I had one stemming from too much caffeine, years ago. Not fun.

Not full blown, but enough to make me aware of what others who suffer from these go through.

It was years ago. We were vacationing at a timeshare near Disney World. Both DD's were in middle school and it was close to the first day of school.

I forget which storm, but it was enough for a blackout in the entire complex and our flight home to be canceled.

At one point we were able to get out and walk the grounds. I realized that we were stuck! I could not leave! Realizing I had no control of the situation made me start to panic. But, I somehow talked myself down.

It hasn't happened since.

I’ve found breathing in a paper bag helps if too if I hyperventilate. I was told by a doctor that you never die from a panic attack. It sure feels like you could. How would the doctor know if he was wrong anyway?

Once. When I was out running with my running buddies and I was talking about my mom who was causing me a lot of stress. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe.

I had a couple of panic attacks when I was away from home in an unfamiliar city to attend university. The stress of heavy studies, living in an area without a lot of green space and being away from family was difficult. When I settled in and saw that things would work out ok, the panic attacks disappeared.

I came close I think, just once. Memorable, anyway. I was driving across the Tacoma Narrows bridge (Galloping Gertie fame), looking forward to my day on Bainbridge Island when out of nowhere I was short of breath, sweating, hands felt weak, slightly dizzy or off balance. And I was at the wheel, alone. I started taking big deep slow breaths and focused on the bumper of the car in front of me - no place to pull over or stop on the bridge, I really had no choice. I felt better by the time I'd reached the other side, it didn't last long. And left me wondering what the heck had just happened that I'd felt so unnerved, frightened.

The rest of my day went fine. I enjoyed myself. I came home that evening following a longer route that didn't require crossing the bridge. But I do make myself drive across it occasionally now, I'm afraid if I don't, I'll be anxious enough about it that I won't be able to. And, my SIL has just built a gorgeous home - on - you guessed it, the other side of that d*mned bridge ;0) My only other route to her new house would add an hour total travel time, I refuse to give in to the bridge.

I have no explanation for why when DH is with me and driving, I feel absolutely nothing crossing the Tacoma Narrows. I can look out, around, down at boats, all fine. When I'm alone, I'm giving myself a stern talking to and concentrating on my breathing, eyes straight ahead. No other bridge has ever had that effect on me - not the Golden Gate, not the 4+ mile long Megler across the mouth of the Columbia......???

Oh yes. Especially now after nearly drowning in the flood. I have them when we have heavy rain. The first time I thought sure I was going to die. Definitely not fun!

Yes and Chi describes mine perfectly. I'm just about to turn 62...my panic attacks started with post menopause (not during) at age 40. Every single night after the house became quiet with everyone sleeping it hit. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. This lasted over a year than started slowing down. Currently every few months I have a doozy of an attack. Last year when I was having severe leg pain and the docs convinced me taking a pain pill would not cause me to die in my sleep I took one than had a grand attack. I couldn't breath and was sure my respiratory was shutting down....all from one single pill. Obviously I wasn't taking this pain med after that. Panic attacks are very scary.

No. Hope those who have can find a way to deal with it.

I haven't but my DH did. The first one or two panic attacks are terrifying, largely because you don't recognize what's happening. After you know what is -- and isn't -- and that it will end, you can just let it happen. It helps to sit quietly while you do some deep breathing, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Do not fight it. It will end.

Then figure out what is stressing you. Your body is telling you something.

I have had a few. The one I remember the most was when a friend and I went out to Las Vegas. We were waiting in the airport for out flight home. She said to me I am going to have a cigarette hold my boarding pass and wait for me. I can't get on without it. Well I went to play the machines and she came back and never saw me. She thought I got on the plane without her. She got on the plane and they made her a new pass. When she sat down she didn't think anything of it, that I wasn't beside her. She thought they had moved her to a different seat. After they were in the air, she got up to look for me and realized I missed the plane. After a while I noticed that the airport was empty. I had to ask someone if I missed my plane. They told me yes. I never had a watch or a cell phone at that time. It was the first time I had flown on a commercial airline and I was very naïve. I had to ask someone what I had to do to get on the next plane. I remember running down the corridor and my heart was beating so fast. I was so scared I wouldn't get on the next plane. She waited for me in St. Louis and we flew up to Sioux Falls. It was so foggy they couldn't land the plane. They then flew us back to SL and the next morning we flew again to SF and it was still foggy. I remember I was so scared that I started playing the rosary. While we spent the night in SL I was dressed for warm weather and a few weeks before that I had read in a Readers Digest that some airports have chapels in them. I told my friend that I was going to see if I could find a chapel. She told me you better have your a$$ here in the morning when it is time to leave or I am leaving without you. I found the chapel but everybody else must have read the same RD. It was full of people. Some were even covering up with the rugs. I was cold and all I could find was the altar cloth to cover up with. I never told my mother that for years. Well needless to say I finally made it home.

