Panic disorder symptoms & treatment

• Feeling of Imminent Danger or Doom
• The Need to Escape
• Heart Palpitations
• Sweating
• Trembling
• Shortness of Breath or a Smothering Feeling
• Feeling of Choking
• Chest Pain or Discomfort
• Nausea or Abdominal Discomfort
• Dizziness or Lightheadedness
• Sense of Things Being Unreal, Depresonalization
• Fear of Having a Heart Attack
• Fear of Losing Control or "Going Crazy"
• Fear of Dying
• Tingling Sensation
• Chills or Heat Flash

TREATING PANIC DISORDER

Panic attacks are traumatic. If you have had a panic attack, you know that the experience is traumatic. The ferocious anxiety causes pains in the chest and arm. You often fear that you are going to die or go crazy. The fear that this could happen again is pervasive.

The truth is that no one has died from a panic attack. It just feels very bad. One of the keys to treating a panic attack is to be able to identify that it is occurring. We then use a combination of Cognitive Therapy, relaxation tools and exposure to reduce the fear of an attack. By learning how to relax your body’s response to the panicky feeling, you control the experience. Through guided imagery, you learn to tolerate the panic, and then to control it.