Do panic attacks change?

[beadbabe]

I just want to know if anyone else knows about this?
I have been having panic attacks out of the blue for over 18 months now and they are starting to take me off guard because they aren't always the same. ie. I think they are panic attacks but they have different clusters of symptoms...

sometimes they are just horrendous dizziness with panic and weird feelings, sometimes palpitations and high blood pressure with really irregular heartbeat, sometimes fast heartbeat that is pounding, sometimes it is weird and momentary just going really out of it, sometimes it is momentary, sometimes it last for ages and continues for more than the ten minutes it says in books, and sometimes it is like a weird electric shock in my head. Sometimes it is nausea, sometimes I feel like I am going to pass out with dizziness

claire weeks book says that once you have had your symptoms then you are not going to expect anything new, but I am fiinding that not to be true. Is this a big mistake in her book? Because I am finding that my panic attack symptoms change and trick me into thinking that maybe this time it isn't a panic attack but a heart attack / stroke / seizure? This is making me find it really hard to come to terms with

Can anyone help or shed light on this?

[Phill2]

Mine change all the time too.
Just when you get used to one symptom your mind thinks up another to throw you off again
Phill

[mirry]

mine change all the time, not helpful at all !

Love the name Beadbabe, cos I make jewellery using beads to sell, do you happen to make jewellery too ?

[Trev]

By nothing new I believe that Claire Weekes was meaning nothing outside of the recognised involuntary reactions which she describes. I don't believe that she meant that you actual panic feeling would always stay the same.

The recognised reactions are listed on this site.

Also Claire Weekes does say not to be bluffed by any strange feeling in nervous illness.

[maya]

Mine chnage all the time too...I never know what to expect.

[Rennie1989]

My panic attacks are different everytime but have some pattern. They start with hyperventilation but the symptoms that come next vary. I could have chest pains, cramps, pind and needles, dizziness or what ever next. I eventually get them all but not in the same order.

[candie]

Hiya,
My panics are the same,they differ in symptoms and severity.Sometimes not so bad,other times unbearable and each time the symptoms vary.

Today is one of the bad days by the way...

Take care,Candie xx

[davidthegnome]

They sure can, in my experience. Take now for example, 2:20 bleeding AM here in Northern Maine in the USA. Just had a rather nasty one when I woke up and thought I was hearing things. Thought I was hearing a light drumbeat or something in my head. Like a slow, soft pounding, I knew it wasn't my heart so immediately I figured I must be hearing things.

Had to go outside to convince myself I wasn't immediately becoming a skitzophrenic. Lovely, isn't it? This is the first time a sound has ever bothered me to this extent - and it could have been anything, my mom's fan, the fridge, the furnace. Just got off the phone with the crisis hotline who I think have convinced me I'm not going mad... at least for the moment, lol.

That said, I believe they can change, but if you have symptoms that are very unusual for you, it may help to speak with a psychiatrist or therapist or even your GP. If I knew all the numbers for mine I probably would've called them all and woken them up for this one, hah.


No worries though, it can happen and does. I don't think we have to worry unless we suddenly find ourselves wandering through the streets naked preaching about the end of days. That said... excuse me, I have some preaching to do.
(Just kidding)

God bless you, hope you feel better soon,

Dave