Could this have been a panic attack?

Hi,

Some of you might have seen my posts about anxiety in the last few weeks. Well - great news! I appear(ed) to be almost back to normal by last Friday. So, on Friday evening I had a couple of glases of wine (nothing excessive although I haven't been drinking at all for several months) along with one of the 'kalms' herbal tablets that had worked so well for me and a rather spicy curry. The following morning I felt sick and kept shivering (but without any obvious signs of a fever) as a result I ended in bed wearing a hoodie and a ski jacket under the covers to keep warm. This may seem irrelevant to A/P and I suspect it is (possibly food poisoning from the curry!) but what happened next was...

I felt sick again and went to the toilet. Suddenly rather than shivering I began to get hot, first I had to take off my jacket and then my sweatshirt and then I was still boiling in a t-shirt. I began sweating profusely and felt like I was going to pass out. My heart started racing. I moved to the next room and sat down and called my girlfriend into the room in case I actually did black out. My arms and then my legs started to get an intense 'pins and needles' type sensation starting from the extremities and quickly moving up to the knee and elbow respectively. My head started to feel incredibly heavy (presumably my kneck muscles were struggling). Then I managed to slow my heart down and almost immediately my arms and legs returned to normal and my normal temperature was restored.

There was no sign of chest pain or any shooting pains in my arm, I had an ECG 18 months ago for a work medical and my blood pressure was normal when I spoke to the doctors about my anxiety so I doubt it's a heart problem. Logically I'd say I had something like food poisoning or gastric flu which casued me to feel faint (and shiver) and the sensation of this getting worse prompted a panic attack which caused the palpitations and the numbness/tingling in my arms. However, I'd made great leaps forward with my anxiety over the last week and was about back to normal. I wasn't feeling too good physically but just put that down to alcohol and spicy food, so not really anxious about anything. So, does that sound like it could still be a panic attack?

Very true - in reflection it was a silly thing to do, however those tablets aren't strictly medication as they're purely a herbal non-perscription remedy. I'd also checked the documentation that came with them.

I think certainly somewhere along the combination of tablets, curry and (a small amount of) alcohol something upset my stomach to give me the sickness, just wondered if it sounded like it had triggered a psychological panic attack or whether the other symptoms were down to something physical. I've been feeling pretty much back to normal recently and so ironically I rather hope the palpitations etc were due to a brief A/P relapse rather than the signs of any underlying phsyical problem.

Chris,

to answer your question, YES. It sounds like a pretty bad anxiety attack. If you thought you might be dying or going crazy and were in absolute misery....then a panic attack.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with this (yet lol) and while your specific symptoms sound a little different, the overall experience - feeling better, going out to eat and having a glass of wine, followed by feeling sick in the morning - sounds a familiar. That's pretty much what happened to me last week.

I'm not sure if this helps any but... yea lol

Chris,

I've had panic attacks just like that one - from freezing to hot, back and forth. It could have been either or a combo of factors.

Hope that one spell was the end of it!
Karen

Glad to hear you are feeling better. I had a doc tell me once that sleep depriviation was (is?) a very popular form of torture during wartimes because of the severe psycological effects it has on people. My anxiety always gets worse when I dont get enough sleep!

Karen

not sleeping is definitely a big one to going off the anxiety meter
I hope things do settle down for you
Lyn