Tag: Panic Attack

Quick Solution For Anxiety Attacks

Anti anxiety medications might offer one quick solution to your anxiety problems. These types of drugs include traditional anti-anxiety drugs (benzodiazepines), as well as newer options like antidepressants and beta-blockers. They can help reduce your anxiety while you undergo therapy to get to the cause of the problem. However, it’s important that you understand that these types of drugs don’t cure anxiety and they do come with side effects. Long-term reliance on these medications is not recommended.

Benzodiazepines can reduce anxiety quickly–usually within an hour–so they are a good option if you are having a panic or anxiety attack. Alprazolam (brand name Xanax), clonazepam (brand name Klonopin), diazepam (brand name Valium), and lorazepam (brand name Ativan) are in this category of anti anxiety drugs. Side effects of benzodiazepines include sleepiness, “fogginess”, and/or a feeling of being uncoordinated, all of which can cause problems if you need to be functional and alert. Benzodiazepines take a long time to get metabolized. For this reason, they can build up in your body if used for a long time. It you suffer from this build up, the side effects worsen and you may develop slurred speech, confusion, depression, dizziness, inability to think clearly and reason, memory loss and nausea, the inability to “feel” anything. Benzodiazepines decrease your anxiety but they also decrease feelings of pleasure and pain.

The advantage of antidepressants versus traditional anti numberswiki.com

anxiety medications is that the risk for dependency and abuse is less. However, the downside of antidepressants is that they can take from 4 to 6 weeks to give you relief from your anxiety–so, they are of no use to you if you are having a panic attack, for example.

Most commonly prescribed antidepressants are SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, and Celexa and they are not without side effects: nausea, nervoursness, headaches, sleepiness, sexual dysfunction, dizziness, nausea, and weight gain.

Buspirone (brand name BuSpar) works only for generalized anxiety disorders (GAD). It relieves anxiety by increasing serotonin in the brain (like SSRIs) and decreasing dopamine. Buspirone takes about two weeks to kick into effect but it has its advantages: it’s not as sedating, doesn’t negatively affect memory and coordination and it’s minimally addictive. It also has less serious side effects: nasuea, headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, constipation, diarrhea and dry mouth.

Beta blockers are generally used to treat high blood pressure and heart problems. But they can work for anxiety too by blocking the effects of norepinephrine, a stress hormone involved in the fight-or-flight response. Beta blockers ontrol the physical symptoms of anxiety like rapid heart rate, sweating, dizziness, and trembling voice and hands but not the emotional side of anxiety.

The above information about anti anxiety medications does not substitute medical advice given by a health professional.

Anxiety -Dont Feel Alone Everyone Experience It

We all experience some level of anxiety every now and then. A few of the more common examples include being put in harm’s way, giving a speech to a roomful of your peers, and getting through an interview for an important job. It’s normal to experience anxiety in such situations. Then there are people who experience anxiety on a frequent basis, and feel anxious when there are no immediate threats present. This type of anxiety requires treatment.

Before we get into some of the treatment options, it’s important to understand what anxiety is, and how it happens.

Anxiety happens when our body reacts to an imagined threat as if it were real. Our breathing and heart rate changes, adrenaline starts flowing, and we sweat as we go into the fight or flight response. There are times when this comes in handy, but the person with an anxiety disorder goes well beyond that point.

While you may be able to live with the occasional bout of anxiety, you should seek treatment if it is causing a negative impact on your life. A negative impact is anything that takes away from your quality of life, and your enjoyment of it. Not going to social events, staying inside due to a fear of the outside world, never stepping out of your “safe zone” because you’re afraid you won’t be able to cope are some common examples.

One of the difficulties of diagnosing anxiety is that many of the symptoms can be related to other conditions. Therefore, the sufferer may assume that they have another medical problem, when in reality they actually have an anxiety disorder. Symptoms can include, but are not limited to: shortness of breath, strong heartbeat, nausea, chest pain, fatigue, headaches, stomach pains, and insomnia. That’s quite a list, isn’t it? Someone with a strong heartbeat and pain in their chest would be fully justified in thinking they were having a heart attack, but it could just be a panic attack.

NOTE: Never assume chest pains are okay unless under the direct guidance of a doctor. Even if you have anxiety, the symptoms of a heart attack should never be ignored.

A person with an anxiety disorder thinks differently. For the sake of example, let’s say snakes make them anxious. Our sufferer sees a picture of a snake, and then his mind and body go into a different state. He sees the picture and thinks about how some snakes are poisonous, and they can bite. “What if,” he thinks to himself, “a snake bites me?” He continues by imagining being bitten, injected with venom, dying, and leaving his family destitute due to his being dead. All of this from seeing a picture!

However, his difficulty is how to stop the snowballing effect of these thoughts when they happen. Many of the treatments for anxiety are intended to stop the thought process, and a sense of calm replaces the sense of anxiety.

The Symptoms Caused by Anxiety Stress

Psychiatrists and those in the medical field believe that anxiety is a manifestation of three things. These are mood, thinking and behavior. These may not have that much effect at first but this can get worse if left untreated.

