My Panic Vision is the diagnosis and treatment of panic disorder for all victims, immediately after the first attack strikes. Just knowing for sure that you have panic attack symptoms the very first time you show up in the emergency room or doctor’s office with severe anxiety can go a long way.
In the Boston area, I launched and ran for almost 25 years an early diagnosis panic disorder campaign. I introduced The Panic Checklist to hundreds of primary care doctors to help them identify panic disorder when a patient complained of panic attack symptoms.
When you are struggling with panic attack symptoms – jelly legs, weakness, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, hot and cold flashes, shortness of breath, head pressure and health anxiety – and your doctor tells you are in good physical health, you still must know why you are feeling so out of breath all the time. What a relief to see all your physical symptoms and fearful thinking in one simple Checklist.
The knowledge that you are not alone – and that panic disorder affects up to 6 million Americans – can help you start to give up the false idea that you are losing your mind or on the verge of death. In the early stages of panic, this information alone can reduce the intensity of panic and prevent the “fear of fear†cycle. I witnessed this first hand while conducting research on panic disorder in the emergency room while I was on the faculty at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.
I still remember the time in Boston when I got a call from a nurse in a nearby emergency room, asking if I could see a 21-year old college student just hit with his first attack, right away. I had a break in my schedule and the patient came directly from the emergency room to my office. (My dream come true!) I reviewed my takeControl Training method on the spot with an audio recording for daily practice. That first panic attack was fresh and the Missing Link was not hard to discover.
I strongly believe that early diagnosis and treatment will lead to a rapid reversal of panic attacks and an immediate DISCOVERY OF THE MISSING LINK… the key to living panic free.
Comments on this entry are closed.