not officially diagnosed... claustrophobic stuff. one time was helping another teacher out with "costumes" for a little play his kids were doing for an assembly. he needed a giraffe. i got a couple of sheets of poster board, scissors, markers and my stapler. it was a very crude rendition of what The Lion King did on stage. tall neck and head with kids face sticking out at bottom. i made cut outs to go over shoulders. decided to try it on to see if it would work and for just a few seconds it was stuck under my chin! i came soooo close to ripping it to shreds to get it off.

another time... one and ONLY experience with a "sports bra". wrestled myself into the torture device. when i tried getting out, ended up with both arms straight up in air pinned against side of my head. couldn't reach anything. i think i came real close to totally freaking out then.

I suffered several when I was in high school. I prefer not to get into the details. Let's just say the teachers should have done more about the bullies.

Back when I was dealing with severe GERD, the dogs started loudly Barking At Something in the middle of the night. As I woke up I experienced fear! (WHAT was out there?!) felt the acid dump into my stomach, then the heartburn, then woke up enough to realize the silly dogs were just play barking but it was already too late. Lots of pain from a split-second of panic.

A couple other times I've felt fear or stress enough to set my heart racing, and it's a sensation I do not like one bit. Heights can do it. Sometimes even pictures of heights set me off.

Anoriginal...I really hope you are able to look back and have a good laugh at yourself getting trapped in the sports bra because I am rolling on the floor...so funny.

I use this cartoon when teaching about the physiology of panic attacks. It is important to remember the symptoms can be identical to other serious medical emergencies, including cardiac dysrhythmia and pulmonary emboli.

Mdln, do you have any suggestions on figuring out the difference? I've has so many that I now know what a "normal" attack feels like and I figure if I ever get one that feels much different, or includes other symptoms like chest pain, I'll treat it as an emergency.

But that's been one of my fears - that I'll assume panic attack and not get treated if it's real. Unfortunately that fear just adds to the anxiety and makes it worse.

I;ve never had a panic attack but I have broken out in hives from stress.

I had one many years ago and didn't know what it was at the time. It was a few months after my father died and other problems in my life and I guess it all came to a head in a restaurant in Williamsburg VA. It's a terrible feeling of absolute panic although I was on vacation and should be having fun. There's a picture of me later that day in the historic area and I looked stressed.

Yes, and I wouldn't wish them on anybody. It's not anxiety or stress, and one can come out of nowhere and for no apparent reason. I'd rather not describe them. Haven't had one in over 10 years that I'm aware of. Doctor said I was a textbook case and helped me get through and over them. If you suspect you suffer from them see a doctor. Even severe forms of panic disorder are very easy to treat (or I should say treatment is very straightforward). You don't have to live with them.

Chi's description is spot on. I suffered with them from my mid teens to early twenties. Apparently in the 60's doctors were not familiar with them My parents took me to the ER a couple of times and there they were always looking for drugs. Talk about making me resentful. Then surprised I wasn't on them, they would send me home after a shot of some powerful sedative. In other words shot me full of heavy duty drugs. Then one day I happened to read an article in a magazine about panic attacks. I had never heard the term. Not one doctor mentioned the possibility. I was so relieved to know what they were that I was gradually able to find methods to better cope with them on my own. The article described what i was going through and once I understood what it was the fear factor was reduced. I learned to breath through them and sometimes I would rock myself. I guess it was my way of focusing on something else. Rock rock rock, breath, breath.

