Aa
Aa
A
A
A
Close
Avatar universal

Please HELP, Panic Attacks? I need help.

Avatar universal
JayTheKid2000
Someone please help me. I got a panic attack out of the blue last Sunday August 14,2016 in the middle of church. I felt a cold sensation in my left neck, jaw and side of my head then I felt as if I was dying and my heart raced. That week was full of emergency trip visits and hospital check ups. A cardiologist did a CT of my chest and discovered my right coronary artery is coming out the wrong spot. They said it isn't life threatening nor the issue for my chest pain, heart palpitations, etc. I finally got medication called Clonozepam (Klonopin) last Friday August 19. A full MG made me drowsy, stumble and do silly things. I have 15 MG total and have been taking half a MG irregularly. The doctor prescribed 3 times a day but my dad has furiously refused that I take the medicine as he thinks I'll get addicted. He adds to my panic and I just dont know when I should be taking it and how much anymore. School started Monday the 22nd and Im in a dual enrollment program so Im full time in a community college at 16. I cant handle this and today I could barely concentrate in class so I took half a MG around morning. I I felt the symptoms return around 4 pm and i dont want to take my medicine again. Throughout all this I have taken the painkiller ibuprofen (600 mg) given by my mom and sometimes myself and it rarely stops the chest pain. I feel as if I'll have a heart attack so often, I feel a burning, aching feeling in my chest. These panic attacks are tormenting my life and I want to kill myself. I saw a therapist last week in the hospital who taught me breathing techniques but those fail mostly. Please someone help me just figure things out. My parents especially my dad would be furious if they found out I wanted to kill myself. Sometines Im scared taking the ibuprofen will kill me anyway. Im not thinking rationally, I know. I have no good friends to talk to about this. I need guidance as to if I should be taking the clonozepam 3 times a day as directed despite my dad's animosity towards it and failure to understand my struggle. Should I dare take ibuprofen anymore? When Im experiencing my attacks, standing or sitting makes my heart/chest ache and race. Laying down anywhere relieves the pain somewhat. I have already wasted so much of my parents time and money going to the emergency room and hospital so much last week and cant afford to go again. Im afraid there's something wrong with my heart and I'll die but it hasn't happened yet and the panic attacks keep happening anI'm just want to die. I'm feeling awful right now, chest hurts, heart palpates and I feel I'll have a stroke/heart attack. I'm 16 and according to the doctors, neurologist and cardiologist,"i seem fine" I dont feel fine, these attacks are consuming my life and they chose a bad time to start now that school is back. These attacks last for hours and the heart pain scares me the most followed by the neck sensation. Someone help me please. I posted this somewhere in the wrong place by accident, posting again.
4 Responses
Sort by: Helpful Oldest Newest
Avatar universal
Anxiousnomore, trying to figure out why doctors do things is impossible.  Most are just plain too hurried to think clearly, especially when people go to emergency rooms, where the goal is to get beds and rooms cleared as fast as possible for the next patient.  Usually you're not seeing a psychiatrist, who knows these meds best.  I've been on clonazepam for decades, but at the start the psychiatrist who put me on it just said, here, take 1mg twice a day and also put me on an antidepressant.  He didn't tell me it was an addictive drug or I could build up a tolerance to it (didn't tell me much about the antidepressant, either).  In early days with this drug docs were convinced by the pharmaceutical company, which is where they learn about drugs, that taking a long-acting drug was better treatment than taking a short-acting one, and I have no reason to believe they didn't honestly think it was better.  Unfortunately, the cost was a great many addicts.  If you look on the archives of this forum, you'll see that most people when they're having an emergency situation are put on Ativan or Xanax or another of the shorter acting but quicker acting benzos and hopefully told to take only when needed so as to avoid addiction and are put on clonazepam when therapy or other treatment just hasn't worked.  That was actually my situation -- I'd been in therapy for several years unsuccessfully before medication was suggested.  But doctors aren't the miracle workers or geniuses we think they are -- some are better than others and the system puts them in difficult positions of trying to maximize their income in a short amount of time spent with each patient.  So I don't know why they suggested this med, it might have been the only one the doctor he saw knew about.  As for anxiety appearing out of nowhere, I felt that way but when I looked back I could see it was coming.  I just didn't notice until it hit in a chronic way.  I think life is just complicated, and sometimes it just doesn't work out very well for us.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hello and please try not to worry—you are going to be OK. But you do need serious help and support. It seems clear to me that you have Panic Disorder. I want to be clear that I'm not a doctor, but I have been experiencing this through my son's situation—my son was diagnosed with it a year and a half ago. Panic Disorder is a very serious thing but the good news is, you can get control of it. There are 6 main types of anxiety disorders; you can read about them here: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml. Important to distinguish that Panic Disorder is different from having one of the other anxiety disorders that may cause panic attacks. Panic Disorder is a specific condition that arises from  brain chemistry that isn't working right—causing your "fight or flight" response to fire off randomly, to put it simply. After being hit with these random terrifying panic attacks that have no apparent "trigger" time after time, you start to associate the places you are when you have them as somehow causing the panic attack and begin to develop other complications such as agoraphobia. There is help for Panic Disorder, but it requires patience and the support of those in your life. Treatment consists of talk therapy (specifically, guidance on using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Therapy, as well as talk therapy to work through other complications that result from your suffering from this condition) and/or medications. The