What is Panic Disorder. Causes and Symptoms

What Causes Panic Disorder? What Are The Symptoms And How To Diagnose The Disease?  What Are Methods Of Treatment And Medications For Panic Disorder?

It is repeated bouts of unpredictable severe anxiety (panic), not limited to a particular situation or circumstances. It is accompanied by pain and autonomic symptoms and lead to the fact that patients quickly leave the place where they were.

What Causes Panic disorder:

There is evidence to support a genetic origin of panic disorder (15% of first-degree relatives become ill). Psychoanalysis considers the disorder as a result of an unsuccessful defense against unconscious destructive impulses that cause anxiety.

Symptoms of panic disorder:

The emergence of spontaneous panic, though sometimes is provoked by excitement, physical exertion, sexual activity. The main symptoms of panic attacks are extreme fear and a sense of impending death, accompanied by tachycardia, dyspnea, sweating. The patient attempts to leave the place where the attack originated, and is looking for help. Duration is to an hour, between bouts – anxious expectation of repetition. There are more frequent seizures with excessive use of caffeine, sometimes the first attack was followed after consuming caffeine.

Clinical example: A patient S., age 27. The first panic attack came against a background of alcohol withdrawal. He experienced palpitations and cardiac arrest, fear, shortness of breath. He called the ambulance, the doctor has determined a slight increase in blood pressure to 135 and 95 mm Hg, it was prescribed papaverine and dibazol. S., frightened, completely stopped drinking and smoking, but the second attack occurred a month later in a completely quiet environment, at home, while watching TV. He realized that something had happened to him seriously, an attack took place after 5 minutes, but it was repeated the next day and lasted for over an hour. S. left home and moved in with a friend, so in which case “there was someone to call the ambulance. Prior to this work, panic attacks not occurred, but two months later it happened. Against the background of the absence of tension, when he stood at the table, looking through the paper, it caught the panic, anxiety, dizziness accompanied by a sharp, he was forced, “so as not to fall down” to grab the corner table. He realized that he was going to die. It was called “ambulance”, and he was admitted to a neurological department. During the hospital examination panic has not been seen even once, but after leaving the same day it was resumed.

Diagnosis of panic disorder:

Severe anxiety attack accompanied by autonomic disorders.

Treatment of panic disorder:

Antidepressants, tranquilizers, behavioral therapy, family therapy, and psychoanalysis. Patients were asked to breathe into a paper bag to prevent hyperventilation accompanied by alkalosis.

Books About Panic Disorder:

• When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life
• Panic Attacks Workbook: A Guided Program for Beating the Panic Trick
• Pass Through Panic Attacks: Freeing Yourself from Anxiety and Fear

See all Anxiety Disorders Books