Chest pain could be signs of panic attack
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As many as one-third of all patients who see their doctors for chest pains may be experiencing panic attacks — not heart attacks, according to a study conducted by a group of cardiologists and psychiatrists at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
The results of the 10-month study are being published in the medical journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
In a study of 104 heart clinic patients with atypical chest pains, more than half had panic disorder, including 15 patients who had both heart disease and panic disorder.
In a concurrent study of 70 hospitalized patients with chest pain and no heart disease, one third of the patients were found to have panic disorder.
Chest pain connected with coronary artery disease is typically felt beneath the breastbone, is perceived as a crushing sensation and is brought on by physical exertion. The pain usually subsides with rest.
Atypical chest pains experienced by patients with panic disorder are often sharp, located on the left side of the chest, and felt while a patient is at rest.
The cause of chest pain felt by patients with panic disorder is largely unknown. A person who suffers from panic disorder may have repeated anxiety attacks — sudden episodes of severe fear accompanied by unpleasant physical sensations.
These can include choking, smothering, flushes, chills, sweating, dizziness, shortness of breath, rapid or skipping heart beat and chest pains.
People suffering from panic disorder often go to hospital emergency rooms convinced they have suffered a heart attack – which is understandable when you look at the symptoms.
Panic disorder is two to three times as common in women as in men, and there is some evidence that the disorder runs in families.
The typical panic disorder victim is a woman between the ages of 15 and 35.
Panic disorder is treated with anti-depressant drugs, psychotherapy or a combination of the two. Psychotherapy may include meditation, relaxation and breathing techniques and counselling to help patients control thoughts which lead to anxieties.
Some of the above studies were intended to be “provocative” within the medical community. Psychiatric physicians are very interested since it shows definitively that there are psychiatric problems at medical clinics. Cardiologists tend to be very sceptical about psychiatric diagnoses. It will take a lot more studies like this one to convince them.
One researcher said he plans to dispel that scepticism with a double-blind study of the effects of placebos and anti-depressant drugs in 150 heart patients at the University
of Missouri, Stanford and Duke universities.
Cardiologists and internists must begin to consider panic disorder as a cause of chest pain in patients in whom heart disease can be ruled out with standard tests.
Dealing with social anxiety disorders and the varied symptoms can be extremely difficult and at times seem like it's impossible. And the ever increasing range of anxiety medications isn't really helping us to solve the problem - they're simply masking the symptoms. I hope to offer help and support on my blog, by sharing my experiences in suffering from and dealing with panic and anxiety attack symptoms.
