panic attack, how to deal w/dizziness?

[Ralph]

To anyone with experience dealing with panic attacks how do you handle the dizzy feeling? I had a bad panic attack last night and this morning I am still a little raw, but worst is the dizziness. I can't stand right now, can barely sit, which is making me more worried which is feeding into more panic. My body is telling me there is an emergency but looking around I have nothing to fight or flee from so it's like I'm stuck in a feedback loop. On the bright side, I'm no longer considering suicide; funny how thinking one is about to die sort of puts that into perspective :/

The rest is some more detail but you don't have to read it unless you want to know what I've already done and the results:

Exercise - 45 min spin class. Felt better for about 45 minutes after the class and felt worse shortly thereafter.

Drinking water - sometimes that has helped in the past

Deep breathing 11 minutes lying down focusing on abdominal breath

I haven't run screaming into traffic but the thought keeps crossing my mind. My internal cave man wants to go grapple with a saber toothed tiger or something, closest match nearby would be a passing Mercedes right?

It's like if I keep myself distracted I'm okay except the dizziness makes it hard for me to distract myself. I've been trying to get some chores done and I keep feeling like I'm going to faint. I'm running through my strategies for coping and it is helping the anxiety but the dizzy feeling keeps it coming back and my strategies aren't doing much against that. I've freaked out before from taking too much MJ (when I was much younger, not recently of course) and it feels very much like that except I haven't taken anything so I can't reassure myself I'll be coming down in a couple hours. Plus I've been keyed up for approx 16 hours now so my calming self talk is starting to lose credibility. I don't know how bad this sounds but insofar as I'm freaking out my efforts to self-edit are a little impaired. Please take idiotic things in this message as an indication of how short circuited my brain is right now rather than how I would normally represent myself.

[IrmaJean]

Ralph, I'm sorry you're going through this. Are you certain the problem isn't physical? I've had vertigo spells before to where I couldn't stand without the room spinning. It's not a pleasant feeling. Do you have a therapist you can call?

[Ralph]

I called the 24 hr nurse line and they said I don't need to go to ER, try to relax... but no my therapist and pdoc don't really have anyone on call, just if it's an emergency call 911. I found that walking around seems to help, except I have to go lay down for a few minutes every half hr or so.

[IrmaJean]

Is there anything that helps calm you? Relaxation techniques or deep breathing? I'm sorry you're feeling so stressed.

[DarknessRules]

its really hard living with panic attacks... ive been having them a lot lately. it is dizzying and im sorry to say that it kinda sticks around for a while... my panic attacks drive from my current problem i am goin through at the moment. thats part of why im still talkin about it... my suggestion is to find the cause of the attacks and try talkin about them. one thing at a time. that helps a little with both the panic attacks and there after affects. at least it seems to be working for me. the more advice and kind words i receive the less alone i feel and the stronger i feel. ya know what i mean?

[Ralph]

The trigger was a news story I heard on the radio about torture in a Mexican prison. Two of my catastrophe scenarios are being imprisoned and being tortured (although in reality I'm not sure how anyone would find me important enough to try and get info out of) so I was identifying with the victims and that kicked off the domino effect.

Keeping busy no matter what seems to help but when I get muscle fatigue and have to take a break the anxiety starts up again. I've been going through my regular relaxation strategies (deep breathing, etc) but they only seem to be keeping it at bay from moment to moment not helping me calm down like I used to be able to. Normally the after effects will not persist after sleeping but this is the first time. If they are getting worse over time I'm going to need meds for this but I'm afraid to ask pdoc for fear of being labeled drug seeker.

I just took some OTC motion sickness stuff to hopefully help with the feeling of vertigo. Even if it's just placebo effect the act of trying to take care of this should have some effect, I hope.

[IrmaJean]

Sounds frightening, Ralph. I hope you feel better soon and are able to relax.

[Ralph]

I ended up taking a pill and a half of Xanax. I took one and it helped a little but I still felt like my heart was about to explode and of course the dizziness making me think my blood sugar was too low and I'd slip into a coma. Even though I know they are distorted thoughts, challenging them doesn't seem to help at all with my physical symptoms.

So I took another half a pill and voila I'm a normal human being again. I feel bad because I didn't want to take anything for it after pdoc said not to take the Xanax anymore, but ffs I was about to run screaming into traffic or something. The "or something" was very specific but might be triggering so I'll leave it vague for now. Suffice to say even if Xanax was the wrong choice it was the best wrong choice that would even work.

My pdoc is totally going to hear about this and if he doesn't think one benzo or another needs to be in my toolkit, I'm going to look for a new pdoc (or just buy the damn things black market). If I am supposed to "sit with" or "use my frustration tolerance" to get through a 27 hour panic attack I'm sorry but that kind of life is just not worth living.

One thing that I noticed that seemed to help was writing about a nice experience on Yelp. As dorky as it sounds prayer seems to help me feel better but it only works when I don't intend for it to make me feel better. It's actually on my list of self soothing strategies but for some reason faith is more than a little in the background when you've got enough adrenaline to strangle a horse for no other reason than some minor irritation forming into a feedback loop.

[Athena]

Glad your attack is over Ralph. That sounds pretty scary.

For next time - how about music? I was tied up in knots with so much nervous energy after therapy on Friday. I turned on the music on the drive home and I immediately went the other extreme - I almost fell asleep. Wish I could remember the song. Probably something mindless, unimaginative, repetitive and 'formula' - that sounds like something that would put me to sleep:o. Sometimes playing the piano helps when I can't settle down to read or watch anything. So - perhaps pick up your bass?

I hope tonight goes better for you. Please - stay away from the newspaper;).

[Ralph]

I did pick up my bass. I got pretty good at scales because that's what I was doing, just running through scales. It works while I'm doing it but eventually had to set it down and I got three steps away before the dizzy spells set in and the internal dialog of panic got out of control. I also tried listening to music. In the back of my mind though it was still going on and there was this part of me going, "there must be something really wrong if he's trying this hard to be calm. What's going on? Ohmygod! There must be <insert catastrophe scenario here> going on!" and so on and so forth.

Yeah I am probably going to leave the morning news off for a while. Can't have this crap happening on a work day.

[Ralph]

...........

[Musicman]

You obviously have a lot more experience dealing with panic attacks than I do, but I figured I'd share with you what my therapist told me. He said that one of the reasons that panic attacks are so awful is because you fear them. You live in fear that they'll come on at random times. When it happens, you start panicking that you're going to have to live through another one. etc etc etc. He says that the best way to deal with these is to simply not fear the panic attack. When you sense it coming on, just say "To hell with it." It feels like shit, but the knowledge that they can't hurt you helps. I guess you really just got to show who's boss. Control the panic, or the panic controls you.

[Ralph]

I guess you really just got to show who's boss. Control the panic, or the panic controls you.

Since then I've had the dizziness still but not panicking. In that sense you are right.

When I do panic though it tends to start out as thinking I have a heart attack or stroke. The panic attacks started shortly after doc told me I had high blood pressure. You know, cause flooding your body with adrenaline is totally the best thing to do when you have high blood pressure. It is when the panic sneaks up on me that I get lost. Then again, maybe that is the thing which I have to control, namely fear of my catastrophe scenarios. Then they wouldn't be able to scare me as much.