Need advise on panic attack

[Little Missy]

Last night my husband and I had a great evening. Joking around, playing with the kids, etc. He even told me I was beautiful (something he never does). I thought this were really starting to turn around for us. Then at 1:30 this morning, he comes and sits on the edge of the bed. He is having a panic attack and is just panting. All of the sudden he just passes out. If I hadn't been there he would have fallen. Did he hyperventalate, is that what caused him to pass out? Should I let him go to work today? He woke up in about 45 seconds. I was so scared, I'd even checked to make sure he was breathing. He said he was scared that if he did one little thing wrong, I would take the kids and leave him. I told him I wouldn't, that the kids need their Daddy and I need him too. He is so jealous and inscure all because of me. I left him 3 years ago and was lucky enough for him to take me back. Now he doesn't trust me, and I don't blame him. For years now, I always cut him down and made stuff up just for an excuse to drink. Look what I have done to his life. I told him I'd take him to my psych Dr. today, and he said it wouldn't help. I told him he HAD to go to the Al-anon website (other then this one) because people there would understand and be able to help him. He said he would do that, anything not to feel the way he has been feeling. It's odd being the one who can't do anything to help. What a terrible feeling. Thanks and let me know what to do.
Missy

[nufznuf]

Haveing Panic disorder my self I would advise your hubby to get to his Dr and discribe what happens when he is having his panic. There is never any one trigger for true panic disorder...you just nevre know when your body will experiance that FIGHT OR FLIGHT URGE...
Panic Disorder for me is like being trapped on a train track you can't move at all and you can hear the train coming but there is no way to know if its on your track or the ones next to you.
There are medications that will help him. Prozac, Paxil , and Zoloft are a few of them.
good luck!

[Little Missy]

Thank you for the response. My husband and I have had a couple long talks, which helped some. He went to the Dr. today and she put him on Lexapro. Hopefully things will start looking up.
Thanks again,
Missy

[Juls]

Little Missy,

There are medications that can help, but ideally it is better to learn about what is happening when you are having a panic attack and what you can do to help yourself during one. The type of episode you describe that happened to your husband, if it starts to happen again give him a paper bag to breath in and out of. What happened to him feels scary but it is not serious or life threatening. I have suffered from panic disorder and have studied about it, and behavior modification methods can work very well. learning relaxation such as listening to a relaxatoin tape every day two times a day is a very crucial thing to learning how to control panic attacks. I don't even have them anymore. One thing that happens is a person has the first panic attack and since they don't understand what is happening to them they become very frightened of the feelings they are having such as rapid heartbeat, feelings of disorientation, breathing difficulties, all kinds of sensations. Then the next time they start to feel those feelings they become more afraid and this causes the body to realease diferrent chemicals such as adrenaline, coritcol steroid, etc. which causes the body to go into a flight or fight mechanism and it just increases the panicky feelings. Then the person feels more fear, more chemicals are realeased, and finally the person ends up feeling exhausted and tired. It can only last so long before this happens. Usually if it happens at a certain place such as a restaurant, movie, shopping, etc. that is when people get afraid to go places, and that is how the term "agoraphobia" came about. It means "fear of the outdoors." However, what is really happening is that a person is fearful of feeling those feelings again. It can be a debilitating disorder but with help can be very well dealt with.

I hope this was helpful for you.

Juls