Panic attacks

Panic attacks have become an even more common problem today. Spontaneous feelings of anxiety, fear, dizziness, body tremors, heart palpitations, chills, suicidal thoughts. On the one hand, this is a harmless condition, but a full-fledged diagnosis – panic attacks with the above manifestations can cause the development of even more serious disorders.

Not everyone can cope with panic attacks on their own, and their long and constant recurrence can cause serious damage to the nervous system and general health of a person.

Panic attacks are treated in Kyiv at the Kartushynska clinic. The clinic’s specialists use an individual approach to each patient and offer comprehensive therapy that gives the most positive treatment results.

What is a panic attack ?

A panic attack is a neurotic disorder that manifests itself in anxiety attacks and inexplicable fear combined with somatic symptoms. The attack can begin with the manifestation of various physiological ailments, can last about thirty minutes (sometimes longer), ends, leaving behind a feeling of helplessness and fear of a possible recurrence.

Panic attacks can be complicated by:

• agoraphobia – fear of going outside;
• claustrophobia – fear of confined spaces;
• aviaphobia – fear of air travel;
• manifestation of deep depression.

Such attacks, lasting a year or more, are called panic disorder. The most important sign of a panic attack at any time of the day is a sudden anxiety attack, which is characterized by the following symptoms and their combination:

• sudden feelings of fear and anxiety, fear of death;
• heart palpitations, pain behind the sternum;
• lack of air, rapid breathing;
• dizziness and general weakness;
• hyperhidrosis, sweating, chills;
• increase or decrease in pressure;
• cotton legs, numbness of the limbs;
• Feeling of derealization.

These conditions can come spontaneously, anytime, anywhere. A vegetative crisis can last from a few minutes to several hours. On average, the condition lasts about half an hour.

The attack itself does not harm the body. However, its regular repetition and somatic manifestations can lead to negative consequences, the development of phobias, neuroses and depressive states.

Causes of a panic attack

Currently, the causes of anxiety disorders are being actively investigated. According to the observations of doctors, these vegetative manifestations are very common in patients diagnosed with vegetative-vascular dystonia. An uncontrollable panic attack can also occur in people who have been under stress for a long time, or in those who have suffered from some kind of mental illness.

Possible causes of panic attacks can be:

• mental illnesses;
• frequent stress;
• real depression;
• lack of sleep, overwork;
• uncontrollable increased anxiety;
• disorders of the central nervous system;
• genetic predisposition;
• pregnancy, childbirth, lactation;
• pathologies of the cardiac and endocrine systems.

Sometimes hormonal disorders and some somatic diseases can also cause seizures. For example: cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine system. Also, vegetative crises can occur in the form of side effects from taking certain medications, drugs, alcohol abuse.

The appropriate method of treatment is selected individually for each patient by a psychiatrist, psychotherapist. Each program most often consists of the following stages: diagnosis, identification of the main symptoms and manifestations of the disease, work with the root causes and triggers of attacks.

Once an appropriate diagnosis has been made, it is important to rule out somatic causes. To do this, the patient is prescribed additional laboratory and instrumental tests (if necessary). In the treatment of panic disorders, psychotherapeutic methods are used to understand the causes of anxiety, work out new reactions to traumatic events, and successfully cope with anxiety attacks.

Drug therapy is prescribed exclusively by a psychiatrist based on the studies performed. With sufficiently pronounced symptoms and manifestations of the disease, drugs such as: beta-blockers, tranquilizers, antidepressants can be prescribed.

The pharmaco-hypnotic effect allows the patient to plunge into a relaxed state and actively work out the causes that led to the occurrence of anxiety.

Clinical hypnosis gives a positive effect in almost any disease associated with a violation of the regulatory functions of the central nervous system.

Psychedelically assisted therapy against the background of ketamine therapy immerses a person in the depths of their own subconscious, and can help once and for all rid a person of mental stimuli in the future.