Panic attack

I get them once in a blue moon, but I had a whopper today.

I've had an upper respiratory infection/problem going on about 2 months now. A lot of congestion, stuffy nose, wheezing and shortness of breath. So I've become very sensitive to my breathing. Anyway, I'm in the shower this morning washing my hair, and I dip my head under the shower head to rinse. Suddenly, this momentary inability to breathe freely induces full-on PANIC. Hair still shampooy, I rear my head back, gasp for air, shut off the water and step out of the shower. My bathroom suddenly feels like a shoebox and I must escape to maintain my sanity. And yet I know that even if I bolt out of the bathroom down the hall, it's not gonna help, because I'm stuck inside myself and my own raging anxiety... and all I can do is talk myself down. My heart is racing. Quickly, though, I begin to gain perspective, realize there is nothing threatening my life, and I return to normal. I get back in the shower but rinse my hair with my back to the shower head this time.

It SUCKED. And I hope this isn't the beginning of a new series.

sorry to hear about this. I've not really had to deal with this as such. What I would suggest though is to maybe seek some help. There are support groups that can help you learn how to deal with panic attacks & to try to control them.
Best of luck.

apaprently hypno-therapy could work. i was thinking about trying it with some phobias of mine. grateful that i've never had an episode quite like yours though Aaron, hope you are able to quash it.

My heart goes out.

Two of the books which helped me recover from a chronic nervous illness in the nineties:
Shirley Trickett's "Coping Successfully With Panic Attacks"
Doctor Claire Weekes's "Self Help For Your Nerves"

I am no longer ill - housebound, as I was at times - though I still can't bring myself to get rid of these two books. They helped me understand the causes, but also the physiology behind panic attacks and hyperventilation, which demystified the symptoms. Knowing more about the physiology is enpowering and too many doctors patronise, and separate the body's health from the mind - often sending a sufferer straight to a cognitive psychiatrist who might start a programme of completely innapropriate regressive therapy (obviously for some people such treatement might be of theraputic benefit, helping them to isolate the trauma (in childhood?) that is behind the panic attacks; but many people get a couple of panic attacks because they are uncommonly, but ephemerally, stressed at work, and go on to have further panic attacks, even when the stressful period is over, because they fear the panic attcks themselves and just need to know what's going on); all the sufferer needs to know is what is happening to them and why. Weekes's book teaches you how to 'float' through the symptoms, no matter how intense they get. Not easy, obviously, but it helps you realise the symptoms aren't going to make you die or fall down on the spot: Lightheadeness doesn't mean you are about to succumb to a fit, or even faint; palpitations don't mean your heart will arrest; tingling / numb fingers don't mean a stroke; fast, scarey, intrusive thoughts (about leaping out of planes, hitting / harming someone you love, screaming) don't mean you will actually reflexively enact whatever it is your thinking.

Although I was profoundly messed up by my illness, these books are not geared exclusively to help people so badly afflicted: they can help whatever the degree of suffering.

Not easy, but float through the panic if you can; it *will* diminish. And the very best of luck.

I suffer from panic disorder. I take Xanax for it only when needed now. They started in college, along with depression after a bad breakup. Anyways, I stopped getting them for about two years after college and one day while driving through the mountains of Vt I had a major one. So since then I have a really hard time driving in unfamiliar places, or over bridges, through mountains. I have an extreme fear of heights which instantly trigger an attack. So this means I hate flying with a passion so I don't ever travel, I've flown twice and both times I cried. I haven't gotten jobs because I couldn't get in the elevator to go up to the 20th floor or something. I basically sat outside and looked up at the building and refused. I don't drive over bridges, which pretty much limits my driving. I don't like being in a mall thats higher than two stories or else I freak out.

Basically, I avoid these situations at all cost unless necessary. I had a wedding to go to on the roof of the Ritz in September and I obsessed about it for weeks. I was in the wedding so I couldn't skip. Surprisingly, with no assistance from Xanax or my wife I made it up the elevator alone all night without incident. Hopefully I think I am starting to "grow" out of them.

Plus it helps to have a wife who is trained in psychological disorders to help me out. But I went to therapy for 10 years, which didn't ever seem to help. Maybe I just had the wrong type of therapy. Xanax works, but its highly addictive and makes you a zombie. And your dick don't get hard.