I guess I outgrew them as my life stabilized into adulthood. I would get twinges but nothing very bad.

Fast forward 40 plus years. Last year I got them again. But this time they were due to very severe episodes of vertigo. The last time it was last fall. Came on so suddenly and without warning I couldn't get on top of it. I was in my DD's city so I phoned her to come help me. She got me in the car and took me to the ER. What a difference from my those visits in the early years. I was gone over with a fine toothed comb to eliminate stroke or a heart condition. Once any serious problem was eliminated and I was pronounced in good health, the doctor assured me that it was indeed a panic attack and I found that panic attacks are frequently a result of extreme vertigo. So armed with that knowledge hopefully should it happen again I will be better able to cope. Fingers crossed I won't be tested. That was the last episode of vertigo so far and no more panic attacks. Fingers crossed.

As other's have stated they don't necessarily come on when you actually feel stressed. mine always hit when I was feeling quite happy or enjoying myself. I can also see how they are linked to agoraphobia. It's quite easy to fear that if a panic attack struck in a certain place that place should be avoided. Knowing this I have always made my self go back to the scene of the last attack. One of my teen aged episodes took place in a restaurant. It was a decade before I went back. I went back after I understood more about panic attacks and their relationship.

A couple of months after my husband died (from a sudden, massive heart attack), I had a panic attack much as Chi and mamapinky describe. My younger daughter had borrowed our truck to help a friend move, and at the last minute my elder daughter needed to borrow the car later in the same evening.

I was sitting quietly, watching TV or reading, when my heart started racing. The idea that I might be having a heart attack, with no vehicle to drive to the urgent care facility, and that my daughter (who had been home when her father collapsed), might be the one to discover my body, sent me into more of a panic.

I called the emergency squad, who did an EKG, and said that everything seemed normal, and due to my husband's recent death, suggested I was having a panic attack. They recommended an appointment with my doctor if the symptoms returned, but I haven't had another panic attack in the seven years since then.

Yes, while having an MRI due to damage in my neck from a serious car accident. I was struck by a drunken driver, car was shoved in to oncoming cars and a truck ran over my vehicle. I was told before the mri that I was NOT to swallow at all nor move. It was my first mri. I had to take out my hearing aids so I had no communication or sound to calm me. As my heart started pounding harder and faster i opened my eyes and saw I was only a few inches away from the top of the giant thermos bottle. My mouth was full of saliva and I was sweating profusely and I hit the panic button. they took me out. Whew, they medicated me and I went back in. It's the most frightening feeling.

I think I get slight ones at night when I wake up and realize my husband is gone.

What's so interesting to me is that my life is pretty stress-free compared to many, so I don't know why this happens. I create anxiety out of nothing. That's the tricky thing about it - it's not rational or logical.

My first ones were triggered by events but since then it's just been everyday life. I wore a 24 hour heart monitor thing to try to capture one, but of course I didn't have any episodes then! I think being monitored relaxed me on some level.

Watchme, it's funny you mention rocking. I do something similar. It almost feels like it disperses the panic energy a bit, at least to me.

My son was an Army Reserve officer for 22 years. During his two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan, I had three panic attacks soon after an email or phone call from him. He retired his commission in 2014 and I haven't had one or similar symptoms since.

I remember one day vividly. Night diving in Turks & Caicos with a flashlight. In the dive briefing they warned us large 9'-10' nurse sharks would bump us to scare up sleeping fish, which they would then gobble up. A hunting technique they'd learned.

I wasn't bumped, I was RAMMED by the business end of a LARGE shark! It pushed me several feet in the water... then foot long jaws along side me opened to devour sleeping fish I'd scared up. I couldn't breath, thought I was having a heart attack.....I started to panic......telling myself not to shoot to the surface or I'd embolise and die.....

I had a major one back in the 90s. Fortunately (for me, not him) my housemate at the time was familiar with them himself. My co-worker in my lab had just died from mysterious causes. I am NOT, even now, reconciled with the fact she died. Especially under the unknown conditions.

He and I had planned a weekend out on Cape Cod, and I agreed I really needed the break, a couple weeks after her death. But I broke down in our motel the night we arrived... I shook and shook and there was nothing my friend could help me with, but to stay with me. As least, as mentioned, someone who'd gone through it himself was there for me. So he didn't freak out himself.

