Panic attack

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
Well not fun! For me I get a bit breathy, chest tightens around the ribs. A little dizzy but in a weird way kind of unfocused?! Heart races. My breathing will get faster- sometimes I feel like I am going to black out. If I can get my breathing under control it is better. Adrenaline hits hard.
The first one I had I knew. I had a sense of terror for no reason, if that makes sense? Lasted about 10 minutes, all of the stages.
Nina's heart starts racing and she will shut down and her eyes will roll back in her head. First she starts shaking and screaming sometimes. Something usually triggers it for her and I can see her start to have one.
 

Steely

Active Member
Shari, I think there are varying types - however what toto just described is exactly what happens to me as well. Over in PE I wrote about Matt having one in the grocery store if you want to look at that description. It was the first time I had seen one that was not my own - and it is exactly what toto described. It was weird to watch it - but from the outside observer it does not look as bad as it feels inside.

True story - scary - but true. Moving to AZ I started having a panic attack in the car on the side of the frwy. Then I started hyperventilating so severely that I could not stop. After awhile I had put too much oxygen into my body and all of my muscles started seizing up, which made me hyperventilate even more. I was in a fetal ball unable to talk or move any muscles by the time the paramedics got there. Note to self, keep paper bags handy:)
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I can be perfectly still and then my heart will start racing, I cannot breathe, I am terrified for no reason, and I shake. And I start thinking of things that, to be honest, are pretty unlikely.

What's going on???
 

flutterby

Fly away!
For me, I feel like I can't catch my breathe, get lightheaded, and can't be still. For difficult child, she gets short of breath, lightheaded and has a look of terror on her face - because she feels terror.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Thanks.

Yesterday, a friend had asked husband to help him get his pony wagon set up and adjusted right, and then they were going to ride. husband was taking our buggy, friend in his, and I planned to ride my horse since I hadn't been able to ride much this week (I have every intention of getting back in the buggy). We were riding along, I was in front, and we headed down a small hill, and my heart just started pounding and I couldn't breathe and I wanted off that horse something fierce. When we got to the bottom of the hill and stopped (we went to the grocery store), I got off and it was all I could do to not cry. A lady with 2 small children came up and asked to pet the horses and she's the reason I didn't just lose it... By the time I got the stuff to make ice team and got back out, I still could have just cried, but I wasn't the overwhelming panic feeling like before, and I didnt WANT back on, but it was easy to overcome and GET back on by then.
I am used to fleeting moments of panic, but they go about as fast as they come and are generally while I'm driving. There is one hill on the highway that I have come tonjust expect it...other times it just seems random, but is all from the accident, I'm sure.
So was just wondering if thats what this was... Was very strange. Fear is not something I am used to having so much of.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Yep -- sounds like a little PTSD-induced panic attack to me! Very normal, in my opinion, considering what you've gone through recently.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I think so, too. I put myself behind the buggies on the way back. husband pushed me to get on, but not hard or unsympathetically. Or any more than I pushed myself.
At the intersection, thy brought the buggies on home and I turned back towards the school to the trailer to bring it home. My horse did lots of carrying on when we separated, like they do, but he doesn't 'do' anything besides prance a bit, but the all out panic didn't return and we had a nice ride back. Met some boys leaving the park that asked to pet him and stopped and visited with them, so ended on a good note, and certainly nothing happened that warranted panicking, but boy, did I...
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Doesn't matter if the situation warrants panicking or not, something similar can trigger it. I had PTSD panic attacks after Katrina. It took me a couple years to figure out what triggered them even after moving inland was a drop in barometric pressure that commonly hits before a storm.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Yup. Sounds like a panic attack to me.

Mine after the accident could appear with a reason, I was in a car for instance........then anything moving around the car had me jerking like I suddenly became spastic and filled with an overwhelming need to escape. Or they could appear for no reason at all just out of the blue. Like in the middle of the night when I woke with one. ugh At least the ones that were situational were predictable and I could talk myself through it to some extent. Ones at night were harder to control because I first had to come all the way awake and realize what was going on before I could work to control it. Mine eventually got so bad......going outside was torture.

My anxiety has returned full force. I'm back to being spastic in the car......and am not so eager to leave the house. I can still force myself past it, it's just not pleasant to have to fight it at every turn. blah
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Before this incident, I'd have occasional little 'fleeting' moments...like I'd be driving along and all of a sudden, just for a brief moment, that same overwhelming sense of fear, dread, and helplessness just washes over and consumes me. I recognize that feeling being the same as the accident, but the 'when' doesn't make much sense, other than the other thing I notice more now is isolation...being in remote areas where help would be difficult to summon. Again...why? My cell was flawless at the accident...never a bobble in reception...yet I know our canoe trips this summer are going to test this...we are remote; isolated; I am already thinking about it.
I hope that was a first and last, but I'm guessing it won't be. Always something...
So what do you guys do for them? I was able to hold myself together and talk myself thru it. And thanks to the lady with her 2 kids, I didn't lose it.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I was able to hold myself together and talk myself thru it.
That's pretty much the jest of it. The theory is to retrain your brain, which is "stuck" in fight or flight mode.

medications can help........but retraining your brain, according to my psychiatrist, is pretty much the only way to be rid of them. Facing the triggers and finding ways to cope while still doing things you want/need to do. Like when I go spastic in a car......it's as the passenger, not as the driver (thankfully lol) so in order to get the car anxiety under control, I have to drive. It works to a certain degree. But when I'm the passenger......poof it sneaks up on me again.