first step is absolutely to start seeing a psychologist who knows how to treat Panic Disorder specifically, and start that as soon as possible. And you will likely also be advised to see a psychiatrist who can prescribe medications. You will determine what overall strategy works best for you with the help of these professionals. My son's pathway worked out this way: He has been seeing a psychologist since he was diagnosed...initially every week, then after about 6 months he started going every other week. His psychologist guides him in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Therapy and other techniques to overcome and manage the panic disorder. (The brain can actually rewire itself over time if you use these techniques.) And the psychologist also helps him work through all these other issues that resulted from him suffering from Panic Disorder before he was diagnosed—agoraphobia, eating issues, etc. He also has a psychiatrist and since he was diagnosed has tried different medications but they all affected him weirdly, so the strategy he ended up going with was daily focus on using the cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy techniques, regular exercise, healthy diet. He has been able to do this without prescription meds because he took a year off living at home this entire time working on this; his agoraphobia was so debilitating that everything he tried to do ended up setting off more panic attacks. He is very lucky he could take time off to deal with this but with the help of professionals anyone with this brain chemistry disorder can figure out a strategy that will enable them to get better. It has been very slow progress and taken a lot of patience, but it absolutely works; my son has been making a durable recovery. He got a job a month ago and is doing fine with that, and he is going to start taking college classes this fall online part-time, eventually ramping up to full-time on-site. After a lot of trial-and-error, he has found that slow and steady is what wins this race. It's so important for you to take the time and focus on getting better in whatever way you can manage it. I understand what you are going through and hope you are able to get the professional and personal support you need to get better. Panic Disorder is a beast, and it's not caused by anything other than messed-up brain chemistry. There is tons of information online about Panic Disorder—look it up, and understand better what I feel certain you're dealing with; it will empower you to advocate for yourself to get the help you need! (And also help you understand that you are not alone; an estimated 2 million people in the U.S. are dealing with it: http://www.neurogistics.com/conditions/panicdisorder.asp).By the time we became aware of the problem and our son got diagnosed, his situation was so bad, he had to leave school at the end of his senior year and miss graduation, and take a year off before starting college this fall. He had gone undiagnosed for too long and ended up having a "meltdown" that was pretty serious; that was the first we knew about this and learned he had been experiencing suicidal ideation and all kinds of things that come with Panic Disorder as he tried to figure out what was "wrong" with him. Please don't suffer like that—get diagnosed, and get professionals to help explain to your parents what you are dealing with, if that is necessary. It is critical that you have a lot of support as you work through this! Know that it will require patience, but with professional help and work, you can get better! I wish you well and all the best in your life; will keep you in my thoughts.
Helpful - 0
2 Comments
Although panic disorder is a possibility we can't figure that out from here, so I wouldn't be spending any time thinking that is the problem until a professional diagnosed me.
As paxiled said, you need more therapy from a professional anxiety therapist. .
Absolutely agree, and sorry I wasn't clearer about that in my response—JayTheKid2000, it is key that you get to a professional anxiety therapist—they are the ones that can either diagnose a specific anxiety disorder or—just as important—rule them out.
Avatar universal
Actually, clonazepam is not fast acting.  All of the other benzos work faster but also wear off faster.  Clonazepam, or Klonopin, is a longer-lasting benzo but does take longer to take effect.  But here's the thing -- you're only 16.  This just started.  I'm not personally sure what you're describing with your pain sounds like anxiety, it sounds like you might have injured something a bit doing some form of activity or even bending the wrong way.  It happens.  I'm not sure the pain is heart pain, because obviously if it was lying down wouldn't make it feel better.  What's more likely is something happened that caused you to feel pretty strange, something that sounds to me like you stretched your neck in an odd way and it activated some nerve pain.  As I said, it sounds like some kind of small injury that will probably go away if it hasn't already.  What happened after that seems to be you were told it was an anxiety attack and you learned some scary things about your heart and began to think you were going to keep getting anxious -- that's how chronic anxiety works in those of us who are prone to it.  Seeing a therapist once won't help -- you need to see one who specializes in anxiety who can help you desensitize yourself from the initial bad experience so you don't expect it to keep happening.  As for using benzos, your Dad is right about them -- if you take them regularly you will become addicted to them, and unfortunately clonazepam works best when taken regularly.  Benzos are also tough to stop taking.  Right now you're talking yourself into taking them because you're talking yourself into anxiety attacks, which is, again, what those of us who suffer chronic anxiety do, but you're too young and too close to the trigger incident to know this will be chronic and if you intervene quickly with a professional anxiety therapist you should be taught how to understand what's happening and how to demystify it.  Now, something else to consider:  this way of thinking didn't probably come out of nowhere, though it seems like it did.  You describe some upcoming life changes that you sound unsure about.  This might be bothering you more than you thought.  This is also something a therapist can help you with.  Good luck.
Helpful - 0
4 Comments
I have seen a few sports injuries that kids on my children's teams have incurred. A 16 year old will heal fast from an injury so it seems unlikely that this 10 day old issue started with an injury so small that she didn't even know it happened.

