The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127828 Message #2855584
Posted By: Liz the Squeak
04-Mar-10 - 02:19 AM
Thread Name: BS: Need help dealing with panic attacks
Subject: RE: BS: Need help dealing with panic attacks
Hey Spaw - sometimes the verbal 'slap in the face' is what is required!
I can only recommend what worked for me. Everyone is different, everyone will have a different symptom, a different attitude, a different way of dealing. You pays your money and takes your choice.
Breathing excercises - I'm a singer so I found singing a particularly difficult phrase under my breath gave me some sort of control over it. If I made it all through the phrase (mine was 'I know that my redeemer liveth' from Handel's 'Messiah' but anything will do) without running out of breath, I was taking control back.
Hypnotherapy - back to picturing the 'happy place' as noted above, but it has a calming and for me, soporific effect because that is how my hypnotherapist "programmed" it. It has reduced my night time panics and enabled me to get more and better sleep, for which I am eternally grateful.
If you start to get chest pain that doesn't ease after 5-10 minutes, or starts to spread down your left arm or across your neck and head, then get to an ER ASAP!! Panic attacks may be sneered at by some doctors, but if you have an underlying health problem, they can make it worse. Get taken to an ER often enough and sooner or later, someone actually takes notice.
Good luck, you know the 'Cat is always here should you need to rant.
LTS