Is shortness of breath a sign of panick attack ? Posted: 02-09-08 17:09pm
I'm a 24 year old female that has had my
share of symptoms, all of which have never
produced an explanation. I guess I'll just
list the most recent events and see if
maybe someone else can make some sense out
of it. I had chest pain in the military
for 5 years and they ran every possible
test you could imagine and found nothing
so they settled on anxiety and panic
disorder. Fine but the medicines made me
worse than before so I stopped taking
them. I currently take something because I
couldn't take the anger and depression
anymore but it doesn't seem to give me
problems. I have had over 60 UTI's and
have had an irregular period all my life,
which are manageable problems. I quit
smoking last year and started chewing
nicorette. 3 months later I started to
notice a shortness of breath which one day
led to a panic attack and a ride in an
ambulance where they told me next time to
talk myself out of it. Nice. Turns out I
was allergic to Nicorette.Way to go
doctors!! I smoke occasionally now but
almost 1/4 of what I did before. Over the
past three months I've gained 50 lbs for
absolutely no reason so I went and had a
physical thinking there must be something
wrong with my thyroid or something to that
effect. Nope. Nada. To top it all off I
started to have the shortness of breath a
couple days ago though not nearly as bad
as it was with the Nicorette. I guess all
in all I'm trying to make sure that all of
these symptoms are just bad luck and not
something crazy that a doctor is
overlooking.
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DoctorAnswer
Doctor Answer
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Anxiety and Stress Answer A3690 Posted: 02-20-08 02:18am
When a person subjectively " feels"
symptoms without medical evidence (when
every test is OK) the only remaining
diagnostic possibility is neurotic
disorder. Panic disorder is a kind of
neurotic disorder wherein the person
suddenly starts to feel dramatic symptoms
like shortness of the breath or chest
pain. During a panic attack the person is
very scared and believes that the symptoms
are due to some type of severe disease
such as a heart attack. There is another
neurotic disorder called hypochondria
wherein a patient feels some symptoms all
the time and believes that those symptoms
are due to a real disorder. But no such
drama occurs during hypochondria as it
does during a panic disorder.
Nonetheless, before accusing hypochondria
or panic disorder as the cause of these
symptoms ... all real (organic) disorders
should first be excluded. In your case,
possible heart and lung disorders such as
heart attack, angina pectoris, asthma,
bronchitis etc. should be excluded first.
If the medical tests don't show any
presence of an organic disease then you
cold be experiencing hypochondria or panic
disorder. Furthermore, if you are aware
that you are not organically ill, but have
a feeling that you might be experiencing
mental illness, you won’t need to visit
doctors for various medical examinations.
You can consult a mental health doctor
instead.
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