Subscribe Feed (RSS)Panic Attack - What’s One of Those?
June 29th, 2008 by admin | Filed under Uncategorized.Panic attacks are frightening, there’s definitely no denying that, and once you’ve experienced one panic attack the imprint on your brain is so bad that even just the thought of having another can disable you and keep you house bound.
I had my first panic attack on my fortieth birthday while driving a bus. The ambulance crew and everybody else including me thought it was a heart attack, until the diagnosis came back after two days of observation in hospital.
“Panic attack, what’s one of those.” I said. The doctor tried explaining about hyperventilation but I didn’t really take any of it in, all I was bothered about was how come I still felt funny and weird. I went on feeling anxious suffering from anxiety, phobias and panic attacks for the next two and a half years.
Over those two and a half years, despite being an emotional nervous wreck having panic attacks daily and unintentionally turning into an alcoholic. I also had my fair share of trying different prescribed drugs out, with a few months at behavior therapy classes for deep breathing exercises and one on one psychotherapy.
None of the above worked for me I’m sorry to say. Fair enough the exercises probably do work for someone who wasn’t suffering from panic attacks. But as soon as you do experience one, these breathing exercises involving deep breaths actually make you worse.
I know when I was struggling and fighting to breathe, all the nicest, calming and soothing words didn’t mean a thing to me, and the last thing on my mind was to sit back and relax and take nice deep breaths, who are they kidding. They would have had more chance of me standing up and doing a triple somersault in mid-air.
How can you sit back when your stomach muscles are all contacting into cramps as well as your legs and arms.
When your trying you hardest to find the best position to help you to breathe better in (usually on the edge of the chair with your elbows on your knees.)
When you’re absolutely frightened you are about to die and thinking more about what happens now and how will your family cope.
Panic attacks are now a thing of the past for me I’m glad to say, and have been for the last seven and a half years. It would have been a different story all together if I had taken the medical advice given and not pursued my own gut instinct to seek out a cure and be rid of the panic attacks once and for all.
Because I eventually realized after months of going to and fro from the hospital and doctors surgery, that most doctors have never witnessed a panic attack, and unless they themselves have been a sufferer there can be little understanding of the problems and the overwhelming fear it produces.
I didn’t want medication just to suppress the panic attacks with the initial cause still lurking about ready to pounce on me at anytime. Because I knew that once your body gets used to this medication it has to be upgraded to a stronger batch, with side effects resembling the ones you’re actually taking the medication for, that would just bring me back to square one.
I didn’t want the tips and tricks you can find all over the Internet showing you how to cope with panic attacks such as: NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming,) Hypnosis, Yoga, Breathing Exercises and breathing into a paper bags etc, because I’d already learnt myself ideal ways to stopping panic attacks in their tracks, just by listening to my own body, which worked fine.
These all work by allowing your body to adjust its balanced level of carbon dioxide and oxygen to maintain a steady function, because you need a precise level of both gasses in order to reach vital tissues and organs. Once this balance is upset by over breathing and taking it too much oxygen, your body will do it’s utmost to get the balance back to normal.
That’s why you experience a panic attack. Your body actually stops you from breathing in anymore oxygen so that it can adjust it’s levels, but the longer you persist in preventing it doing its job, the only other alternative your body has is to stop you from interfering by making you faint.
This allows your body to quickly get the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels back to functioning at a normal pace without your interference. So the longer you fight your panic attack trying to get more air into your lungs, you actually end up fighting a loosing battle against yourself.
As I said earlier, although these exercises help I wasn’t really interested in them, because all these exercises do is allow you to cope with panic attacks, longer versions of the above information are scattered all over the Internet, most of which are for sale.
I needed to find a way to prevent panic attacks happening in the first place, and although the health authorities will state that panic attack origins are unknown, I beg to differ. Obviously they would say that, as the drug company’s multi-million dollar industry are making billions just by selling suppressants, and are actually paying health authorities to distribute them.
So at leased I knew I wouldn’t progress, by trying to get any worth while panic attack information out of them, with their, “good dose of electric shock treatment will sort you out,” attitude, keeping us well sedated and in the stone age era. My only other alternative to finding a way to prevent panic attacks from happening, was to read, read and read a bit more.
I must admit after approximately two years of research reading everything I could get my hands on, just led me to a brick wall. My concentration level was at it’s end tether and the reoccurring panic attacks on a daily basic had got the best of me, so I just gave it up as a bad job, having to come to terms with maybe having panic attacks for the rest of my life.
Then while reading a medical book (of all things) looking for some information to do with a problem my wife was experiencing at the time. I came across the information I had been searching for, it just stood out like a sore thumb looking up at me in black and white. All the symptoms fit me like a glove I couldn’t believe my luck.
With in a couple of days I was starting to feel normal again, as if someone had taken a big blanket off from over my head. All my symptoms were vanishing one by one as if by magic, I just couldn’t believe it. That was seven and a half years ago and I haven’t had any sign of a panic attack since.
Alec C Moir acmpublishers.com/panicattacks.html acmpublisher.com
Tags: anxiety, exercises, Hair, Heart
