Does this sound like a panic attack?

[texico]

This may be a bit long and I apologize but I want to be sure you get the complete story to base your answers on.

On Friday, I was mowing our backyard. It's small, but we use a manual mower so it was a pretty good workout. Afterwards, I sat down to relax for about 30 minutes and calm down. My heart was just racing from the exertion of pushing the mower. My kids got home about 30 minutes later and I decided to drive them up to a local custard place to redeem free sundaes. On my drive there, through rush hour traffic, I still felt my heart racing and like I was just very uptight. A few stoplights down the road I started to feel palpitations. Normally, I can just cough or move around and they will stop but that didn't help. I felt this flip-flopping and then it stopped and then started again. After a minute or so, I started to get scared. I was concerned why they weren't stopping and what could be wrong. I was very close to driving into the ER or a walk in clinic but I didn't want my kids to freak out.

So, I just pushed on and headed for the drive through. Thankfully, at that time it wasn't very busy but I felt awful. I just wanted to run away and figure out what was going on. We ordered and I just tossed mine next to me and didn't have a bite. I had no appetite and I just wanted to get home. This flip flopping would stop and then start again on the drive home but as I got closer to our neighborhood, it started to subside. When I got home, I went to talk to my husband and I was just shaking and cold. I laid on the floor and my heart rate started to come down and I felt calmer.

Now this entire weekend, I've been on edge like I'm just wondering and waiting for it to happen again.

Does this sound like a panic attack? I used to have panic in my 20's and took Xanax periodically, but I haven't had an attack since and I'm 48 now. Why would this just boom...happen out of the blue? I'm so confused.

Is it possible that the adrenaline in my system from exerting myself when I was pushing mower and then the stress of driving just snowballed and the panic started?

I had to take my kids some place else today and before we left my anxiety really started to climb just knowing I was getting in the car again. I guess I'm thinking about what happened on Friday when I was driving.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I would also like to know if any of you take medication and if so, what kind. Ideally, I would like to find something that isn't addictive and that would work to help the panic attacks from starting, if there even is such a thing. I'm not opposed, though, to xanax because it worked for me in the past and I had no problem stopping it. I only took it as needed and a lot of times, just knowing I had it, helped me.

Thank you so much for your advice.

[ocdbaking]

Hi,
It does sound like you've had a panic attack. Mine started for no obvious reason years ago, and I managed to stop them for a few years until recently, when they've come back with a vengeance (at least this time I know the reason). The anxiety of having one can often start them, which is a real pain. I do find if I get excited, I can end up having one so I can imagine mowing the lawn may have been a bit of trigger for you. It was probably what came next which caused the panic, not the mowing per se.

I take mirtzapine for my anxiety conditions, and until recently it was worked well for me. I've never had diazepam for them. I tried beta blockers a long time ago, but didn't like them.