How does a panic attack feel to you?

[paulaf]

Recently I have been trying to take note of every sensation I feel when having a panic attack, and wonder if you would be interested in sharing your feelings too. Mine go something like this:

-Situation where I can't escape easily + negative thought / worry about panic
-Heart starts beating fast and I can feel each beat in my chest
-Start getting hotter and feeling a bit sick
-Pins and needles in arms and legs
-feeling goes into tummy and starts churning
-feeling really weak and sick by now
-Feeling of absolute dread / terror / impending disaster
-Urgent need to go to the toilet.

This is how it feels for me, sometimes if I sit it out it subsides. I am trying to break it down so it isn't so scary.

[MidnightCalm]

Does your breathing not get affected?
I get a tight chest and I start getting really hot and really fearing and have to move and sometimes I just exit the house and don't stop walking (sometimes it's hard to do that from dizziness).
My chest starts burning up and I feel like I'm on fire.
My stomach churns and I get sort of a gathering of air right below my chest, or it might just be tightness and it just makes everything feel really tight.
I had a bit of one earlier and I am still sweating.
It makes me feel like I need to be sick aswel.
My first reaction is to go to the toilet, I don't know why, I don't even know if I need to urinate I just go anyway.
x

[paulaf]

Hi, yes I totally forgot that one, my breathing gets kind of fast and shallow and sometimes I feel like I'm not getting enough air and I consciously try to slow down my breathing. I wonder if pas feel kind of the same to everyone?

[miss_moose]

If I have an absolute humdinger of a panic attack the symptoms are,

Hyperventilating (Though this doesn't always happen)
Tight chest
Chest pains
Feeling sick
Dry heaving and retching
Stiff jaw
My whole body goes ridged
Shaking uncontrollably
Crying
Light headed
Sometimes heavy head feeling
Feelin faint
Stomach Cramps
Diareah
Stomach does "somersalts"

It sounds so bad when it's written down like that, it amazes me how people still aren't sympathetic.
Recently i've started trying to explain it as Stomach bug symptoms and if you had a stomach bug and yet you still have to go shopping, be with people ect when all you want to do if your that ill is go to bed and be alone.

[PatitoFeo]

This is very interesting for to see because recently I have some 'episodes' I do not understand. Only to read about what panic attack is like, I realise this is one, maybe. Is like:

Shakey
Sense of doom
Feel sick/be sick
Feel like diarrhoea
Faint and tingley, as if I don't have enough blood in my body
Detatched and floaty.
Occasionally actual faint.

[SmithS52]

Hi there - I was only recently diagnosed and I have the following:

rapid heartbeat
difficulty breathing
urgent need to go to the toilet (this can happen repeatedly throughout the 'episode')
extremely hot/cold
legs go weak/feel faint (like I need to lie down)


Over the past few weeks I have managed to control the breathlessness. It is the needing to go to the loo thing that is really starting to bug me now.

I hope this helps.
xx

[sharon35]

yeah all of the above for me also.

xx

[paulaf]

That's interesting, it looks like we all have pretty similar feelings / symptoms. I think the needing the toilet thing is the most bothersome thing too, other symptoms you can talk away but when youve got to go youve got to go!

[shinderuko]

Feeling of being trapped
Panic
Sweating
Shakes
Distorted Vision
Churning Stomach
Nausea
Need to use the toilet

Needing the toilet is the one that I worry most about. If it was just the other symptoms without that one I'd be able to tell myself to ignore it and sit it out.

[paulaf]

Paul don't worry about ignorant people like that, it's them who should be embarrassed for being such horrible creatures, not you