Panic Attacks can be very scary. I know because I use to have them. It was about thirty years ago and I was running an Electronics Business. If you have ever been in business for yourself, you know there is always something to worry about. I thought this worry was what was bringing on my Anxiety Attacks. I didn't know for sure, I just thought that was what it was.
On about six or seven occasions, I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and just could not stay in bed. I had to get up and move. I thought I was dying and my blood pressure would be out of sight. My wife would rush me to the Emergency Room and after medication I would gradually get back to normal.
I talked to my doctor and other people, but no one seemed to know what to do. After about my six or seventh trip to the Emergency Room, I knew I had to do something. I went to a Gastroenterologist, not so much for the Panic Attacks as for some trouble I was having with my digestion.
After talking with him for a while he hit on what I had been trying to tell people, but didn't know how to explain it. He said you sometimes have a feeling of "doom". That was exactly the way I had felt. I was doomed to death and there was nothing I could do about it.
He sent me for x-rays and found that I had gall stones. I was scheduled for gallbladder surgery and never had another Panic Attack after that. He explained that the attacks were due to some chemical imbalance caused by the gallbladder not functioning properly.
On another note, I use to work with a very young guy, in his twenties. We worked in Security for a very well know Casino.
This young fellow had lived a very sheltered life and had not had a lot of responsibility before. He was very afraid that he would do something wrong and let a minor enter the building or something of that nature. He was actually terrified that he would get reprimanded for something he had done wrong.
This caused him to have Panic Attacks at work. We had to call 911 on several occasions to come and take him to the hospital for Anxiety or Panic Attacks.
He finally left that job and went to work for his cousin in the construction business and his mother told me that he never had another attack. It was just the stress of the job that he was in that was causing all his problems and when he changed jobs the problems went away.