there may be a sudden relapse soon.

Panic attack anxiety

Most patients are worried about recurrence during the intermittent period after recurrent panic attacks, so they are uneasy, and some symptoms of autonomic nerve activity may also appear.

Panic attack help and avoidance

During a panic attack, due to a strong sense of fear, the patient cannot bear it and often asks for urgent help immediately. During the intermittent period of the attack, 60% of patients are actively avoiding activities because they are worried that they will not be helped when they develop the disease. For example, they are not willing to go out alone, do not go to crowded places, do not travel by car, etc., or have someone else when they go out. Accompany etc.

Panic attacks respond to panic attacks

Don't fight panic attacks

Fighting it during a panic attack seems to make things worse. What needs to be emphasized is not to deal with panic symptoms with a tense attitude, nor to suppress them intentionally or drive them away. Although we need to take a positive rather than a negative response (discussed further below) to overcome panic, this is not to say that we have to fight against it.

Don't run away from panic attacks

To yield or try to escape from the early symptoms of panic is to tell yourself that you cannot cope with the situation. In most cases this will only create more panic. A more beneficial attitude would be: "Oh, these feelings are here again, but my body can withstand these reactions and can control it. I have successfully overcome it before, and this time it is the same.

Accept panic attack

When you try to fight against panic, you can only make yourself more nervous. Let us think a different way, let those symptoms (such as palpitations, chest tightness, sweating hands, feet, dazzling, etc.) naturally occur and disappear, which will make you quickly and easily through panic. One of the keys to overcoming panic is that no matter how unusual or uncomfortable these physiology evokes, you shouldn't panic and anxious, just calmly pay attention to these physiological changes.

Let the panic attack happen

Let your physical symptoms change naturally instead of being deliberately struggling with it. Don't scare yourself, but live in peace with your symptoms and tell yourself it's safe. For example, you can say to yourself: "These will eventually pass" "Let the body experience these changes" or "I have experienced this before and I have come here, and this is the same!". In the next section we will list some positive response statements.

Panic attack is not a heart attack

Mr. Liu is engaged in trade. When he was reading a book half a year ago, he suddenly felt that his heartbeat was fast, he was breathing hard, his chest was tight, and his body was shaking. An idea came to mind: it could be dying. Called 120 first aid immediately, but arrived at the hospital, these palpitation and other symptoms disappeared after a while, check the heart and other important organs, everything is normal. In the days to come, Mr. Liu was still very afraid of heart problems and repeated inspections. Although all doctors assured him of heart health, to no avail, after introduction, he came to my psychological consultation room for treatment.

Symptoms like Mr. Liu, called "panic attacks" in medical psychology, are a manifestation of anxiety, and their typical symptoms are: 1. Often in patients' daily activities, there is a sudden strong fear, as if it is about to happen To die (imminent death) or imminent insanity (out of control) makes the patient unbearable. At the same time, the patient felt palpitations, as if the heart was about to jump out of the mouth, chest tightness, chest pain, shortness of breath, and choking in the throat. So scream, call for help, or run outside. Some are accompanied by significant autonomic symptoms such as excessive ventilation, dizziness, sweating, facial flushing or paleness, tremors, numbness of hands and feet, and gastrointestinal discomfort. 2. Sudden onset, peaked within 10 minutes, usually no more than one hour. Consciousness when working, can remember the episode afterwards. Although this kind of attack lasts for a short period of time, usually 5-10 minutes, rarely more than 1 hour, it can be relieved on its own, but it can happen again soon. Patients have frequent seizures, with at least three episodes in a month, or anxiety that is followed by fear of recurrence after the first typical episode often persists for more than one month. 3. Most patients are prone to avoid activities because they are worried that they cannot get help during an outbreak, such as unwilling to go out alone, unwilling to go to crowded places, unwilling to travel by car, etc., or to be accompanied by others when going out (at this time and Have square phobia). Panic attack patients may also have symptoms of depression, and some have suicidal tendency.

There are many reasons for this mental illness. The most important reason is related to his personality, such as the pursuit of absolute perfection and absolute safety, so that his attitude to some things is not afraid of 10,000, just in case. Too sensitive and concerned about one's health.

The following methods are currently used to treat panic attacks: 1. Cognitive-behavioral therapy: What to do and what to fear. A panic attack is a psychological feeling, and its true condition is very mild. The more you dare not go out, the more you want to go out, the more afraid you will faint when you do something, the more you have to do, the more you want to go to the hospital for examination, but you don't want to be checked, you will find that you are worried about the original superfluity. 2. Running therapy: It guides the patient to make regular and regular running. In general, running therapy has a slower onset of action and higher withdrawal rates than drug therapy, but the efficacy is comparable. In particular, it should be noted that it is very difficult for patients to start regular running in the first 4 weeks, and exercise programs can only be carried out with relatives. With the implementation of exercise programs, most patients can persist and achieve satisfactory results. 3. The drug has obvious effect on panic disorder. For patients with infrequent and limited seizures, short-term anti-anxiety medications can help. For example, alprazolam has a good anti-panic effect, and is effective for mild to moderate depression. For those with severe anxiety, clonazepam can be used. Because panic disorder is an episodic disorder, treatment must be discontinued 3 to 4 months after symptom control, but treatment for such a long time will affect the withdrawal of the drug, because rapid withdrawal can cause rebound anxiety.

