Anxiety Disorders in Children
Most children will experience a typical fear or anxiety during their life time. They might be nervous about taking a test or starting a new school. In most cases, these fears do not turn irrational or develop into a panic attack or a panic disorder. But, there are some children that may show signs of a panic disorder for other reasons.
As much as we would like to protect the innocence of children and prevent anything from interfering with their lives, it is not always possible. Children can be afflicted with certain types of anxiety disorders that are also seen in adults. A generalized panic disorder might be seen in children in a variety of ways. They might excessively worry about everyday events like school or things at home. They tend to be extremely hard on themselves and strive for perfection. They might redo tasks in an effort to get them to come out perfectly. They might also seek constant approval and reassurance from others.
Another disorder found in many children is obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. OCD introduces unwanted thoughts into a person’s head, causing that person to perform certain ritual-like routines to ease their minds. OCD has been found in two-year-olds, and is most common in children about ten years old. A child with OCD may be terrified of making mistakes, may recount or recheck items again and again, or wash their hands many times a day.
Another anxiety disorder found in children is the panic disorder, which may be diagnosed if a child has two panic attacks and worries about them for at least another month. This panic disorder is more commonly found in adolescents than in pre-pubescent children.
Children can also exhibit an anxiety disorder though specific phobias; irrational fears towards specific objects, places or situations. Although childhood fears like being fearful of animals, storms or the dark can go away on their own, if a fear is persistent within the child for at least six months and interferes with their daily activities, the child is said to have a phobia. Symptoms might include suffering from a stomach ache or headache, a tantrum, becoming clingy, or freezing in place when confronted with the fear.
Extreme stress such as a parent’s death, a severe accident, an assault, or a natural disaster may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or other anxiety disorders. These children may suffer from many symptoms such as a fear that the event will recur, nightmares, reliving the event, loss of emotional affect, and loss of sleep and appetite.
Although these types of anxiety disorders can be both found in adults as well as in children, the physical and emotional signs might be very different. For one, children do not have an understanding that their fears are irrational plus, they might not be able to verbalize their feelings either. Children might display symptoms such as crying, throwing tantrums or becoming extremely clingy. Children how are suspected of having an anxiety disorder should be referred to their regular pediatrician.
Panic Attack Medication
People with a panic disorder have panic attacks that cause debilitating symptoms that often cause great stress and discomfort. This condition is usually treated with therapy and medication. Therapy involves changing thinking and behavior, and medication also aids rehabilitation. Panic attacks occur less frequently if both therapy and medication are combined compared to only using therapy or medication.
Panic attacks can be treated and controlled with several kinds of medication. The severity and frequency of attacks can be reduced, along with the attendant anxiety.
There are several effective medications that will treat panic attacks like Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil which are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI).
SRRI are a type of drug (antidepressant) that is often used to fight depression. It is based on neurotransmitters, which is used by brain nerves for message sending. These are then released and replaced but the medicine, ‘reuptaked’ so that they aren’t taken over anymore
SSRIs prevent serotinin from being reuptaken, which makes it more capable of spreading around to other nerves. Before SSRIs existed, TCAs (tricyclic anti-depressants) were used instead, but SSRIs have been proven safer.
It’s true that when carefully taken and monitored medications can go a long way in helping someone who has a panic disorder. However, there is also the very real possibility of some debilitating side effects, so the question has to be asked if this is really the best treatment of choice. It’s important to work closely with the doctor, and pregnant women need to stay away from this type of medication altogether.
The FDA has approved several drugs from the benzodiazepine family to treat panic attacks and panic disorders, such as Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan. All of these drugs reduce nervous tension and anxiety, and are meant to treat acute symptoms. This is unlike SSRI drugs, which are meant to be taken each day.
After you begin to take anxiety medications, your symptoms should improve, but it will take several weeks. If you don’t see improvement in six to eight weeks, you should consult your physician about a higher dose or a different medication. Once you begin taking antianxiety medication, you will need to continue for a year or more, and may find that you can gradually decrease the dosage over a period of several weeks after that time.
Sometimes after the medications have been decreased, the individual might experience panic attacks again. In that case the medication might have to be continued for at least a few more months. Some individuals might need to stay on medications for a long time to keep symptoms under control.
Panic Attacks Symptoms
A personal feels extreme anxiety during a panic attack, with sudden onset and crippling symptoms. Some of these people believe they are suffering or about to suffer a heart attack that may lead to death. Death rarely comes during a panic attack, despite the severity of the symptoms.
Panic attack symptoms can appear suddenly without any real cause. Its symptoms can be felt within the body as it reacts to an uncontrollable fear like pounding or racing heart, chest pains or difficulty breathing, stomach upset or nausea, dizziness, lightheadedness, tingling or numbness in the hands, hot flashes or chills. The symptoms can also be felt within the mind by experiencing a dreamlike sensation, the feeling of terror, a need to escape, the fear of loosing control or doing something embarrassing or the fear of dieing.
A key symptom of a panic disorder is the fear of having future panic attacks. Most people who have had one panic attack are likely to have others. The fear of experiencing an attack again can cause the person to avoid places and situations where an attack has occurred in the past or where they believe an attack may occur. They might develop a phobia about these situations.
Panic attacks are distinct from other forms of anxiety, because of the sudden and abrupt onset. This can happen without provocation and can be disabling. These attacks may be an underlying symptom of other anxiety disorders. Once an individual begins having patterns of anxiety and avoidance, a panic disorder is diagnosed.
Without treatment, panic disorders can cripple a person’s daily and social lives. Three million Americans, one out of every 60 adults, suffer from panic attacks at some point. For most sufferers, panic attacks are generally experienced starting between the ages of fifteen and twenty.
