Searching the American Journal of Psychiatry website results in more than twenty-five thousand articles that speak to panic disorder and panic attacks. help.~The prevalence of the disorder and how widely it is studied is solidified by the number of people seeking panic attacks help.~That indicates that there is a high prevalence of this disorder, and says even more about how common it is and the number of people seeking help for panic attacks.~That statistic would suggest quite a bit about how widely the disorder is studied and the number of people seeking help for panic attacks.} M. Katherine Shear, M.D., of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania developed a Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) back in 1997, which scale can be administered in about five to ten minutes by a clinician. The scale measures seven different factors: panic frequency; distress during panic; panic-focused anticipatory anxiety; phobic avoidance of situations; phobic avoidance of physical sensations; impairment in work functioning; and impairment in social functioning, and in the medical community, the PDSS is widely used as the first step to determine how to stop panic attacks for individual patients.
Those who have panic attacks are sure to recognize at least some of these factors as being negative influences in their lives. These people may or may not have undergone assessment by the PDSS, but that doesn’t make them any less prone to the symptoms of panic attacks, and the constant fear that they will suffer another attack. Below, you will find descriptions of how psychiatric and psychological treatment is used to stop panic attacks.
Understanding What Panic Attacks Are
We must first, before discussing how to stop them, look at what panic attacks are, what causes them to occur, and why medical professionals think they happen. The core of panic disorder, a panic attack is a terrifying experience. Each of the following symptoms can be experienced by a person in the throes of a panic attack: choking or smothering sensations; fear of losing control, dying, or “going crazy”; feeling unsteady; feelings of nearly paralyzing terror; nausea or stomach pains; numbness or tingling in fingers or toes; shortness of breath; and sweating. After reading through such a list of symptoms, it becomes easy to understand why people present at an emergency room thinking they are having a heart attack, when, in reality, they are having a panic attack.
Usually a person will have their first panic attack when they are between the ages of 25 and 30. Unfortunately, the first attack may be mistaken for something else, but has really been triggered by a life-altering event such as divorce, the death of a loved one, or even an impending marriage or the birth of a child. Because many folks do not always know to relate the first attack to what actually triggered it, it is sometimes difficult to figure out what started the attacks, which results in delaying treatment for them.
There are times when a person believes they can pinpoint the triggers that cause their attacks, and this can lead to that person starting to avoid places and things, which can lead to them having agoraphobia, or other types of phobias. If the person does not seek treatment, they run the risk of this becoming a slippery slope, a cycle that just gets worse and worse. Fortunately, once identified, panic disorder is treatable, and a good percentage (around 90%) of panic attack sufferers go on to lead healthy, attack-free lives.
Two Treatment Options in the Medical Community
Administered through one of two types of therapy (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT] and Exposure Therapy), psychotherapy is the first treatment option. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy starts by teaching a patient about their disorder, and how to learn to keep track of their episodes, which can help identify their personal triggers. Breathing techniques are then learned so that the patient can effectively control the attack while it is occurring. The basis of this type of therapy is that the patient can control their own thoughts, rather than allowing any outside influences to control them, and by so doing, can control the awful feelings that he or she has during an attack. help.~In the medical community, this type of therapy is thought to be the quickest way to get help.~This therapy is regarded as the quickest way to get help by the medical community.~The quickest way to get panic attacks help is how the medical community regards this type of therapy.}
Based on CBT, Exposure Therapy forces the patient to face the things that trigger their attacks. These triggers can be situations, traumatic experiences the patient has lived through, or thoughts or memories that causes a panic attack in patients. To start with in this form of therapy, the patient and the therapist together attempt to determine what those triggers are. This can be the hardest part of the job. After the trigger(s) has been identified, the next step is to have the patient face the very thing they fear, in small doses, until they can face it head-on. The underlying theory is that if you can face your fear, you can overcome your fear.
Drug Therapies
Sometimes drugs will be prescribed in addition to therapy in order to treat the occurrence and symptoms of panic attacks. These fall into four general categories: Tricyclic Antidepressants; Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs); Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs); and Benzodiazepines.
The first category are Tricyclic Antidepressants, and they boast a whopping twenty-something side effects, ranging from the mild (dry mouth) to the severe (irregular heartbeat and muscle breakdown. Highly toxic, these drugs are in the process of being replaced by SSRIs, described in the paragraph below.
Without expounding on the scientific values, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors increase the amount of serotonin in the body. An organic compound, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that regulates mood; and there are around twenty-two side-effects of these drugs, ranging from headaches to renal or liver impairment and, most notably, decreased libido and erectile dysfunction.
Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors are prescribed primarily as antidepressants as well as smoking cessation aids. So strong are these that they can interact with many foods and other drugs, and can even kill you as a result of the wrong interaction, so they are not as widely used as the others.
Benzodiazepines actually act as hypnotics in high doses, and the Drug Enforcement Agency classifies them as depressants that can cause amnesia, hostility, irritability and disturbing dreams. Although the long-term effects should not be overlooked, these have been shown to help control panic attacks.
panic attack relief.~Many people have found medications to be very effective in their efforts seek help, despite the scary side-effects.~Despite the scary side-effects of drugs, there are a whole host of individuals who have found them to be especially effective in their quest for panic attack relief.~Yes, these are some pretty scary facts, but remember, too, that folks all over the world have found them to be invaluable in their efforts to get help for panic attacks.} It is critical that you do your homework before you begin any form of therapy, and do not hesitate to discuss your concerns about drug therapy with your doctor before he or she hands you a prescription.