Admittedly it’s a lot easier to write and read about anxiety symptoms than it is to actually have them. Panic disorder is usually diagnosed if you experience recurring severe anxiety panic attacks. One, or even a few, panic attacks can happen to nearly anyone under the right – or perhaps the wrong, conditions, but a full-blown panic disorder is a cyclical attack on your life, not a single event.
Panic attacks consist of overwhelming feelings of terror seemingly arising from nowhere. They come with no warning, no obvious threat and no clear reason. Essentially, a huge overdose of the fight or flight response, a panic attack can feel if you’re having a heart attack or about to die. You could have several of these kinds of symptoms:
=> Feeling dizzy or as if you’re going to pass out
=> Tachycardia or accelerated heart beat
=> Peripheral alterations in sensation such as numbness in your fingers
=> Chest pains
=> A sense of loss of control of yourself
=> Difficulty with breathing
=> Sudden sweating or feeling cold
=> And of course, that feeling of extreme fear
First off, it’s critically important to understand that panic disorder is not some kind of character flaw or weakness. The “just get over it” crew is way out of step with reality. In fact, there is new evidence that panic disorders may be genetically based. Many researchers have suspected this but it is difficult to determine. Dr. Philibert, a professor at the College of medicine at the University of Iowa, has been developing a blood test measuring gene expression in lymphocytes which appears to allow a predictive differential diagnosis. Unfortunately, it is a fairly costly procedure but for those patients where it isn’t clear that the proper diagnosis is panic disorder it could be a life saver.
What his research strongly indicates is that a significant underlying cause of panic disorder may be genetically based. At the very least, his work may help to reshape opinion in the medical community. Doctors who believe that panic disorder is some kind of character disorder – a weakness that can be overcome by just bucking up and coping – have done very little to help anyone with a panic disorder. Hopefully, some solid evidence that there are definite biological underpinnings, may wake a few of the fossils up.
Panic disorder often can lead people into becoming agoraphobic and hiding out in their home – or even in a single room. The inability to pin down any specific cause can lead to everything becoming frightening. Others may develop alcoholism through using alcohol excessively to blunt their responses.
The use of prescription medications often becomes a trap too. While anti-anxiety medications can reduce the incidence and severity of anxiety panic attacks, they come with their own risks which can include serious side effects and addiction.
Traditional psychotherapy has very little to offer anyone suffering from panic disorder since, for most, there is no real psychologically based link to the trigger events. Understanding your psyche may be rewarding for other reasons, but it’s unlikely to be helpful with a true panic disorder.
Thousands of people have found that training systems which work on a behavioral basis to teach means of breaking and side-stepping anxiety panic attack responses are extremely helpful. Genetically based or not, as humans we have the capacity to overcome many of our inherited reactions through learning and practice and are capable of developing an immense degree of control through the use of behavioral techniques.