Now the odd thing with me? I got run over by the truck..........it didn't even happen in a car, I was walking the dog, So why that somehow transferred to a vehicle I'll never know. Yet it did.

psychiatrist gave me klonopin for 3 months. Not even a very high dose I don't think. It helped. Had to have seroquel and trazadone to sleep though........those night ones were pretty bad. I suddenly had a horrendous fear of fire.........Now tell me how that relates to being run over? lol But anxiety works that way.

It's been many years........almost 8. I have as yet to take the dogs on a walk other than a very short one in the alley........and that gave me a nasty case of the cold shakes.

Not trying to worry you. Some docs say people who have TBIs tend to have bad anxiety after.......so I'm guessing that's why it's really not going away. I had a car accident years before when Nichole was 5 and did have some anxiety after but it only lasted a few weeks.

Hugs
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
When I had my panic attack moments? The doctor in the box wouldn't give me a prescription for anything. However she did tell me graciously on the sly that IF I felt the heart racing, the can't catch my breath thing where I'm sticking out my tongue to feel like I'm trying to get more air, the crushing chest feeling, that racing thought thing? Take 2 Benadryl. Of course she had NO idea that I had "life" with a difficult child and later would have the mini stroke which was pre-ceeded by the fits of laughing that scared everyone to death. (which I was told is the body's way of staving off having the cheese falling off your cracker) - yup - I saw a bumper sticker that said Real Men Love Jesus and would have bet a billion that it said Real Men Love Cheeses.....and that was it - I was hysterical to the point of DF wanting to pull off the road to slap me - but the events leading up to that? Enormous even for me. I was laughing for nearly an hour like that woman on the travelocity commercial that gets told she's a Beach Angel - (ahem)

Anyway - benadryl. It's not like klonipin or atavan - but it helps usually within 30 minutes. I'm just to the point now where I have Klonopin on hand and carry one with me at all times and if I get that tight chest thing? I take a small bite out of one of those pills and I'm okay. I don't take a whole pill - If I do - I end up wandering around car lots hugging cars and saying things like - THIS one is soooooooooo pretty. Very embarrassing.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I've wondered about that, too, Hound. I had three fairly major shots to the head last year - the car accident in April, the water park incident in July, and the wreck in November. I hit my head in all three, and the water park incident left me forgetting things right and left for several days - to the point it worried husband A LOT. I did things after that one that I still don't recall doing. So I don't wonder if there's not a little bit of cumulative "stuff" going on there, too.

Starbie, I live on Benadryl. I am allergic to grass, trees, flowers, bees, cats, dogs, horses....you get the idea.... I had taken 4 right before I got on the horse...would another one have still helped?
 

Steely

Active Member
Hmmm...........I might go see a neurologist and make sure you did not do any damage to your brain in those 3 accidents. My sister had a severe concussion in a bike accident, and truthfully her processing and pysche changed at that time, although I was not near enough to her to see it day to day. So get that checked out.

Also, yes, I think a Benadryl would have helped in the moment. I am like Star, I keep Klonipin with me for these emergency times - but you can only do that if you know you are not one inclined to mis-use those kinda medications. Which I am sure you are not:)
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I might do that. I have headaches more, too, than I used to.

How does the benadryl help? I'm all for it, but benadryl does not make me calm or sleepy or anything like that?
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Well Shari it's the whole calm sleepy thing that is supposed to help. lol So if benedryl doesn't have that effect on you (relaxing effect), then I doubt it's going to do that much for you.

I've had people tell me klonopin does the same thing. All I know is it didn't for me. I just felt my muscles do this huge sigh thing as they relaxed.....that part was fabulous. It also did a pretty good job with the anxiety part too......without me feeling the sleepy loopy thing. But psychiatrist would only give it a max of 3 months.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Listen to the nurse (points up) .......We did - Df had a zit on his face, I got desitin and I must say - I dont' know anything about the zit - but I had more fun running around calling him BUTT FACE - than any other woman I know.

How ya doing BUTT FACE........Hows that zit BUTT FACE.???? Ya still got that boil on yer ........face? Butt face? -------Needless to say? He won't be putting destitin on his face anymore..

But for $2.49 cents? I had more fun than a tube full of Desitin.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I'll be more than happy to pack around my benadryl, but considering I'd taken 3-4 less than an hour before this happened, I was kind of suspecting it might not work. I literally do live on the stuff. Zyrtec and claritin don't do diddly for me...so I just take Benadryl.

Too funny, Star. We have a friend with a spotted mule...I frequently tell him he needs to see a doctor about those spots on his a__. It took him a while...
 
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