Article by Thesie Cortez

People normally panic when faced with fearful situations. It is natural to be anxious before a job interview or before rendering a speech in front of an audience. But there are people whose lives are ruled by fears. If you are experiencing extreme fear without a realistic reason to get scared and it is preventing you from living a normal life, you might be suffering from anxiety disorder. It is important to know how to defeat anxiety and panic disorder to stop living in fear and reclaim your life.

Anxiety or panic disorder is a sudden and intense fear over something with no real reason and it is accompanied by physical symptoms like trembling, sweating, chest pain, palpitation or pounding heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness and numbness. Sufferers may also experience cognitive symptoms like feeling of unreality and fear of going insane or losing control. Sufferers who have this disorder often find it hard to function normally on their daily lives. The disorder can last for months and even years if left untreated.

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Article by Gerry Restrivera

There are a lot of factors that influence the occurrence of anxiety and panic disorder. Although still debatable, there are reports that heredity has something to do with it and children with parents having the disorder are prone to have it too. Past life experiences like losing a job, death in the family, divorce, heartaches and other stressful situations are also pointed as culprits for the occurrence of the disorder. No matter what the reason behind this disorder, it is a fact that millions of people are experiencing the disorder and looking for ways on how to relieve anxiety and panic disorder.

Having anxiety and panic attack is a very terrifying experience because it comes without a warning. It is an extreme fear over something without logical reason and you become more afraid due to its disturbing symptoms that you think you are losing control of your mind. You will experience symptoms like shortness of breath, pounding heart beat, increased heart beat, trembling, sweating, choking sensation, stomach cramps and chest pain. Sufferers also think that they have serious disease creating more fears and anxieties. Learning how to relieve anxiety and panic disorder will make your life better and will ease your mind.

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We all face tough spells. These circumstances aren’t any fun, but many of us get through them without any amount of hassle. 

Others might suffer complete panic attacks. A panic attack is an abrupt gush of anxiety. Many times it feels like a heart attack.

Your heart begins to race, you start to shake, and you have the overpowering eagerness to beat it. You could very well feel like you’re going kooky.

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Question by Syn Lia: What are some credible sources of a panic disorder?
I am doing a project for school, and we have to state causes of a panic disorder, and credible sources of a panic disorder. I don’t really know what credible sources are, so if you do i’d appreciate some help !
Thanks :)

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Panic Disorders

Hazel’s symptoms suggest that she experienced a panic attack – an episode of acute and overwhelming apprehension or terror.  During panic attacks, the individual feels certain that something dreadful is about to happen.  This feeling is usually accompanied by such symptoms as heart palpitations, shortness of breath, perspiration, muscle tremors, faintness, and nausea.  The symptoms result from excitation of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system (See Chapter 2) and are the same reactions that an individual experiences when extremely frightened.  During severe panic attacks, the person fears that he or she will die.

As many as 40 % of young adults have occasional panic attacks, especially during times of stress (King Gullone, Tonge, & Ollendick, 1993).  For most of these people, the panic attacks are annoying but isolated events that do not change how they live their lives.  When panic attacks become a common occurrence and the individual begins to worry about having attacks, he or she may receive a diagnosis of panic disorder.  Panic disorder is relatively rare:  Only about 1.5% to 3.5% of the population will ever develop a panic disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).  Usually panic disorder appears sometime between late adolescence and the mid 30s.  With out treatment, panic disorder tends to become chronic (Weiss & Last, 2001).

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Question by ellagirl: What is the best way to support someone with panic disorder?
What would be an example of a supportive person or friend to someone who has panic disorder? I have panic disorder, and sometimes it feels like I have lost those who were the most important to me. What are ways people can support those with panic disorder? I am just so scared all the time, and it is also a load to have to take care of others (not children, mind you, but other people’s problems).

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Today, anxiety is a part of everyone’s lives and it is very normal for each of us to get through an amount of stress each day. Anxiety comes in an extreme form to almost two and a half million Americans. This case is better known as Panic Disorder. A person is said to have Panic Disorder when redundancy of panic attacks occur. A person will have immense feelings of imminent demise, short breathing when a panic attack takes place. The individual will experience immense anxiety in order to overcome this panic attack and it causes the person’s proper functioning ability with life severely diminished. In case you know someone or you yourself is suffering from rabid anxiety which could even be Panic Disorder, find out more about panic disorder factors and be solace by knowing that there are ways for you that you can apply in order to deal with it by reading here.

Panic attacks vary from one individual to the other and consistence of panic attacks is a panic disorder’s marker. These panic attacks could vary from not only one individual, but also to another individual which makes it very different and complex. A lot of individuals are not even aware that they have experienced these panic attacks which makes them very different. Many people feel like they would go crazy with too much sense of fear for it is at the core of every panic attack, making them feel that the situation is way out of hand. During the first ten to fifteen minutes is when these panic attacks usually peak. In rare cases, these attacks could last more than half an hour. Although, after these attacks take place, they’d still continue after several hours which depends on the trigger circumstances. Complications like short breathing and chest pains are very typical every time a panic attack happens. When individuals are not sure of what is taking place, they would usually seek for emergency care whenever these symptoms arise.

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The human body is the most complicated machine in this world, as best experienced by doctors. Often irregular or lack of maintenance of machines causes ruin or damage, similarly an unbalanced and irregular lifestyle may lead to serious ill functioning of human body causing several kind of diseases. One of these several medical diseases which are directly related to your lifestyle is termed as “Panic disorder or Anxiety disorders”. According to DSM-IV-TR[1], when someone is having a sudden and intense feeling of terror, fear or apprehension, without the presence of actual danger, he seems to have a “panic disorder”.  DSM-IV-TR has classified anxiety into five different types:

Generalized anxiety disorder
Social phobia
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Posttraumatic stress disorder
Specific phobia
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Sometimes it just feels like i cant get enough air or i cant like breathing regularly(and i have been seen by a doctor for this already) and my heart just starts like , well i guess you can say beating out of my chest. and i get like well pain all the time in my lower stomach like cramps and very bad fatigue.
ex. last night at my softball game i started feeling like i couldnt breath and my heart was beating out of my chest.

do you think this could be panic disorder? and yes i am very stressed most of the time.
if you think it is what should i do ? see a therapist?

I was diagnosed with panic/anxiety disorder while in the military. If you have this condition then you can relate to what I was going through. I have been out for about 2 years now. The physical part of it (if you have the condition then you can relate to that) is not as bad or frequent anymore. However, while I do not have the physical panic attacks I am having severe nightmares. I will not go into detail of the content, but I have been seeing a therapist about it. She says that they are anxiety related (the dreams). Well I filed for anxiety disorder and now have a comp and pen appointment coming up. Does the VA recognize this as a disability? Did your get approved or denied?