People with panic attacks have multiple and often unpredictable episodes of intense fear which may be accompanied by sweating, chest discomfort, rapid heart beat, nausea, rapid breathing, dissociation, tingling, numbness, feeling “unreal,” and/or other responses associated with a heightened state of the sympathetic nervous system.
Panic Disorder therapy experts, especially behavioral and cognitive behavioral therapists, often attribute the cause of these attacks to the sufferers’ “misattribution” of the symptoms; e.g., suffers may be afraid of dying or “going crazy” as a result of the attacks, which is particularly unfortunate since panic attacks are typically regarded by experts as benign.
Agoraphobia is a term describing the refusal of some panic disorder sufferers to go to certain places, especially those from which immediate escape may be difficult (e.g., crowded theaters, airplanes, shopping malls, wide open spaces, and long bridges).
There are a number of qualified experts who treat Panic Disorder in the greater Denver area.