The most
essential thing to learn about panic attacks are the experience of panic itself. Once
it happens, a person's life changes dramatically. Panic attacks bring on
the fastest and most complex changes known in the human body. It is
experienced as overwhelming, uncontrollable dread, as if one is terribly
ill, about to die or lose one's mind. It drastically changes the the
functioning of major glands, heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, pancreas,
kidneys, bladder, eyes, and the largest muscle groups. Even violent poisons
or traumatic injuries have less effect. A cascade of stimulants and hormones
- adrenaline, epinephrine, glycogen, cortical, norepinephrine, among others - flood all the cells of the
body via the bloodstream. The impulse is to run, get out, or hide.
The immediate cause is
believing one is trapped and helpless, by some overwhelming threat.
While panic can happen as a consequence of crime or disaster, it doesn't matter
whether the threat is real. Often, panic happens after several weeks or months
of stress. It happens more often with persons who are very worried,
perfectionist, socially avoidant, or who have had abuse in childhood.
Heredity may play some part. What keeps panic going, and getting more intense
and frequent, is worrying excessively about it and strenuously avoiding
situations that appear to bring panic . Look up
Signs and Symptoms of Panic
Disorder for more details.
Panic attacks masquerade as a
variety of medical disorders. Panic mimics some medical conditions almost
completely, causing years of misdiagnosis. These are hypoglycemia, complex
partial seizures, drug effects, heart arrhythmia and hyperventilation syndrome.
Panic partly mimics others: angina, asthma, irritable bowel, colitis, vertigo, mitral valve prolapse, post concussion syndrome, hypertension, postural
hypotension, and hiatal hernia. Almost everyone who panics believes they have a
serious physical illness, and go from doctor to doctor for several years as
symptoms shift. Yet panic is easily diagnosed by professionals experienced in
panic.
About 7.2% of all adults, or
1 in 15, have a panic disorder which is a
primary part of their disorder, (NIH, 1993). In any given year, about 1/3 of
American adults have at least one panic attack; most of these adults never
develop repeated panic attacks. This startling data means that a phobia/panic
disorder is the most common emotional disorder, more common than alcohol abuse
or depression. Phobia/panic disorder also has the lowest rates for seeking help
and finding it, about 22%. Phobia is the most common and the most hidden
condition at the same time.
Understanding Panic
Attacks
You are in "Understanding"
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