Panic attacks

A male, 21 years old, unmarried, Han nationality, graduated from college. He was admitted to the hospital on November 11, 1987 for 2 years due to episodic fear.

During the final exam in July 1985, the patient suddenly had unexplained fears, panic, and heart rate of more than 100 beats per minute, which disappeared for more than 10 minutes. Later, there were more than 10 attacks, no regular time and place to follow, no signs of attacks. At the time of the attack, the mind was clear, and there was no corresponding terrible thing or situation in the objective environment. When not attacking, life, study, and emotions are normal.

In August of the same year, when I went to the mall for shopping, I suddenly had some inexplicable fear and tension. He was trembling, and at the same time he felt palpitations, chest tightness, breathing difficulties, and chest compressions. He felt "dead", "dead", "deadly crazy", and quickly left the mall and ran to school. The above performance disappeared after half an hour. Clear memories of the episodes. Since then, it often occurs with intermittent intervals. When seizures are frequent, 2 to 3 times a week. No cause can be found for each episode. The attacks were accompanied by palpitation, rapid heartbeat, 140-180 beats per minute, shortness of breath, and dullness. The seizure lasts for 30 to 60 minutes, and the longest time is more than an hour. The fear disappears when the seizure does not occur. But after that, he was afraid to stay indoors alone, to go out alone, or to take a car alone, and asked his classmates to accompany him, in case no one was treated during the illness. I have been to the school doctor for treatment many times, and thought it was "neurasthenia". I was given sleeping pills, but the effect was not good, and I still had seizures. Therefore, he was worried and worried, and had suicidal thoughts. He once said to his classmates, "I really suffer if I live. If I don't want to get to my parents, I would have died a long time ago."

After the patient was admitted to the hospital, he was stabilized, galloridine, and propranolol, and no fear attacks occurred. However, I still think that this kind of worry is necessary and justified, and asked to be alone in the room to observe whether fear occurred. The results were good and there was no onset of fear. After 42 days of hospitalization, he was discharged with significant improvement.

This patient has the following characteristics:

1. Symptoms are episodic, not persistent.

2. The occurrence of fear is not caused by objective things, situations, or situations, but it occurs inexplicably for no reason.

3. Fear Fear. No specific content. Nothing.

4. Seizures are accompanied by obvious autonomic symptoms: palpitations, dyspnea, chest compressions, suffocation, dizziness, bloating, and coldness in hands and feet.

5. Seizure fashion is accompanied by some special experiences: such as a sense of dying, a loss of reason, a sense of self-control, a madness, and a sense of imminent doom.

6. The frequency of attacks is as high as 2 to 3 times a week, and several times in a few months.

7. The course of disease has reached 4 years.

8. It seriously affects its social functions such as life, learning and social.

Based on the above characteristics, this case is clinically diagnosed as a panic attack, that is, an acute anxiety attack.

The main difficulty of differential diagnosis is to distinguish it from phobia. The differences between panic attack and phobia are as follows:

(1) Anxiety and fear of phobia is caused by exact objective things or situations. Although such objects or situations are not dangerous, the patient will fear as long as they see or face them; and panic attacks of anxiety It is not caused by an object or a situation, but occurs for no reason.

(2) Patients with phobias evade actions on the object, and no fear occurs from the corresponding object. Fear attacks have no spontaneous nature and are conditional. They only occur in the face of a feared object. The panic attack patients do not avoid the object, the attack is not related to the situation and is unpredictable.

Panic attack movie panic attack

basic information

Panic Attack

Region: United States

language: English

Release Date: 2012-12-31

Duration: 90 minutes

Type: Crime / Thriller

Synopsis

Dr. Adam Bloom, Dr. Adam Bloom, and his wife Dana have an enviable affluent life, as well as a 20-year-old college daughter, Marissa, a family Very happy. However, what happened one night completely changed their family. That night, her daughter, Marissa, found that someone had broken into their house. Adam killed one of the intruders with a gun in order to protect his family, and the other ran away in haste. Adam later found that the illegal intruders he had killed were defenseless. Since that day, the happy life of the family is gone. Adam was always unable to feel secure, and he was always worried that the fleeing intruder would one day avenge him and his family. Wife Dana suggested moving, but Adam was reluctant to be a deserter. Later one day, daughter Marissa fell in love. Her boyfriend was a young artist named "Xan". Adam instinctively felt that something was wrong with "Xan", but despite his warning, her daughter still fell in love with her. As "Xan" gets closer and closer to their home, and some strange things happen one after another, Adam realizes that his first feeling about "Xan" is probably right ...