Panic attacks may link to other ailments

  • Posted on February 24, 2009 at 12:04 am

According to a new University of Manitoba study, panic attacks sufferers often have other mental and physical ailments.  Researchers are hoping doctors will look beyond the panic attack.

Jolene Kinley, a clinical  psychology graduate student  found that people with panic attacks also have more thoughts of suicide, social impairments and other mental disabilities. They also suffer more often from chronic physical ailments like asthma and allergies.

“When patients present in emergency rooms or doctors’ offices with panic disorders, we hope health-care professionals take a closer look,” said Kinley.

Studies in the United States have suggested people with panic attacks might have deeper medical problems, but Kinley said her findings represent the first Canadian study of the prevalence of other ailments among panic attack sufferers.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

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Women Are More Prone To Have Panic Attacks Than Man

  • Posted on February 19, 2009 at 12:35 am

About 6 million Americans suffer panic attacks.  People with panic attacks often end up in the emergency room because symptoms like difficulty breathing and a racing heartbeat usually happen suddenly and can be overwhelming.

“Panic attacks often mimic the symptoms of heart attacks. Antidepressants have been shown to work,” said Dr. Barbara Milrod, a Psychologist.

Antidepressants like Zoloft are often used to treat panic attacks, so can anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax.

Yoga, meditation and special breathing techniques can help relieve it . Exercise can also help control stress that can trigger a panic attack.

“It’s really important to figure out which kind of relaxation technique is going to work best for you because different ones work better for different people. So deep breathing through an oncoming attack may help to calm you or distracting yourself by doing a crossword puzzle might be a better solution,” said Jenny Cook, with Good Housekeeping.

Women are twice as likely to have panic attacks than men, and there’s a genetic component. They tend to run in families. But with therapy, 75 percent of patients do get better.

Source: CBS3

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What is panic attacks ?

  • Posted on February 4, 2009 at 12:13 am

Panic attacks is one of the most crippling disorders of mankind,  according to Dr Michael Corry. He says “A panic attack is a meltdown, where the levels of adrenaline get so high that there is a blow-out.”

Common symptoms of panic attacks include: racing or pounding heartbeat; dizziness and lightheadedness; tingling in the hands, arms, feet, legs; sweaty palms, flushed face; terror, fear of losing control.

Professor Timothy Dinan, a psychiatrist at Cork University Hospital, says that many of his patients have been through Accident & Emergency departments before they reach his clinic.

“They become revolving-door patients. They go to a variety of physicians for investigations, and have, sometimes, expensive and time-consuming tests that come back negative. It may be a long time before they accept the idea that it may be something psychological that is wrong with them,” he says.

Panic disorder is easy to treat when you catch it early on. But if they have been having untreated attacks for six or 12 months, the outcome can be much worse than if it is treated when someone has had just three or four attacks, according to Professor Timothy Dinan.

Panic attacks quite often lead to agoraphobia — fear of open spaces.

Dr Aine Tubridy, author of When Panic Attacks, is often contacted by people who tell her they have not left their house for months. “It’s awful,” she says. “People feel defeated by panic, and that, ultimately, can lead to depression.”

She often sees teenagers with panic attacks. “It can happen when they are forming their identity,” she says. “With the stresses teens have now, panic attacks have become more commonplace. Teens need approval from their peers.”

Alcohol and drugs don’t help. “People on mind-altering drugs may then get panic attacks,” says Dr Tubridy. “They may not like that blurring of boundaries. They panic, then think they have done some damage to their brain. They feel they can’t confide in their parents.”

Source: Independent

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Panic Attacks Linked To Heart Attacks

  • Posted on January 9, 2009 at 4:06 am

British researchers found that adults who have panic attacks have an increased risk of heart attacks and heart disease, but not heart-related deaths. This is based on  medical records of almost 58,000 adults diagnosed with panic attacks and more than 347,000 adults without the condition.

People who were younger than 50 when first diagnosed with panic attacks were 38 per cent more likely to have a heart attack and 44 per cent more likely to develop heart disease than those in the general population. People who were over age 50 when diagnosed with panic attacks had an 11 per cent increased risk of heart disease.

This study appears in the Dec. 11 issue of the European Heart Journal.

”Not much is known about the relationship between panic disorder and cardiac disease. The symptoms of panic attacks can closely mimic those of a heart attack or acute cardiac disease, and it seems there may be a complex relationship between them,” lead researcher Dr. Kate Walters said in a European Society of Cardiology news release. She senior lecturer in primary care at University College London

”Our findings have significant implications for clinicians. Panic attacks were associated with a significant increased risk of a subsequent diagnosis of CHD [coronary heart disease] and acute MI [myocardial infarction, or heart attack] in those aged younger than 50. This may be due to initial misdiagnosis of CHD as panic attacks, or a true underlying increased risk of CHD with panic attacks. Clinicians should be vigilant for this possibility when diagnosing and treating people presenting with symptoms of panic.”

The study also found that adults of all ages diagnosed with panic attacks had a 24 per cent lower risk of death from heart disease than those in the general population.

”This might be because the higher risk of coronary heart disease and heart attacks occurred amongst younger people who have fewer heart-related deaths generally, or it might be because people with panic disorders go to their doctors earlier and more frequently, and, therefore, are more likely to have their heart disease identified and treated early, thus reducing the likelihood of dying from it,” Walters said.

She and her colleagues also found that women younger than 40 with panic attacks had higher increases in incidence of CHD and heart attack than men. But this finding needs to be viewed with caution because the actual number of events was low and could be due to chance, Walters said.

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