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What are Panic Attacks?

7th April, 2011 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Panic attacks are common disorders in the United States. Research show that panic attacks affect about one-third of American adults every year. In terms of the whole population word wide, there are 1 out of 75 people suffering from panic attacks.

Here is a brief description of what panic attacks are: Panic attacks are sudden and recurring spikes of intensive and overwhelming fright. They are often accompanied by physical symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, or abdominal pain. Some other physiological symptoms that panic attacks bring are:

o chills or hot flashes

o nausea or vomiting

o feelings of being choked

o excessive sweating

o tingling and numbness in the hands

o shaking

o increase in heart rate

An individual experiences depression when he/she suffers from anxiety attacks. When having a panic attack, they usually feel as if they are dying or they are going crazy. According to medical professionals, these things aren’t unusual A number of the physical symptoms experienced in the course of panic attacks are the same or just like symptoms of much more serious conditions of the heart, lungs, intestines and central nervous system.

Those who suffer panic attacks often go through repeated hospital or doctor visits before a correct diagnosis is made. Some of them even suffer from panic attacks for many years before they know that what they’re experiencing is a real curable disease.

An individual has a chance of getting anxiety attacks through heriditary reasons. This means that someone’s susceptibility to panic attacks is inherited. This doesn’t mean that if your family has no tracks of anxiety attack you are already safe. This illness is beyond anyone’s control and there a lot of things out there that could cause panic attacks. These include depression, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse.

Panic attacks can also cause a person to be so afraid of different situations, that he / she will stay away from locations and circumstances where the panic attacks happened. They may believe that a certain situation or encounter caused the panic attacks when in reality the panic attacks just happened to occur in a certain location or situation.

This type of fear of things that might be a trigger of an attack can be very debilitating. People that experiences panic attacks will often do everything in their power to avoid any panic attacks. This means that many people will limit their lives to such an extent which they can’t or won’t do everyday activities like shopping or driving. Or they could only do such activities with a trusted family member or friend.

Panic attacks can be easily treated with the useof certain medication and know therapies.Taking prescription drugs such as Valium, Atavan, Xanax, and other drugs are some of the mediicines for panic attacks medical treatment. These drug treatments belong to a class called benzodiazepines that are renowned for their sedative and muscle relaxant properties. They’re very efficient for treating panic attacks, however, if used for a very long time, sufferers can develop a tolerance to them or become addicted on them.

Cognitive therapy is one psychotherapy used for treating anxiety attacks. Cognitive behavior therapy for remedy for panic attacks entails knowing unhelpful patterns of thinking and reacting and replacing these with more beneficial and sensible thoughts.

Say Goodbye to Panic Attacks Now!