Is There a Cure for Panic Attacks?

"Is there a cure for panic attacks?", is one of the first questions a person who’s just had a panic attack asks.

The answer is yes. There is a cure for panic attacks.

To understand how they are cured, it is first essential to understand what panic attacks are and what causes them. Panic attacks are exactly what their name implies. They are waves of overwhelming feelings of uneasiness, fear, stress, and anxiety.

Panic attacks are not the same as worrying, which everyone experiences at some point in their life. Worrying is normal and usually confined to psychological or emotional symptoms. The source of worry is almost always known or identifiable. For example, when a child is about to attend his first day of school it is normal for him to feel apprehensive and even a little scared. The school is the obvious reason for the anxiety and after the child arrives and sees other children his feelings naturally diminish.

Panic attacks, on the other hand, are not triggered by a readily identifiable stimulus. They are bouts of anxiety accompanied by dramatic, visible, physical symptoms. These may include sweating, flushing of the face, squinting, shortness of breath, tightening in the chest, discomfort in the waist and chest, pain, dizziness, nausea and a need to flee or leave the location in which they are occurring.

The physical nature of these symptoms are so profound that the sufferer often mistakes his/her first panic attack with a life threatening condition such as a heart attack. It is not uncommon for people having a panic attack to feel they need immediate medical assistance.

Panic attacks are part of a primtive, biological response known as the “Fight or Flight” reflex to a perceived threat. This response is innate rather than learned and originates from the mid-section of the brain where the body’s survival mechanisms reside.

Just prior to an attack the brain is functioning normally in the frontal area of the brain where decisions and rational thought occur. When the attack occurs, brain activity increases in the mid-section of the brain. It is for this reason that panic attacks are nearly impossible to quell using rational self-talk. The absence of an identifiable stimulus and the inability for the sufferer to talk him/herself down from the anxiety perpetuates the panic and heightens the terror.

Panic attacks have many different origins and can be different for every individual. A partial list of stimuli are:

Phobias
Personal Habits (literally talking yourself into a panic situation)
Stimulants & Drugs
Biological & Heredity Factors
Medications

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attack#Triggers_and_causes

Curing Panic Attacks

To the degree that the trigger stimulus or stimuli can be isolated and identified it can then be managed (avoided) or eliminated completely, then the panic attack can be avoided or completely eliminated.

While panic attacks are not necessarily life threatening, they do feel that way and have been described by some as the worst experience a person can have short of a true biological, life threatening condition.

There is some evidence to suggest that women who have recurring panic attacks may be at a higher risk for heart attacks but in general a panic attack can often be relieved quickly by simply making an immediate exit from the current situation the victim is in. For example, some people get panic attacks when they are in a social gathering. They may begin to feel the symptoms of the panic attack coming on but by simply leaving the gathering the symptoms quickly subside.

However, the fact that panic attacks are not life threatening, does not mean that they are not life debilitating. Just as a heart attack victim has an elevated risk of having a second heart attack without sweeping lifestyle changes, panic attack victims often have additional attacks.

The reason for that is two fold. The first and most obvious is that without treatment the trigger stimulus has not been managed or eliminated. The second reason is in the very nature of panic attacks themselves.

Panic attacks produce such unpleasant, severe physical symptoms, the victim is left in extreme fear even after the attack subsides. They are left in anxiety that the symptoms will return without warning and this stress alone is sometimes enough to trigger a panic attack. It is most often this residual fear that leaves a sufferer wondering, is there a cure for panic attacks.

In extreme untreated cases, a sufferer may experience behavioral changes in the form of avoidance, specifically agoraphobia which can severely diminish their quality of life. They begin to avoid social situations, neglect friends and family, can't perform their jobs and in the most severe situations, can't even leave their homes, paralyzing them socially and economically.

Reference: http://www.apa.org/topics/anxietyqanda.html

Approaches to Curing Panic Attacks

There are 2 approaches to curing panic attacks: Symptom Management and Stimulus Elimination.

Panic attack symptom management may consist of avoidance of stimuli or a variety of coping mechanisms sufferers can learn. It also includes the the prescription of certain Benzodiazepine drugs such as diazepam, clonazapam, and lorazepam. Coping mechanisms and these medications do not prevent panic attacks but they do have a calming effects that quickly diminish the symptoms of the panic attack.

It must be noted however that risks of dependency and side effects that come with the use of Benzodiazepine medications.

Whenever possible, the best course of action is Stimulus Elimination which completely eliminates panic attacks for life. Most panic attack sufferers will use both approaches. The management approach is often implemented while the stimulus is being identified and desensitized to prevent or lessen the debilitating effects of a panic attack.

Stimulus elimination is the process of identifying the underlying stimulus “trigger” for the attacks and then taking steps to eliminate it. This process can take a significant amount of time in some cases and be completed rather quickly in others.

Panic attacks are a common condition dealt with by professional therapists. Many sufferers of panic attacks however, have confusion, embarrassment, and even, you guessed it, anxiety about discussing their condition. Others have a resistance to seeking professional therapy in general.

If you're a sufferer wondering: Is there a cure for panic attacks? but you're not comfortable seeking professional therapy or taking prescribed medications, there is a proven self help program available online.

PanicAway is a highly revered, downloadable self-help program with an extremely high success rate. This program is so successful because it takes a radically different approach. Instead of teaching coping mechanisms, the course teaches a principle known as the “One Move Technique”. This technique is designed to teach anxiety patients to quickly move the brain activity from the mid-brain back to the forebrain without the use of medications, and without the use of ineffective self-talk.

PanicAway is available for a fraction of the cost of professional therapy and has been proven to work quickly and eliminate panic attacks from ever coming back. The program has been available online for 7 years and is available either in ebook format or presentation format for those who prefer to listen and watch rather than read.

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