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Several times this year I've suffered what I'm told is a panic attack so severe I've passed out and had to be brought round by paramedics and taken to hospital..and on at least 2 occasions i've stopped breathing altogether. Has anyone else had anything like this? The doctors have told me very little about it..or what to do. As I'm also severely asthmatic they tend to just treat it as a bad asthma attack , stabilise that and keep me in for a few days!. If the same has happened to you , how did you deal with it?

I haven't suffered like that. Do you know what's causing it? Are you trying to deal with what's causing it, in addition to handling the attack itself?
dear!

Yes, I've been in hospital with panic attacks a couple of times, both 'ambulance' jobbies. I found that mine had particular triggers. They happened about four years ago, and although it's proved impossible to avoid possible trigger situations altogether, I think I can now manage them a bit better.

My last panic attack was about a month ago, it wasn't severe, but it was enough to worry me. I saw the Doc, and was told that if you suffer from panic attacks generally, they are more likely to occur during pregnancy - not sure why. As I'm five month's pregnant, there's the explanation!

I can suffer from panic attacks if i'm pretty stressed, they come out of the blue and i tend to drop to the floor wheezing, i've not actually passed out from one but have come close.
I tend to just need fresh air and a bag to breath into and no-one flapping around me (as tends to happen if you keel over in a supermarket)
You are probably best off addressing what triggers the attacks as they sound pretty severe

It sounds almost like you're talking about panic-induced asthma attacks, not actual panic attacks (which are scary but almost never have any lasting physical effects - I find it weird that your panic attacks require hospitalization on their own). I have relatively mild panic attacks (with lovely heart attack- and aneurysm-like symptoms), but I've managed them in the past using a combination of medication (SSRIs), patient-centered counseling and cognitive-behavioral therapy. I only use the counseling now, and do reasonably well most of the time.

I think from what little you've said here that treating the asthma is actually the correct course of action - at least from a medical standpoint. I'm more worried that these attacks make you pass out - panic attacks alone do not do that (you can hyperventilate and *feel like* you'll pass out, but it's not the same thing). I'd actually ask your GP to run tests to find out what's actually causing this - because panic alone shouldn't cause you to pass out.

But for your last question: There is no avoiding panic; you just have to learn how to recognize the signs/triggers of an attack so you won't start a crazy biofeedback loop and make it worse.

Sorry if that wasn't much help.

I used to throw up almost daily from what must have been panic atacks, then a bit after starting secondary it cut back to almost once aweek, and then it just stopped. Maybe I just settled in or grew out of them?

Regarding attending hospital for panic attacks - I think it depends what the symptoms are, they can be very wide-ranging. It could be severe stomach pains, breathlessness, blackouts, shaking, etc.

Both times I was hospitalised, though, it was because I didn't realise what was happening to me. My stomach was in agony, and they thought I had a perforated bowel the first time. It was only afterwards that I realised it was a panic attack.

I myself suffer from panic attacks i have had some so severe the doctors put me on valium to calm me down when i have one.Apparantly they can be due to hormones,stress and or thyroid problems.For the past 6 months though i have learnt to deal with them myself.

Also the other day there was a little booklet that was put into eveyones mailboxes(i live in Australia)And it was all abot the side affects of recreational drugs and while i was reading through it one of the main medical problems that marijuana has on poeple is panic attacks,so for anyone out there that does take marijuana that could be the problem that you suffer from panic attacks.

I think that part of the problem is using the term 'panic attack' as a sort of 'umbrella term' to define many different reactions to stressful situations.

Calling all these various reactions 'panic attacks' almost seems like a way of creating an easy label in which to pidgeon-hole a wide variety of symptoms and I don't think it's particularly helpful.

My own panic attacks, which I have suffered from since I was 14 and possibly earlier, don't include any serious physical problems such as fainting, throwing up or having an asthma attack. But I do think that the root of these various symptoms do stem from not breathing properly in a given stressful situation, which can then manifest themselves in many different ways.

The very first thing to remember is that *this too shall pass*, which might help when you start feeling panicky ... that your worst fears have never been realised in all the previous panic attacks (you've never died, you've never gone crazy) and so this is *not* about to happen now, in that particular moment. And then BREATHE! And if you can, distract yourself somehow from how you are feeling - distraction therapy. Focus on something else for a minute or so - it doesn't take long to 'get back' to feeling safe if you can concentrate on something other than what is scaring you.

Nipping the attack in the bud, so to speak, is something people need to be able to do, and every person will have their own personal way of doing this. Because the very worst thing is letting yourself fall into the initial panicky feelings. It *is* just a physical response and something that *is* in your control. You need to feel empowered enough to know that you don't have to go with the feelings, that you are actually fine but just feeling scared, that remembering people you love (or in my case, my cats, who need me to come home again) often helps ground you to what's really REAL in your life.

The fear does feel REAL, but other things are MORE REAL and far more important to us, you know what I mean? So if you can focus on something other than the panicky feeling ... it will pass.

How are you doing, Serephina? You haven't posted back here. I think you've mentioned before that you also get agoraphobia, something I can seriously relate to. If you'd like to send me an email to talk about this further, please feel free to do so.


az

Hi hermione1,

I kind of did things backasswards as a teenager and took acid before I ever tried marijuana. I had a couple of 'good trips' and then one that ended up with me having some form of nervous breakdown ... after that when I tried smoking pot (friends said it would relax me) I ended up feeling totally paranoid and had heart palpitations. Not fun, and definitely NOT RELAXING.

az