The disabling and shocking experience of a panic attack can last for several minutes, and its symptoms strongly resemble those of a heart attack. This leads sufferers of panic attacks to believe that the attack may kill them.
Panic attacks can take place while an individual is sleeping as well. These are nocturnal panic attacks but they occur far less often than panic attacks during the day. 40%-70% of individuals who suffer from daytime panic attacks will also suffer from nocturnal panic attacks. These attacks tend to cause sufferers to wake suddenly from sleep in a state of sudden anxiety through no apparent cause and can have all the other symptoms of a panic attack. Although nocturnal panic attacks tend to last less than 10 minutes, the time that it takes to fully calm down after such an experience can be much longer.
There are various symptoms that can occur in the sufferer of panic attacks. The physical afflictions experienced during a panic attack can vary from person to person, the mental state, however, is the same. The out of control feelings of fear are present for all panic attic and anxiety attack sufferers.
Panic Attacks Information
Panic attacks are an irrational fear that comes in the form of an increased heart rate, an increased breathing pattern and chills or becoming sweaty. There are several other symptoms and although most are seen during a panic attack, individuals may vary as to the severity of each symptom and the symptoms themselves. They come on suddenly without warning due to an irrational fear that the individual might have.
Although the triggers of individuals may be very different for each person, there are commonalities in their fear of the panic attack itself. Sufferers report that they feel like they are dying, having a heart attack or will have a heart attack due to the symptoms they feel within their bodies. The first time that a person suffers a panic attack they typically do not understand what is happening.
Once people experience a panic attack, they are fearful of having another one. Many times, however, a sufferer can experience a great deal of relief through understanding what a panic attack is, and that he or she is not alone in their suffering.
Panic attacks can be treated in many ways, but most sufferers never seek treatment. Rehabilitation is most effective when relaxation and appropriate medication are combined.
Behavioral therapy allows the person to feel some of the symptoms of a panic attack but helps the person to see that the symptom itself is nothing to fear. This part of behavioral therapy is called interoceptive exposure.
As an example, the person may be encouraged to speed up his heart rate to mimic the effect of a panic attack. That teaches the person how to handle a fast heartbeat and to understand that it isn’t the same as a panic attack.
Behavioral therapy also includes real life exposure. They may be introduced to the things they fear in order to become accustomed to them.
Relaxation techniques can be done in many different ways. The individual needs to first relax their shoulders when they feel a panic attack coming on. By being aware of the tension within the neck, the person can then learn how to relieve it and relax the rest of the body’s muscles to reach the goal of total body relaxation.
Relaxation can involve various steps. One is controlling one’s breathing rate. Someone suffering from a panic attack generally will have a racing heartbeat and quick, shallow breathing. Slowing the breathing will help the person get over the panic attack. Concentrating on a slow exhaling of breath through the mouth will often work.
An important thing for the person to remind themselves is that they are not going crazy and they are not going to die. It is these fears that further escalate a panic attack.
Panic attacks are a form of a panic disorder caused by anxiety. There are several ways that people show their anxiety through a panic disorder.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is seen in people who have suffered from an extreme experience such as death, an accident, physical abuse, separation from a loved one, or bearing witness to a tragic occurrence.
Someone could also have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This kind of anxiety disorder includes thinking bad things or having obsessive thoughts that one cannot control. The person could be obsessed with inclinations that make them constantly engage in behaviors that are ritual in nature, or they may keep strict schedules to lessen anxiety.
Causes Of Panic Attacks
A panic attack is the sudden onset of intense anxiety, characterized by feelings of intense fear and apprehension and accompanied by heart palpitations, shortness of breath, sweating, trembling plus several other symptoms. It is not understood what the cause of panic attacks is but several things could play a role including a combination of factors like biological and environmental.
Professionals have pointed out genetics which could be a reason that people have panic attacks. The exact way someone has the same hair or eye colour can be directly related to how families can experience panic attacks in their genes.
There is a possibility that some people are more likely to suffer from these attacks. There has been a link to family histories of panic disorders, depression, or any emotional disorders for some panic attack sufferers.
Another possible biological cause for panic attacks could be abnormalities in the brain. A panic disorder can be the result of certain changes in the way that parts of the brain function. Recent studies have suggested that panic attacks often co-occur with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia or post traumatic stress disorder.
Psychotic symptoms can also be a cause of panic attacks. Episodes of psychosis may happen prior to or predict the onset of certain anxiety disorders, like post traumatic stress disorder.
In addition information suggests that your system’s instinctual fight vs. flight reaction to negative stimulus is involved in panic attacks. Your body’s natural panic response is a set of both physical and mental processes that allow you to respond to a danger, such as a quicker heart beat and faster breath pattern. Throughout a panic attack, these reactions occur needlessly when there is no danger. It is a mystery why a panic attack happens when there is no obvious stimulus present.
Major life stress in some cases may be a cause of panic attacks as well. Stress may come in the form of a stressful event or a major life transition like the death or separation of a loved one. Some researchers have found that in these cases, when stresses lower your resistance, the underlying physical predisposition kicks in and may trigger an attack.
An environmental trigger of panic attacks could be seen through an addiction. The experience of being drunk or withdrawal of substances or alcohol due to abuse could also contribute to a panic disorder in a patient as well. Physical and environmental factors of a panic disorder could also cooperate at times.
Normally, attacks occur at random. Although, eventually the person afflicted may trigger them by responding to the physical signs associated with an episode. Such as, if an individual afflicted with a panic disorder experiences a very fast heart rate caused by an outside stimulus like ingesting a specific medication, they could see this as a sign of an attack. The individual could bring on the episode due to their anxiety since a large portion of the feat that comes with an episode is the fear of experiencing another panic attack.
Since the exact cause of panic disorders are not fully understood, it is important to seek treatment through several different forms of therapy.
