Question:
I wonder if one could die from a heart attack during panic attack? It's my
worst fear that I'll die during panic burst from heart failure.
Answer:
This is one of the most common fears among people with Panic Disorder
and it's never true. You won't be the first to die from a PA, I promise.
When PD hit me 10 yrs ago I used to have that strong fear as well.
Most of us here probably have had that fear. We are all still reading
and posting or moved on.
This is an odd and frightful affliction to bear. I'm still working on
it day to day. I remember in the early days when the
depersonalization/derealization hit hard. Scared the hell out of me.
I would wake up from a nap or just wonder around the apartment being
confused with my own body and who I was as a person. The idea of
death even confused me as well.
Now, it's not the fear of dying but my constant worry of quality of
life. When I don't feel well on a certain day I have the idea in my
head that that was a day in my life which was taken from me.
Just kind of relapsed about 6 months ago, but had a good run for about
5 yrs! Hopefully I'll get this thing under control one of these days.
I think it should be said "one good time", that symptoms are just symptoms.
Now, that having been said, symptoms (and other things) are usually used to
arrive at a differential diagnosis (a list of the possibilities of what is
actually wrong with you). E.G. the differential for a cough, initially,
*can* be "common cold" all the way on up to "lung cancer". As various
things are "ruled out" the differential becomes smaller and smaller, and a
physician can reach a diagnosis. What is the point of this little diatribe
you may ask... You *should* get cardiac disease ruled out, if for no other
reason than to remove this issue from your mind. That is my own personal
opinion, in light of the fact that you cite this issue as your "worst fear".
It can be removed, and easily - with a medical assessment.
The fact is, any of us *could* have heart disease as well as panic
disorder - they are certainly not mutually exclusive. Having heart disease
ruled out, by seeing a cardiologist might be a very good thing for you to
do. If you smoke 3 packs a day, live sedentarily, have an HDL/LDL ratio
that is "all wrong", triglyceride levels that are off the chart, have two
parents who have heart disease and/or other types of atherosclerotic disease
(carotid arteries come to mind quickly...) and you are also a type A person,
you might actually HAVE some measure of heart risk, and lifestyle-related
risk factors are something you can do something about.
Now, heart "failure" - that is a whole different animal, and has to do
(usually) with a deficiency in one's "contractility" (of the heart muscle
fibers). This generally shows itself in a wide variety of signs and
symptoms, most notably "fatigue on exertion" because of the compromised
cardiac output that goes with "heart failure". That is an extremely
simplistic explanation, and there is much more to all that - a chat with a
cardiac doc would probably give you much reassurance here.
The palpitations and strange pains that come with panic will not have the
power to scare you as much (as you'd be able to just say to yourself "They
are only symptoms, which come with panic syndromes - that's really all they
are") if you get a medical workup.
I only went into all this because some people DO have concomitant problems,
but generally you'd have had some symptoms when you were NOT panicking if
you did. By removing atherosclerotic heart disease from your "differential"
you can stop concerning yourself with that, and very possibly become a
little less anxious in the process. Ultimately, the only way to know
absolutely positively for sure that you have "clean coronaries" (arteries)
is to get a cath done, but that is quite possibly something you don't need
at all. Again, a conversation with the appropriate type of physician, a
cardiology specialist, would shed much light on your cardiac health
situation. In that your age, risks, medical history, family history, etc.
are unknown - it's really impossible for me to say much else. I can say
that lots of anxiety patients get cardiology workups that are completely
negative/unremarkable/normal - and that sounds like it would be a good thing
to have happen for you, given that your worst fears have to do with this
issue.
