Is this a panic attack

[450gal]

Today, I was at work, interviewing a gentleman for a position.

Suddenly, my hands started feeling incredibly weak. I felt tingly in my head and my tongue went numb. I had to excuse myself and ran, actually stumbled to splash water on my face. I blacked out for just a moment, I didn't actually pass out, just got incredibly disoriented and felt like I was choking, like my throat was closing up.

At this point, my face and hands and tongue are numb and I feel like I'm going to die. I actually thought that today was the day I was going to die.

My boss rushed me to the ER. I get there and my heartrate is almost 200 with a Blood Pressure of 155/119. My symptoms are slowly fading, but still there.

They do an EKG which shows I have sinus tachycardia and then a CT to rule out a blood clot, because I do have a history of those. I got really anxious and started feeling like I was having a reaction to the contrast in the CT (something that has happened before) but clearly was not happening, so they gave me Ativan. This seemed to help.

By this time, my symptoms have faded and I am left feeling incredibly weak and like I was beaten up.

The diagnosis today was that I had palpitations and anxiety. I am supposed to follow up with someone to make sure it's not neurological.

What do you think?

 

[kayelle]

Sounds very much like one I'm afraid, but it's good that you're ruling everything else out first. Then you won't be worrying that it's something else and you can sort out the problem of the panic. Try medication and therapy or something like that. (Your symptoms sound pretty severe and you're so unaccustomed to them that medication sounds like a good idea.) But I certainly wouldn't recommend ONLY medication. That will address the physical symptoms, and something like therapy will address the emotional reasons you got the panic attack.
Good luck!