Oh yeah I suffered from these for a decade . It was so traumatic, I can’t even tell you the suffering for you and those whom love you . Ended up in the emergency room countless times . It was so humiliating as well . Please be kind to those with this debilitating disorder.

Great summary of this fun disease... I got the agoraphobia/depression/panic disorder combo platter... I am being treated with SSRI and behavioural therapy. Which is as you rightly mentioned HARD work. At it for about a year now, the progress is great, moving on from just treating symptomatic, or the tip of the iceberg, to moving on to what's below the surface. Glad people like you are putting digestible knowledge out there to take away stigma more and more!

How is anyone supposed to afford a psychiatrist in Sydney when they are $440/hour upwards and you have to see them several times for them to do anything if they do anything at all, the cost alone will give you an additional anxiety disorder

My panic disorder is a result of abuse of narcotics 20+ years ago!!!! Prolonged and extensive ecstacy and ketamine and cocaine abuse contributed to my nervous system being destroyed or some type of psychosis. I've NEVER had panic attacks until a point in my life where I was over indulging and abusing narcotics. I've been CLEAN over 15 years. My Dr. has had me on clonazepam .5mg x2 daily and it "manages" it, but if I miss a dose??? MAJOR withdrawl!!!! I CAN'T be without them or I'll be on Panic Attack Avenue!!!! I've been on the clonazepam for 23 YEARS!!!!!!!

Wow, I wish I could have seen this video 3.5 years ago! You explain everything so well and break it down so it's easy to understand! *it's a bit of a long story, but here is my personal experience with panic attacks* I started having panic attacks in 2020 and had never experienced one before that, and I genuinely thought I was dying the first few times. I started having them every day - at least 8 to 10 times a day, and each time lasted at least 30-45 minutes. I went to the ER twice and my doctors office 8 times within the 1st month of having panic attacks, and no one even mentioned panic attacks. I felt so helpless and was just being brushed off by doctors in the beginning - it took over 3 months of constantly going to my doctor, and then eventually switching to a different practice before mental health had even been mentioned to me. Now, 3.5 years (and a lot of trial and error with medications) later, I'm finally at a point where my panic disorder is fairly well managed. (I didn't mention it before, but none of my panic attacks ever had a trigger, which a few doctors told me is unusual - idk how true that is but figured I'd mention it). I think you'll be a phenomenal psychiatrist, and I hope there will be more doctors like you in the future!

I sometimes have a hard time with the "no signs of physical illness" thinking behind illness anxiety disorder, somatic disorders and agoraphobia. A psychiatrist could potentially diagnosis me with all three because I don't have an illness that can be confirmed with routine bloodwork. But most people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (as I have) don't have bloodwork markers, yet there's increasing evidence that it isn't psychological, including the CPET test (I had to edit this since I had written the wrong name). The CDC even has put out several articles urging physicians that CFS isn't psychological, but it is still largely treated as such (at least in the U.S.). I've learned to only talk about CFS with my doctor who specializes in it, because other doctors will just view me as a hypochondriac. Along the same lines, historically, women with multiple sclerosis were likely to be diagnosed with hysteria (especially prior to MRIs). Even now, women and men with MS or other illnesses are likely to go years before receiving a diagnosis, and are likely to first be told that their symptoms are due to mental illness. In my case I do have some mental illness struggles, which makes most doctors that much more likely to assume all of my other issues are mental as well. My debilitating voice loss and sore throats were first explained as anxiety, though a ear nose and throat specialist later found that my nasal airway was 70% obstructed from a deviated septum and bone spurs. After surgery, the voice loss went almost completely away. Which is just a little example of that mental illness bias.

youre so underrated, your videos are awesom!!!

Thank you for the way you explain everything. You answered every question in my mind.

Therapy AND medication gave me my life back. I hate that there's such a stigma and fear of medication and mental health care. (USA here) I had an incredible therapist who helped me so much in so many areas of my life, but nothing touched the panic attacks until I started medication as well. I've tried various times to discontinue with just therapy check ins, but every time the panic comes back. For now, medication is what my brain needs. Great video!

I'm in the category of being treatment resistant after exhausting every possible type of therapy and medication. Right now, it's looking like I'm on a benzo for life which isn't happy. Do you know how defeated it feels to have a doctor tell you that you are the worse case he has ever seen? It's heartbreaking. I've accepted that I may get a little bit better but it's never going away. Been on this road for 20 years now. Something traumatic happened then and along with drugs and alcohol, I likely brought out some of my mom's genes, she, too, always had anxiety of some sort. My panic attacks end up getting bad to where I am having about 20 panic attacks in a day unmedicated. Basically it was just one long panic attack with next to no sleep. This disorder can really make a person feel hopeless.

Dammm... Well that makes sense.. Have all 14 symptoms when i get panick attacks.. Like a rolling surge of one after another.. Compounding.. I'd be better for a few years but it just keeps coming back.. Now im getting them all the time again.. Ughh..

