How do I know if I had a panic attack?
A panic attack is a sudden wave of symptoms that peaks within about ten minutes. It brings pounding heart, breathlessness, chest tightness, trembling, sweating, dizziness or unreality. With it comes a powerful sense of doom or losing control. Many people land in emergency rooms convinced it is their heart.
First-time chest symptoms deserve a proper check once. After that, knowing the pattern is protective: naming it during an attack, slowing the exhale, and letting the wave pass without fleeing all shrink future attacks.
Attacks that recur or breed fear of the next one respond extremely well to CBT; nobody needs to live braced.
Source: NHS, panic disorder
See a doctor promptly if
- Chest pain or tightness brought on by exertion and relieved by rest, or pain spreading to the jaw, neck, back or arm
- Chest pain with sweating, nausea, vomiting or a feeling of impending doom: call emergency services, do not drive yourself
- Fainting or near-fainting with palpitations, especially during exercise
- Palpitations with a family history of sudden cardiac death or heart muscle disease under the age of 50
- Sudden breathlessness with sharp chest pain worse on breathing in, or a swollen, painful calf
- Thoughts of harming yourself, or feeling you cannot keep yourself safe. Contact emergency services or a crisis line now
Try two minutes of guided breathing2 min, free, nothing to installNot a treatment for anything. It is the one thing on this site that does something in the next two minutes.
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Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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