Panic Attacks

Panic Anxiety Disorder

Panic anxiety disorders are the mental disease, in a certain period of time with various symptoms seen in a person. More than four to thirteen symptoms can be viewed in the person suffering from this disease.

Fight-Or-Flight? They are both the same if you suffer from a Panic anxiety disorder.

We have the APA definition of Panic anxiety disorder -- discrete period of intense fear or discomfort that is accompanied by at least four of thirteen physical or cognitive systems. This is all very important, because an experience of less than four such symptoms points to what is known as a 'limited symptom attack' and therefore does not qualify as a panic anxiety disorder. This can be crucial in deciding diagnosis and is therefore important.

Symptoms have been well documented in other articles, but what has not been covered as extensively is the three different kinds of panic attacks in Panic anxiety disorder. These are very crucial again in fixing modes of treatment. The first type is known as the spontaneous panic attack. This happens seemingly without any incident to set it off, and without any image or device or memory to trigger it. So this can happen even in seemingly paradoxical situations, for example, while taking a nap or even when sleeping. So you can have a Panic anxiety disorder attack immediately after a nap. These are pretty dangerous because they come on when you are mentally unprepared and can be difficult to pull out of.

Then again there are Situational or Cued panic attacks in panic anxiety disorder. These are when you can expect an attack to recur where one has happened previously. This helps to control the disease as then therapists can tell patients what kind of situations to avoid or to approach cautiously with mental preparation. The flipside is that these attacks have a danger of developing into something more complex and serious because of the recurring incidence of the attack and the close association with the place and the disorder.

The third kind of panic attacks in panic anxiety disorder is the situational pre-disposed panic attack. These are slightly looser connections between the attack and the situation than in the cued panic attacks. So one might have a tendency to have an attack when placed in the situation, but it may not strike at the precise moment. It may strike before, or after, or even not at all. If it does, it often strikes in the form of Fight-Or-Flight, a result of panic anxiety disorder.

An interesting puzzle is seen here: both fight and flight of panic anxiety disorder require bodily changes that are out of the ordinary, and these account for most of the symptoms of a panic attack. It is amazing that a title that indicates alternatives is actually saying the same thing.