Yep. I experienced severe panic attacks during a high anxiety/depression episode. The panic attacks caused perception distortions and increased my anxiety which spiralled and spiralled. I "like" my panic attacks now and consequently don't get them often. When I do get them, I pretend I am at the top of the hill on a roller coaster and then during that adrenline dump, I literally say "wheeeeeee" until it passes. 😂

I was diagnosed by a team of doctors at 11 with OCD, GAD and Panic Disorder. I remember at age 6 having to count all the flowers on my wall before I went to bed, at age 7, our neighbors house burnt down and every night I would plan my escape route, what I would take and then have to go over it with my mom. Then it started to show up during the day. Had my tonsils removed, within 10 min being home both sides blew open and my mom called 911,this is when I experienced my first full blown panic attack, turned into agoraphobia, only leaving the house to go to the ER due to thinking I was having a heart attack, brain tumor. My chart was the size of an 80 yr old. The last straw was after a spinal tap performed by a Neurologist that wrote my first RX. Told my mom to make an appointment in a month to see how I was doing. Within a week I finally returned to school and although the intrusive thoughts and compulsions didnt go away, I was no longer trapoed in my house. Long story short, at 45, I've been on ssdi for 12yrs, my ocd is extremely treatment resistant, I can now go about my day even through a panic attack, although I've disassociated for the first time last year, which was absolutely terrifying in a different way. My ocd has changed througout life, I will never know what its like not to ruminate for 10 hrs a day. I've never met one therapist, psychologist that felt they could help me, I've had a few excuse themselves to go speak to another doctor. On a good day, my life has been a trip and I wouldn't be who I am without my mental health disorders, on a bad day,, well I've experienced psychosis twice now and I'm doing everything I can to avoid it again. I can absolutely tell the damage, cognitively that this has done to my brain. Which is something new I'm learning to accept.

I've been diagnosed with panic disorder (as well as depression, generalised anxiety disorder, ptsd, ocd, anorexia, asd though I don't like calling autism a disorder, and specific phobia which isn't related to my ocd as far as I know?) and I was misdiagnosed with illness anxiety disorder but turns out I just have ehlers-danlos syndrome so that was a fun time. anyway I get so frustrated when people say things like "omg that gave me a panic attack" (or "I'm so ocd" ew) because I've spent almost a decade now (I'm 17) dealing with daily panic attacks and they're inexplicably awful, and so not something to be minimised through constant incorrect usage. it's really great to see educational stuff online, and I hope that it means that other people growing up with this stuff don't feel that they're quite so alone in their experiences as I have done.

I have never gone for treatment but I have experienced panic attacks, I did have some recurrence but never to the point that I was worried that it was going to recure, it was in my mid to late 20's. In retrospect I was under a lot of stress from work, I think it was mostly sub-conscious, I was worried about my work performance and losing my job. Most often the events were short lived, 20 minutes or less. They usually manifested as a tightness in the chest, racing heart beat, light headedness , and feeling like I was going to faint. in the more sever episodes I was almost convinced I was going to die and might be having a heart attack. One of the worst events was during a date when we were in a movie theater about to watch a movie. It came on suddenly and for no obvious reason, I understood that I was having a panic attack but despite that I could not suppress or alleviate the panic. I felt a near overwhelming need to leave the theater and felt that people were watching me and judging me. One part of me knew that it was a delusional thought but I still could not get ride of it. We ended up leaving the theater before the movie started, 20 or so minutes later I felt relatively normal. I didn't have another panic attack for almost 20 years, then suddenly a few years ago I had a short spat of about 2 or 3 episodes, not nearly as sever, in part because I recognized it for what it was and knew it would pass. I believe it was again triggered by high stress related to work, and a feeling of inadequacy in my performance. During one of the more troublesome episodes I did call EMS, mostly to try and help ally my fears by having a medical professional confirm that I was not having a heart attack and that aside from a slightly elevated heart rate and blood pressure I was perfectly fine. They even offered to take me in to the hospital if I felt I needed it, but I declined. A number of years ago I came across the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", it really resonated with me and I was finally able to find my control. It wasn't easy but I hung on to a few key points that I was somehow able to internalize: 1. Accept the reality that 90% of what happens to you is completely beyond your control (not too hard on the surface, but the implications of that run deep) 1a. There is no point in worrying about things that are beyond your control (this may sound easy but it is one of the hardest bits) 1b. Focus on what you can change and leave everything else to chance (if it is outside your sphere of influence then you can't change it anyway, again hard to do, and hard to know where that line is sometimes) 2. The one thing you can always do is choose how you want to react to events that befall you. 3. Never fall into the trap of saying you have no choice. 3a. You ALWAYS have a choice. They maybe limited at times and sometimes none of the options available are without undesirable consequences, but you still have a choice, as bad as they may be. 3b. Take ownership of the choices you make and accept the consequences of whatever choices you make. Number 3 takes a lot of discipline and requires that you weight your options carefully. Try to make choices that align with your core values, those things that truly matter most to you. With those 3 core items I have been able to reconcile and reduce most of the stresses that previously would overwhelm me and lead to panic attacks. This might not work for everyone but I truly believe it has helped me.

I've had panic attacks last for HOURS!!!!!! NOT fun!!!!!!!

i fall into the group that i relapse and remit over the decades.....my parents recently died after i cared for them and its now the worst panic disorder/anxiety of my life along with intense grief.......now starting meds but its a long road and i faint with major attacks..

Have you ever heard of cast claustrophobia? Apparently it's a thing. The only time I had a panic attacks was when I had my foot in a cast. The first time it happened I tried to think of something in the house I could use to cut a hole in it or take the top off. Luckily, I didn't have the right tools because I HAD to get that thing off. People with access to better tools have actually removed their casts. I almost called 911 to go to the ER and tell them they had to take it off. Of course the first one was Friday night. When I called the podiatrist's Monday morning, I thought they'd tell me I was crazy, The woman who answered the phone just said, "Ok, the doctor will call something in for you this afternoon" like it happened all the time. I took the pill every night till the cast was removed, (by the doctor 🙂) and never had another panic attack.

First you say its uncurable chronic condition and then mentoining neuroplasticity to form new healthy neuropathways. How then can stay chronic?

Can one get these attacks when sleeping?

I actually noticed you have zero ADHD or attention deficit videos….is there any particular reason?