"I've had an upper respiratory infection/problem going on about 2 months now". By the way, many people's panic atacks can be triggered by a physical or organic condition. In my case, I had Meniere's disease, which went undiagnosed for many months, during which time the panic mounted. Originally, I went to the doctor feeling dizzy (not remotely panicky), thinking he would say, 'right, you have an ear infection, here's some pills; or let's do some tests', and that would be it (which is what he should have done)... But he said it was nothing organic, and in fact implied it was imagined. I knew in my heart my dizzy symptom wasn't psychosomatic or down to stress, 'cos I actually felt fairly laid back about life at that time, so coming out of the doctor's NOT knowing what it was, actually had the affect of making me panic big time. This is the classic start of a panic disorder: the symptoms of panic mushroomed and it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between these and the original symptoms being caused by my Meniere's disease thing. Don't let this happen. An upper respiratory infection is an upper respiratory infection is an upper respiratory infection - and although it's no doubt very unpleasant at times, it will clear up, with the chemist's or a doctor's help.

One small thing that helped amazingly was Trickett dispelling the myth that it is deep breathing which helps people relax. No, in fact, deeply or shallowly, it don't matter - the important thing to do when you're panicking is SLOW your breathing down. SLOW breathing ois the key; and breathe out longer than you breathe in. This does the trick for chemical reasons Trickett goes into in her book. Try it next time you feel a panic coming on. It's a handy trick.

Last thing, there are very few conditions in the nervous arena that don't respond to physical excercise. Ask the doctor if you're unsure; but personbally I'fe found a bit of jogging on the spot can be most affective, getting the breathing back on course.

Are panic attacks and anxiety attacks the same thing? Like, chills + super-increased heart-rate + cold sweats etc?

yep.

I think what your describing is called "paranoia" lay off the squeef... ;)

ha ha

But actually I started having these long before the days of reefer began. And honestly sometimes I think it helps stave them off. I haven't gotten them that much since high school, it's usually only when driving in unfamiliar places (not necessarily cities though, more like in-the-middle-of-nowhere settings), surrounded by large numbers of unfamiliar people, or especially right before a gig.

My last panic attack before the shower one I detailed above was, in fact, marijuana-indiced. I was playing Gran Turismo with a friend (not exactly a high stress situation) when my vision goes dark, heart begins to race... total weirdness. I spent the next half hour on her couch with my feet propped up because I thought I was having a heart attack.

That sound familiar. After a bad experience with pot laced with liquid acid, everytime I smoked weed after that I had a panic attack very similiar to yours Aaron. Needless to say, its been almost 10 years since I smoked weed.

Quitting (most) drinking and smoking, and a healthier diet helped me out quite some.

I used to have them very frequently, now much less so (possibly due to treatment for other things, possibly due to no longer being around people who enjoy fucking with me to see me get one).

The last one was a doozy though, lasted much of a day while flying cross-country, and was brought on by days of holiday stress leading into a big FITE with my husband. Eventually I remembered I had some Xanax in my pillbox (prescribed several years ago, haven't used in well over a year), took half of one, and felt much less panicky. Hope not to get another one for a good while!

I second the slow breathing thing. I started having regular, frequent anxiety attacks about a year ago when I had to teach. The annoying (understatement) thing being that they would happen in the middle of a weekend day when I didn't have to teach for several more days and should have been fine (I thought), and I found myself having a worse and worse time and being totally unable to think my way out of it--in fact the kind of thinking I was doing, "why is this happening, what's going on, what's wrong with me, etc," was exactly what I didn't need and only exacerbated it all. What helped the most, besides the slow breathing, was someone suggesting to me that when an attack happened I should try remembering and reminding myself simply that it would come to an end. Just learning to wait it out in this way helped greatly, because it always did eventually end, and once my body
(and mind) learned I could calm down, the attacks got better.

But then I quit teaching and they went away almost completely.

i keep an inhaler with me for attacks like that. it doesn't make the panic go away but it helps me breathe better.

i had a really bad attack a few weeks ago when climbing up a narrow spiral staircase to the top of a lighthouse -- i felt like jimmy stewart in vertigo. i didn't have my albuterol with me and i thought i was gonna lose my shit. but once i got up to the top i was ok.

i usually keep xanax around too but i'm taking those less and less.

I wouldn't wish them on my worse enemy. I had so many of them. I guess I can contribute the cause to being confind in small places as a little girl.(Such as the time I fell down a deep well at the age of 2-3. The attacks come without any warning whatsoever and it feels like you are going to die. I suffered with them for many years, not knowing what they were. Sometimes I almost passed out. It happened to me in a lineup at a store and all I could do was hold on to the railing and try to breathe.
It's happened to me a few times watching tv.(without reason)
I feel fine today but I have to take medicine all my life to keep the attacks away.