I have read of lots of anxiety sufferers who said they never worried before their first panic attack, but their first panic attack came out nowhere - after all, if you get panic attacks they had to start sometime. But as paxiled pointed out, perhaps it is a build-up from other causes.

The docs said it isn't heart pain. A person suffering severe anxiety can think they are getting pain relief from laying down, if the pain is all mental induced from tensing up, so anything that breaks her concentration can create relief. And vice-versa, over-focusing when you are anxious tenses you up more and makes you get more pains.
Treatment providers will all say to exercise as it relaxes you and releases natural things into your system, so try to keep active to help unfocus on your body fears.

Paxiled, why would a doctor prescribe the slowest acting benzo for a first time patient? I would think the idea would be to get her relief asap before the anxiety builds.
This isn't a neck injury , these feelings just happen. I'm so lost
Hang in there JTK. Many people have had this painful thing happen but they survived it.
Relief could come at any time if the right things work out. I accepted my heart diagnosis that there was nothing wrong and got lucky you might say, because the pain disappeared immediately. If your mind gives up checking for problems then you are on the right path.
Avatar universal
The doc said you have no heart problem that causes the pain so you know it is caused by your anxiety. This happens to many people, and many are able to deal with it in some manner that makes it go away permanently, so don't worry yet.
Some can't ever get rid of the fear something will kill them no matter how hard they try to deal with it, and realize there is nothing wrong with them - that is the way anxiety works on you, constantly nagging that something must be wrong making you work up a sweat and tensing your chest until you get some sore muscles there etc.

Continue to see a therapist if you can because they can show you some ways to deal with it. If you can learn to accept the medical diagnosis, then things can get better very quickly and you might never be bothered again. From your story the therapist just showed you breathing techniques, so you need more than that - although if you can accept the diagnosis the is nothing wrong then you might be able to self-cure, since there is nothing physically wrong.

Do not ever take medication that makes you "stumble and do silly things." Perhaps you imagined this happening though, since you only mentioned it happened the first time and you were self-analyzing so intensely that it is easy to blow things out of proportion.
Your father is right that you want to minimize the amount of times you take this med so check out the relaxation methods to see if you can get this anxiety under control..
Helpful - 0
3 Comments
I feel awful at times.The chest pain and tightness worsens when I walk around sometimes. The medicine only made me feel drowsy, stumble and euphoric when I took a whole milligram. Since then I've irregularly taken half a milligram. The limit is .5-1 every 8 hours, I'm not sure if I should take that in accordance to 1 or half but I don't pop one every chance I get every 8 hours. I usually take it in the morning before school or during school if I feel an attack coming.
Did you report those symptoms to your doctor? I doubt she wants you to take it if that is going on, considering there are other meds she can switch you to.

I have no doubt you do feel awful, because anxiety gets to people and does that. The good news is if you can forget about these fears the pains will go away, so try to get a good night's sleep and see what tomorrow brings. You have only had this experience for 10 days, so it might be just a worry phase that is treatable if you talk to the right therapist or even your teacher who can provide the information your mind needs to relax.
It won't go away if you keep worrying. People with fear of flying get hypnotized (mild hypnosis is just positive thinking) and never fear it again, so discuss this with the therapist too.
Do not think about killing yourself anymore because you have everything to live for. You presently feel the anxiety is unbearable, but as I said you may be able to get rid of it like many others have done, in which case you will look back on this and ask yourself how could I get this worked up? 10 days does not prove you will have this for life, so try to put that in perspective.
"I usually take it in the morning before school " Avoid this habit of preventative care, and instead just take this kind of med when you need it. It is fast acting, so just wait until it is unbearable before taking.

The drug site gives this warning, so you should discuss it with your doctor. "Call your doctor if you have any new or worsening symptoms of depression, unusual changes in behavior, or thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself."
Have an Answer?

You are reading content posted in the Anxiety Community

Top Anxiety Answerers
Avatar universal
Arlington, VA
370181 tn?1595629445
Arlington, WA
Learn About Top Answerers
Didn't find the answer you were looking for?
Ask a question
Popular Resources
Find out what can trigger a panic attack – and what to do if you have one.
A guide to 10 common phobias.
Take control of tension today.
These simple pick-me-ups squash stress.
Don’t let the winter chill send your smile into deep hibernation. Try these 10 mood-boosting tips to get your happy back
Want to wake up rested and refreshed?