People diagnosed with Panic Disorder are extremely afraid of having a panic attack. The person is extremely sensitive to the environment where various environmental factors and physical variables such as crowding, noise, smell, temperature become similar to the conditions in which he had a panic attack before. When these conditions become similar, it strongly triggers the person's belief that he will have a panic attack again. This perception of threat and danger causes the person to focus on the physical symptoms in his body, attribute disaster-ending scenarios to these symptoms, and attribute various meanings to them. Unrealistic disaster scenarios put the person in great anxiety and terror. In such a situation, the unrealistic beliefs of those who experience a panic attack can generally be observed under the headings of "dying from a heart attack", "losing their mind by going crazy", "fainting and being left helpless".
It is common in the society that the person may have a heart attack during a panic attack. Although it is believed in this way, this possibility is not actually correct information. A heart attack occurs because the heart muscle cannot be fed as a result of a problem such as blockage or rupture in the coronary arteries that feed the heart. People who are afraid of having a heart attack are usually examined by a Cardiologist.
Although they do not have any cardiovascular problems, the problem of people who fear having a heart attack as a result of a panic attack is completely psychological, not biological. These people may have been affected by a loved one's heart attack in the past or may have experienced an event that made them think about this situation. This experience may have caused them to be more sensitive to physical symptoms related to their heart.
Although some physical symptoms experienced during a panic attack reinforce the person's belief that he will have a heart attack, this information contains important distortions. While the person experiencing a panic attack has symptoms such as palpitations, increased blood pressure, and short-term, well-defined, local pain that gets stuck in the chest, the palpitations and pain increase when resting, nausea may occur, and vomiting does not occur.
In the person who has a heart attack, palpitations occur. heart rhythm disorder, low blood pressure, gradually spreading to the whole chest There is long-term, severe pain that can last for 15-20 minutes without interruption. While palpitations and pain decrease if you rest, they increase with movement and effort, and nausea and vomiting occur.
Panic attacks do not cause a person to have a heart attack. Although they are thought to be similar, different symptoms are observed between the two conditions. It would be beneficial for people diagnosed with Panic Disorder to act knowing that early psychological treatment will reduce the possible deformation that the stress load will cause on other systems in the body, such as the cardiovascular system.
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