There was a period of time where that co-worker and I didn't understand each other. We resolved that a few bare months before her death, and did things like dining out together when we did. She had become a friend, and friends that become such during apparent duress are extra valuable. She was talking about taking early retirement (she was older than me). She was inviting me to visit her at her family home in Jamaica. 23 years later, I still miss her.

Yes, but the worst one was the night my first DH was killed.

Mine happened during exam week during my senior year at college. It was a stressful week. My future life depended on the outcome of that week. The student body had their noses in books cramming for exams; I was the same. It was on Friday night after I had finished my exams, I had a dream, a nightmare really. I dreamed that I had forgotten to go to a class since mid-semester and there was no way i could do a makeup exam at this late date. Repair was impossible and I would not graduate with that black mark in my record. I woke up in a sweat, actually not fully awake, more like one in a sleepwalking daze. My heart was pounding. I could not recover from this scare until I fished out my class schedule to confirm that I was not signed up for this class, and that I had indeed taken all my exams. Even then, the fear did not subside. Frankly, I was scared because I could not clearly remember my all of my exam schedule. I could not be sure that I had not overlooked one.

After having surgery I became severely claustrophobic, I didn't realize how bad until one night I had a stuffy nose that sent me into a panic attack. I had never had one and was convinced I was going to die. I dressed and told my husband he had to get me to the ER. By the time we were both dressed it started fading and I understood what had happened. The dr. gave me medication to take when I felt an episode coming on. I know exactly when it's happening. I feel like I have ice flowing through my veins. I've learned ways to distract myself. Avoid enclosed spaces and when I see something on tv, like an MRI commercial, I get up and find something that will divert my attention.

My kids get them. My son got his 3 months after his son was born. His girlfriend couldn't get him to calm down and called 9-1-1. He had so much change in his life in a year and the responsibility that came with it all hit him at once. The EMS team was able to get him to calm down. My daughter started getting hers shortly after my husbands car accident and my son died. She's gets them in the oddest places. Second one was in our motor home after she used the washroom. She's had them in the shower. Back when she didn't know what was going on it terrified her. She uses medical cannabis now to help her stay calm. The panic attacks come out of nowhere.

Some here are recounting events that caused immediate fear and panic -- like Nicole with the shark. That is not 'a panic attack'. That's just plain panic.

A panic attack pops up with no noticeable immediate cause. That's why I said it is your body alerting you to a stress you are not acknowledging.

Chi, I find it unlikely that you would not be stressed over trying to become pregnant, with a ticking clock. *I* certainly was. I developed migraines that went away after we adopted.

Marilyn_c says she's had hives due to stress -- me, too -- and shingles! I think a panic attack is more like 'mental hives'. Your conscious is not aware of, or is deliberately trying to ignore, stress. Your body finds another way to say it's hurting.

Chisue, that might be true. It's been 3 years so the timing fits.

When I started this post, I never expected there would be so many responses. Thank you for sharing your experiences with panic attacks. I only know of two personal friends that have had one so it’s nice to know we aren’t alone.

Yes. I had them as a teenager, but didn't know that's what they were. I would feel like I couldn't breathe. I would go outside in the winter with no coat trying to get some air. Then they went away. Fast forward to 6 years ago and they are back. They started just before my dad passed away. I get them randomly. I talked to my dr and she asked if I wanted meds to help with them. I said yes. My options were for every day meds, or only when I need them. My choice was only as needed. That little bottle is my security blanket. I have it, but have never taken any. That doesn't mean I'm not having any. They just aren't as bad, and I am learning how to recognize and deal with them.

Having said all that, I have been diagnosed with essential tremors. It affects my balance the most. The tremors themselves are sporadic. The panic attacks can, and do, trigger the tremors. The last panic attack was a year ago in Mexico. I didn't even realize that's what it was. All at once it was like I was in a bubble and everyone else was at a distance. We were with friends and couldn't leave right away. By the time we could come back to the USA my right hand/arm was useless due to the tremors. It was weeks later that I figured out what happened. When we got home I went to the dr who sent me to a neurologist that diagnosed me.