This can happen to anyone regardless of gender, age or culture. These can make a person experience a nervous breakdown, become mentally ill or in some cases suicidal.

There are over 27 million people or 15% of the entire population of the United States that experience stress at different times of the day. The best indication that these symptoms are really getting to the person is when this affects the output at work and the relationship with other people.

Doctors have not yet fully determined what causes anyone to experience stress. The only thing that these specialists are sure of are the symptoms since these are quite visible.

One example of anxiety stress is when someone experiences a panic attack. The usual symptoms associated with this are both physical and psychological. The person may have palpitations, sweat a lot, have difficulty breathing, nausea, chills and hot flashes.

The attack may happen for 15 minutes and could last longer. The person should know that this may happen once a year which is a good sign that the patient may not have mental disorder.

People who have post traumatic stress disorder have different symptoms not normally seen by those who are overworked. This is because the individual may have witnessed or experienced something violent which will make the patient not sleep well, have nightmares, sweat or absent mindedly visualize a different world where one is presently in.

Someone who feels trapped or has a phobia will not be able to speak or act well, think properly or just go mad. There are many things that can trigger this to happen such as being entrapped in a closed space, looking down from a tall building or just seeing a certain creature which one really despises.

Having good relations or being able to interact well with others is a good thing to establish a network. Unfortunately, not everyone can do that especially if the individual has a social phobia.

The symptoms of anyone who has this will rather stay home and not go out or even talk in front of a large audience. The parents or friends will notice this if the person always back out or gives an excuse so that someone else will do it instead.

The symptoms of anyone who experiences anxiety stress is very broad. This is because there are many classifications and this will take time for the doctor to single it out before this is discovered and worked out.

People who have one of these problems shouldn’t worry since those in the medical field have many treatments available. Some doctors may try to let the individual confront that fear to make it go away. If the situation is more towards a certain task, a pill can be prescribed to make the patient calm after a few minutes.

The use of drugs is short term. This is the reason that exercise, proper diet and rest are highly recommended in patients. Since the anxiety in each patient is different, doctors advise that the person undergo a physical and mental evaluation first before any type of treatment be administered.

Anxiety Attacks: You Could be a Victim

Anxiety is a normal reaction to situations that cause unrest and disquiet. Most life experiences evoke differing amounts of anxiety. However, what if anxiety becomes for you a chronic and even uncontrollable experience? And worse, what if you suddenly experience feeling terribly anxious for no reason at all?

If this is so, then you are probably experiencing a panic attack a chronic, pathological experience of unwarranted anxiety. In the USA alone, close to three million people suffer from this kind of illness. Anxiety attacks could happen in any place, at any time and any situation making it a very unpredictable and worrying illness.

Anxiety attacks differ from other disorders by the simple fact that they happen almost instantaneously and without provocation. It can occur even in the most inauspicious of places. Be it a trivial gathering or an important performance.

Most that suffer from this sort of disorder are often amazed and bewildered at how unpredictable an attack may be. The severity of such can range from mild discomfort to a nervous condition that effectively disables a person.

Panic attacks are so unpredictable; they can even bother one in their sleep. This can cause a major inconvenience and can seriously affect ones lifestyle. Those that do not understand the illness might make fun of or think that the person suffering from such an illness are overreacting or are doing things of their own accord to make things worse.

They do not understand that this condition is truly an illness that should be remedied and given attention as soon as possible. This is because this condition steadily increases in duration and intensity. Those that experience anxiety attacks for the first time typically suffer through the condition for ten minutes at a time.

As the condition progresses, this number steadily increases, and along with this increase in duration can come an increase in intensity.

Unfortunately, this type of disorder gets worse without treatment. Whenever one experiences a panic attack during any activity, the persons tendency is to associate that activity with the fear. This could cause trauma for many different activities, ultimately causing one to avoid performing these activities.

Symptoms
1. Sudden Fear As mentioned earlier, those that suffer from anxiety attacks encounter them suddenly, unexpectedly and without provocation. They also experience nausea and stomach maladies at the same time.

2. Sudden Change of Demeanor During a panic attack one may become either suddenly inactive effectively paralyzed by fear or on the far end of the spectrum, suddenly hysteric. The patient may or may not have control of the faculties during such an episode.

3. Chest Pain and Dizziness Chest pains and dizziness often accompany such attacks. These symptoms are usually company to nervous-related disorders. Some patients have also described being in a dream-like state; feeling chills, terror, sudden thanatophobia (fear of dying), palpitation, and other symptoms.

The causes of panic attack syndromes are quite hazy; it could be a deeply-rooted emotional problem, a trauma, or a nervous physiological condition. Some people are even genetically predisposed to such illnesses, having a marked imbalance of chemicals in the brain.

Most patients admitted with panic/anxiety disorders are treated with a mix of medication and psychiatric therapy. This mix addresses both the physical and mental faculties affected by the illness. The prognosis for such illnesses is good as long as it is treated early and consistently.