First and foremost it is important to distinguish that a panic heart attack symptoms and a real heart attack are quite different but both cases should be treated by a doctor. This is not to say that heart attack sensations in panic disorder are not extremely frightening and feel just like the real thing. Heart attack symptoms are very common in sufferers of panic attack disorder. Sudden feelings of intense anxiety, chest pains, fear and dread that occur for no apparent reason. The onslaught of a panic attack leaves sufferers terrified, usually feeling like they are having a heart attack, dying or having a nervous breakdown. They can last from a few seconds up to a few hours.
Panic attacks and panic heart attack symptoms are often linked to psychological reasons such as stress. Many sufferers of panic attack will be under a lot of stress such as unemployment, divorce, moving home, bereavement, bullying etc. A build up of emotional and real life stress is logical to relate to the condition although some other explanations of the condition are being researched. A recent study has linked a particular gene COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase) to the disorder. This gene is used to break down dopamine and so logically if the COMT gene was not functioning correctly then the chemical balance of the brain would be disturbed.
Trying to explain the condition is often of little use to the patient who will feel desperately in need of treatment to prevent it reoccurring. Anti depressants or anti anxiety medications are often prescribed to sufferers and while the patient may not feel necessarily depressed, they will often do whatever is necessary to prevent a reoccurrence of their symptoms. Another common treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy. This focuses on irrational thought processes such as worrying thoughts about their real life problems or even about having another panic attack. Basically the treatment is to unlearn fears that you have. It’s considered that a fear is something that you have learned and so you simply have to unlearn the fear so that it no longer exists. You first learn anxiety control techniques; then you are gradually exposed to your fear until finally you are faced with your fear and it has no effect at all on you.
Psychological behaviour is essentially believed to be the major contributor to panic attacks and panic heart attack symptoms. After having panic attacks, the psychological fears of having another one and linking your fears to situations where panic attacks have happened previously, create more and more psychological traits that need to be addressed.
Panic disorder is treatable. It can sometimes take a fair amount of effort but the cognitive behavioural therapies available in modern medicine have freed a great majority of sufferers from their condition.
