Panic Attack Therapy and Questions to Expect from Your Doctor
Have you had few results with a variety of treatments, tips and tricks for stopping your panic attacks? Maybe, then, it is time to see a professional, and if you plan to do so, arm yourself with some knowledge about what you can expect during those first few visits.
This is a time when your journal, if you’ve kept one, can be very helpful in answering questions on forms that pertain specifically to your attacks. You will need to answer a lot of questions, and to provide a great deal of information to your doctor, so try to do so as accurately as you can. The following is a list of some of the information you can expect to have to provide.
List the types of illnesses and surgeries you have had in the past. It may be hard to remember the dates, but be as accurate as you can.
Information on any traumatic events that you remember experiencing, and that may still make you uncomfortable to think about will help your doctor, so think about things that have affected you such as your children moving away to go to college, the death of someone close to you, a breakup or divorce, or a natural disaster by which you were deeply affected.
Be prepared to provide a list of medications and their dosages that you are currently taking, or have taken within the last six months or so.
Your doctor will ask you whether anyone else in your family has, or had in the past, anxiety or panic attacks.
Your doctor is going to ask you about the amount of alcohol you consume either daily, weekly or monthly, and you should answer this one honestly, even if it is uncomfortable to do so, because alcohol triggers attacks.
As with the questions related to alcohol consumption, be prepared to provide honest answers regarding whether you use recreational drugs, because, again, some of these may actually trigger attacks.
There will be questions about how much caffeine you consume daily, whether through coffee, tea, or other beverages, and if you get headaches or suffer from sluggishness if you don’t have that caffeine.
You will need to describe how you know a panic attack is coming and how often you feel stressed or anxious, and this is another set of questions that your journal can help you answer.
If you know what your triggers are, be prepared to describe them in detail to your physician. Let’s say that you get anxious when riding in an elevator, or you get heart palpitations whenever you get behind the wheel of your car – these things are important for your doctor to know.
Just remember to be as thorough and honest as possible, and if you remember things later that you did not share, write them down so that you can let your doctor know during your next visit.
Want more information? Visit Ending Panic Attacks and find plenty of informative content ranging from general information about anxiety to very specific “how to” info on panic attacks.
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Tagged with: Anxiety • anxiety attack • anxiety attacks • anxiety help • anxiety therapy
Filed under: Alternative Therapies
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