Panic Attack? Or something more serious?

[Nervous Wreck]

Hello

This is my first post on here. I've been browseing as a guest for a couple of weeks & found this site very reassurring. Theres been something on my mind a lot recently that I thought I'd share with you and hopefully someone can reassure me that its just anxiety & nothing else...

I'm a 28 year old male. I had what was diagnosed as a panic attack for the first time 3 months ago. At the time I thought I was having a heart attack or stroke, and ended up in hospital - basically I woke up with severe chest pain, both arms paralysed, a weird numbness in my head and breifly complete loss of vision. It only lasted 30 seconds or so and then everything went completely normal again, but it scared me into calling an ambulance.

Since then I've had ECGs, blood pressure tests, and loads of blood tests, but everything seems to be fine, other than slightly higher than average blood pressure (but not dangerously high). I've been diagnosed as having anxiety. Since then I've ate really healthily, gone running 3 times a week and lost two stones. Overall I feel healthier than I have since my early teens, and I've been trying very hard not to worry and to accept that its just caused by anxiety.

However, I've been having similar, but less severe symptoms on & off since then. The symptoms often start happening in dreams, where I'm dreaming that I'm doing something normal, but suddenly get a rapid heart rate, followed often by a horrible spinning & falling over sensation, then numbness in the head. At this point I usually wake up - sometimes the feelings stop the moment I wake, but sometimes carry on for 10 to 20 seconds or so while I'm awake - which suggests they're very real and not just a bad dream. Sometimes, such as when it happended this morning, theres a brief ringing sound in my ears as I wake up. Sometimes theres a massive spasm in my chest, after which everything suddenly goes normal again. The feelings never last long, despite being very intense, & alway goe away very suddenly.

I've spoken with my GP about this & she says its just anxiety & physically I'm fine. But I can't stop worrying about it. Once when looking up the symptoms on google(something I've stopped doing cos it just makes me worse!), it sounded like it could be a mini stroke. My GP assures me it isn't. But it seems a little bit different to most of the descriptions of panic attacks that I've read. The only other anxiety symptoms I get are sometimes I get a dull ache in the left of my chest.

So basically what I'm asking is, has anyone else had these sort of symptoms at all? OR any ideas what could be causing it?

Any help is very appreciated

Cheers

John

[feartie]

Hi John,

I've had similar episodes when i've been sleeping that have woken me up. I had it a lot when I first had panic attacks and anxiety 10 years ago. More recently, last year, I also had a dream of rapid heart beat which woke me up and turned out to be real. I ended up in A&E too because I was so scared and it lasted about 3 hours, though not quite so intense after the first 30 mins. All tests were fine at the hospital, and when I got home I actually felt very good ~ relief I guess!

I've had it a few times since, though far milder, and because I was tested the first time and wasn't so scared, I've been less anxious about it and it's gone away very quickly. Just the other day, soon after the break up with my boyfriend, I actually woke myself up by sitting bolt up right in bed taking a big gasping breath. It was just anxiety as I've been fine since I tend not to worry about things like breakups or work while awake - so it comes out in my sleep! I've also had major spasms in the chest too, again, in bed when half asleep.

Numbness down both my arms is also something I get when having a full blown panic attack.

I hope this is reassuring. The main things is that you've been checked out by the doc, and that so have I, so it all points to anxiety.

pleasant dreams...

Linda

[Insomniac]

Hi there.

This site certainly IS reassuring. It really has helped keep me sane. Glad you decided to stick around. :-)

[cattttt]

When my panic attacks first started in Sept o6, they often woke me at night, or as I was going off to sleep. It got such that I didn't want to go to bed because of what was going to happen. As time went on and I started to improve, the night time attacks stopped. They were often part of a dream, but don't know which came first-the panic or the dream.
The symptoms are very real and very unpleasant and it takes a while to accept that they will not harm you. For me, once I had done that, it all became alot less and now, I only have a few stray symptoms that I can usually get under control in a few minutes. So give it time, it will get better and in the meantime try not to worry about it ( easier said than done ).

[Nervous Wreck]

Thanks everyone. THat's very reassurring to know other people have gone through the same symptoms.

Feel much better now

[gilead]

this site has plenty of information and support so im sure will be useful to you
gilead