One of my meds was causing them to come on following horrendous nightmares. SO we stopped the medication. Try looking at the medication???
Now I do get some at darkness. I alleviate it recently by taking my ativan as close to bedtime as I can so I at least get 8 hours sleep. I wake with anxiousness but with the ativan and the relaxation tapes I sleep and not wake the whole household up.
I go to bed at night with my handbag next to the bed because at 3 am is when I usually wake up with exactly the same feelings - the runs, the nausea, the chest tightness - that is the worst - and it is usually right after my husband goes to work - I do not understand that myself - where do they come from? I understand usually why I get them during the day - there is almost always some sort of trigger - but the ones you wake up with are the scariest of all - I take my xanax and pray for the next 20 minutes to go fast so the pill will kick in.
I know what you are talking about, I am afraid that that me thinking about panic attacks at night before I go to bed actually causes me to have one. How do you handle your panic attacks in the middle of the night? I get up and get water --and stretch. I get horrible heart racing and tightness in my chest like I am having a heart attack, butnow I know what it is ....so I'm not as afraid.
I also get most of mine at night, although they have generalised but I don't know what I'm afraid of. I think I have conditioned myself to have them then, which hides whatevcer it was that caused them in the first place. I guess I'm scared of nausea. But it's so horrid when you're alone in the middle of the night, feeling like you're about to throw up.
does anyone else start to feel panicky just reading and cthinking about them?
Rachel
Good question. I believe I had my original nocturnal attacks because I was (and am) having health problems and I was worried something would happen and I wouldn't be able to care for my kids (I'm alone alot without my husband who travels). Now I've kind of trained myself to have them if I wake in the night, meaning I'm fearing the next attack so much that I'm causing it, I think. I hate to think that I'm doing that to myself, but it seems that the more you think about it, the more it happens.
What you're going through sounds really unpleasant, sts. I'm not sure I understand what your main fear is. Is it of being physically ill, or is the panic about something entirely different and the physical reaction is what follows?
(Forgive me if I haven't been following. I just moved to another city and haven't caught up yet, I'm working on it though.)
I get most of my attacks in the middle of the night. I wake up with diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps, pounding heart, chills or hot flashes and tingling. How do I do exposure work for this?
