A Psychiatrist Is The One You Need To Visit For Treating Panic Disorder

The dictionary describes the meaning of the word panic as a sudden and overpowering fear or anxiety. This particular word hardly describes what the patient of a panic attack feels. A panic attack arises out of nothing, making the patient feel lightheaded, dizzy and suffocating all of a sudden. The patient feels as if there is no oxygen in the air he is breathing. Then the heart begins to pound and the patient feels shaky and sweaty. There is a chest pain, a feeling of nausea and hot and cold flashes. One moment it seems he is going to die in a heart attack. Next moment, he thinks that he has gone crazy. It continues like this for twenty to thirty minutes before it subsides. The patient becomes normal but he is left shaky.

If such attacks come in quick successions and each attack is followed by a period of at least a month of fear that another attack is going to occur the patient is said to be suffering from panic disorder. However, before the diagnosis has been made the poor man must have made numerous visits to the emergency room, without any benefit. It needed hundred of medical check ups to be sure that he is not suffering from any physical ailment. By this time, many have started calling him hypochondriac behind his back, or even on his face. May be when the fear of another attack, social disgrace and shame almost made him a recluse or an alcoholic, he meets a psychiatrist, who tells him what he is suffering from is panic disorder and treating panic disorder is not really that hard. All he needs is will power.

A psychiatrist may use two-pronged attack while treating an extreme case of panic disorder. He will definitely refer psychotherapy and may prescribe medicine if he thinks fit. Although psychologists, licensed counselors, therapists and social workers can give you therapy, only a psychiatrist can prescribe medicines if necessary. Such a psychiatrist will have to be a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). It is always better to be under such a psychiatrist all the while. However, if your condition is mild and if you have trust in your psychologist, licensed counselor, therapist or social worker you can carry on.

While treating panic disorder, the psychiatrist may prescribe medicines along with psychotherapy in extreme cases. In milder cases, he may use just psychotherapy. Two types of psychotherapy is said to be most effective in treating panic disorder.

1.    Cognitive behavioral therapy is a more popular method of treatment. It puts equal importance on behavioral as well as thought process of the sufferer. It is the thought, which affects the behavior.  The therapy tries to modify the irrational thought and drive it into safer channel. At the same time, it tries to control the irrational and damaging behavior as well.

2.    Panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy is another method of treating panic disorder. The focus of the therapy is to make panic disorder patients become aware of the unconscious conflicts and fantasies. It also helps to identify the defense mechanism that triggers the panic attack.

The usual medicines for panic disorder are:

1.    anti depressant

2.    anti anxiety drugs

Antidepressant is a good medicine for panic disorder. You need not have clinical depression to benefit from it because antidepressant has anti anxiety properties as well. All antidepressants work by altering brain chemicals like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. Among them serotonin plays a role in modulating, anxiety mood, sleep, appetite and sexuality. Norepinephrine influences sleep and alertness and believed to be related to fight or flight stress response. Dopamine influences body movement. It is also involved in motivation, reward, reinforcements and addictive behaviors.

The most common class of antidepressant used as medicine for panic disorder is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors or MOIs are medicine for last resort. These medicines act very slowly and you have to take them for a long period before they show any result.

Benzodiazepines are anti anxiety drugs and act faster. They show results in one or two weeks. However, they are habit forming and therefore many psychiatrists do not prefer them as long-term drugs unless of course the panic disorder is of extreme nature. Such drugs are used more as as-is-necessary drugs. If taken at the on set of attack, they can bloc the panic attack from becoming full blown. Patients who live alone or have to go out often enough should carry such medicine for panic disorder all the time.

If you cooperate, treating panic disorder is not very hard. If you have the determination to get rid of the panic disorder, you can do that.