Panic Attack

A panic attack is a sudden attack of fear and traumatic sensation that may last for a few minutes or for an hour. The affected person feels his heart is pouncing and he cannot breathe although there is no life risk involved with this kind of attack. Thus, this kind of attack is comparatively harmless. The adverse result of panic attack is a trauma—the patient himself does not know when and how this kind of attack will occur.

If this kind of disorder is not treated properly, it destroys the normal activities of life and drives the patient in the state of panic phobia permanently. But this kind of health disorder is completely curable and successful treatment can restore complete normalcy in the life of the victim of his attack.

Panic attack may occur anywhere and anytime but there are some fixed situations or occurrences where the patient feels the intensity of attack. These kinds of stimulating factors are termed as triggers as these factors initiates the occurrence of panic attack.

Panic attack has some common symptoms like, chest pain or discomfort, palpitation, hyperventilation or shortness of breath that seems to be like gasping, feelings of suffocation, a depressive feeling of isolation, vigorous sweating, stomach upset or urge for evacuation, nausea, hot or cold flush, dizziness or felling of losing sense or self-control, in fact it can destroy all the normalcy of a person’s life, for the time being.

Why panic attack occurs is still unknown. Some people say it occurs out of the memory of some traumatic memory or from some memory of suffocating discomfort. A natural resistance is created against the traumatic memory and whenever same situation arises, for example closed lift, lighted fire, or high speed driving; the escapism from the haunting memory creates the panic attack as it is recurrence of past frightful incidence.

Presently there are many treatment procedures to control and mange the panic attack and to cope with its intensity of attack. Several medicines impacting on the intensity and frequency of panic attack as well as psychotherapy treatment have been proved considerably successful in controlling this health hazard.

Most often the combination of psychotherapy and medicinal administration is applied to keep the patient in his normal self. Proper treatment procedure cures 70-80% patients bringing significant mental relief from their traumatic memory and lowering down the frequency and intensity of panic attack.