Panic attack without the panic?

[Nirurin]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum and I have just written up my long story in the "introduce yourself" thread:
*I tried to link it but turns out I cant, its titled "Something wrong with me" anyway lol"


However I did have a more specific question, which I thought I should put here.

On two occasions now, when Ive been in bed and especially tired (long day and stayed up far too late for no real reason, distracted with reading and the internet lol), I have gone to try and sleep.... and then I've had the usual insomnia of being unable to turn my brain off and worrying about being ill and not being able to fall asleep.

I have then started shivering and shaking all over, as if I was very cold (except I'm warm in bed under a duvet). I also have a slightly tight feeling in the muscles of my stomach (I would assume because my worrying is about being sick?)

But they are my only obvious symptoms. No hyperventilating, my breathing seems to be fine, although trying to breath slowly in my stomach makes me feel uncomortable because of the tightness. No noticable chest pains or anything like that.

My questions mainly are:

1) Is it possible that these 2 panic attacks were caused partly due to extreme tiredness? Ive only had 2, and both were when I was overly tired.. but I didnt think tiredness would cause these sorts of things?

2) Is it possible to have a panic attack where the only symptoms are whole-ody shivering/shaking, and a slightly tight feeling in stomach? I do also feel a bit nervous/anxious about wether it will end and if i'll manage to sleep, but thats to be expected!

Thanks!

[Magik]

Well, for starters, welcome to NMP. I can't say I've ever physically shook from being overtired, but it does seem to be when I worry about things happening alot. I"ve noticed that if I don't keep a schedule, get a certain amount of sleep, it causes me more anxiety and worry...because it taxes my body. When your body and your mind are tired, for me, least it gets abit out of control. Thoughts tend to wonder, I've noticed I'll be paranoid about nodding off. My head will be hitting the pillow, my eyes will close and then I'll jerk my head up and think stuff like "Was I Breathing?"

And when your brain is tired...it's hard to focus on the positive and keep worrying at bay. Best advice to give you, try not to be overly tired anymore. Your body can do strange things when its tired. And your mind makes you think things might be wrong, when nothing is wrong. The tightening does sound like stress.

If you find yourself stressing out if these things will happen when you go to sleep next, try chamomile tea or warm milk? And again, most importantly, if you feel yourself getting tired, pay attention to your body. Hope this helps abit.

[PanchoGoz]

You may have been just low on sugar

[Nirurin]

Yeh I have been on the chamomile tea a lot lately lol, at least 2 cups a day generally. Not sure how much its helping but still!

[Meewah]

Nirurin

I have had this. It does not sound like a panic attack at all. Very early on when I started with bad anxiety I could not sleep and was sleeping 2 hours a night max. Many a night I used to lie in bed and shake as you say as if you are cold. This I put down to a build up of adrenalin as the back of my hands also felt sore. The cure for this is to go for a long walk or do some exercise about 4 hours before you go to bed. This cured it for me. The doctor said that unspent adrenalin finds a way to release itself and involuntary tremors do this. Very common for people with fear to shake uncontrollably.

Hope this helps

Mee

[Nirurin]

Nirurin

I have had this. It does not sound like a panic attack at all.

Hi, just to clarify, do you mean you dont think its a panic attack? Or that you agree it doesnt sound like normal panic symptoms?

I can see what you mean about the adrenaline being worn off through the heavy shaking/shivers, although I was just as anxious and stuff yesterday as I was the day before (I think anyway), and yet when I went to bed I did manage to relax myself to sleep without any nasty shivering!

Although this may be because I was trying some relaxation techniques as I tried to sleep, as well as taking diphenhydramine to hopefully knock me out! (I really needed to sleep lol)

Going to try and keep to some sort of decent sleep pattern, and see if that helps me out anyway. Fingers crossed!

[Meewah]

Hi

Well a panic attack is just that a sudden feeling of intense fear. Yours does not sound like this. I feel it is a state of high anxiety. If I am honest I feel I have only really had one panic attack and it was because I was unaware of what the symptoms were and I thought it was my time.

Hope that clears my bad grammar up??

Mee

[Nirurin]

Ahh I see, no thats fine it wasnt really bad grammer, just me wanting to be clear lol.
And yeh I only called it a "panic attack", because it seemed to be a sudden onset of a new symptom I hadnt had before... I have also been told it could have been caused by my body trying to burn off excess adrenaline, so possibly it is an anxiety related thing, I just dont know.

Im still hoping a lot of these random feelings and things are just caused by my quitting smoking weed, its been 4 weeks now so maybe in another month I will be feeling better!

Im just hoping that I can beat this thing without resorting to citalopram, as I just cant deal with the added anxiety/nausea/insomnia/ all the other nasty side effects that thing comes with :(

[Stormsky]

I've always believed you have an attack (as in symptonms) and then you panic.. You could be having the symptoms if anxiety, but you are not then panicking.

[Nirurin]

I see, I suppose that does make sense. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if it happens a third time, though I am trying to keep to a better sleep pattern for the time being. Maybe that will help!