A reader named Dave left a comment on the post, “I’m Dying: What a Panic Attack Feels Like” that told the story of how he overcame his panic attacks.
It tells how he had panic attacks for many years, but has not had them now for 11 years! He conquered them with therapy — and without medication. I thought that Dave’s story should not remain buried in the comments, so I asked Dave to expand his comment into a post.
Anxiety Disorders cause us to turn inward, to focus on our woes. We tend to believe that no one else has the same problems, and that there is no hope for ever becoming fully functional again.
So it’s doubly reassuring to hear Dave’s story: it lets us hear that we are not alone, and that there are effective treatments that can help us learn to control and manage our symptoms for a lifetime!
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy,
Panic Attacks,
Therapy
The search for the causes of panic attacks and Panic Disorder continues to turn up new and surprising clues to the origins and contributors to the disorders.
A new vein of research has been trying to find out if panic attacks are related to personality traits that are not mental illnesses. Researchers in Italy and Denmark have published studies in the last few months that show a distinct relationship between alexithymia, the inability to talk about feelings, and Panic Disorder.
Alexithymia is a relatively new field of study. The personality trait was only named in 1972, and has received increasing attention in the past few years as a cause or contributor to a number of medical and psychological maladies.
This post discusses alexithymia and its relationship to panic attacks and Panic Disorder under these headings:
- What is alexithymia?
- How do I tell if I’m alexithymic?
- What relationship do panic attacks and Panic Disorder have with alexithymia?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Alexithymia,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder
The term “panic attack” is part of our common language. We hear it all the time.
“When I saw the electricity bill I just had a panic attack!” Or, “I had a panic attack when I woke up and saw I was two hours late for work!” Or, “When I realized I’d just eaten a raw oyster I about had a panic attack!” All these statements are inaccurate uses of the term “panic attack,” and are what are called clinomorphisms, or exaggerated use of a medical term.
Panic attacks are no laughing matter, and people who have the real ones cringe when they hear the term bandied about in everyday speech like it was nothing. They know the feeling that you are about to die, the intense fear, and the sudden onset are far more than what most people think of as a “panic attack.”
So how does it really feel to have a panic attack? Few people, aside from panic attack sufferers themselves, really know. It’s the purpose of this post to give you an insider’s view of what it actually feels like to have a panic attack.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Clinomorphism,
Medical Health Professionals,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder
Your heart is pounding, you are trembling, and you feel that you’re going to die!
Are you having a panic attack? How do you know?
And what can you do to reduce the symptoms like choking or nausea?
There’s a lot of confusion over what the symptoms a panic attack actually are. Much of this confusion can be attributed to the media’s misrepresentations of panic attacks and the lack of real knowledge by the general public. This leads to clinomorphisms in which a person will exaggerate their symptoms and call it a panic attack, when all it is is a moment of great surprise or unpleasantness.
The “real” symptoms of a panic attack are detailed in this post, along with a list of suggestions for ways to deal with it while it’s happening. They are excerpted from my full article on panic attacks found under the resources in the right sidebar.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Mental Health Professionals,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia
A simple blood test for Panic Disorder is being commercially developed by the University of Iowa. The test is based on research by Robert Philibert and others at the University’s Carver College of Medicine. The study was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Philibert states that:
The ability to test for panic disorder is a quantum leap in psychiatry… Panic disorder will no longer be a purely descriptive diagnosis, but, as with cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome and other conditions, a diagnosis based on genetic information… In addition, the finding could help us better understand the pathways that initiate, promote and maintain panic disorder.
The study, published in the online version of the American Journal of Medical Genetics, were based on the analysis of genetic information in immature white blood cells. Although Panic Disorder is a disease of the brain cells, they are not accessible or easily tested. The study used lymphoblasts (immature cells) as “stand-ins” for brain cells.
Philibert and his associates are hopeful that this Panic Disorder blood test will lead to simple tests for other mental conditions.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Panic Attacks,
Research
