Fear of Panic Attacks

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Written by the Dental Fear Central Web Team and reviewed by Dave Carbonell PhD
Last updated on July 14, 2022

This page is about a fear of experiencing panic attacks. We also have a separate page if you’re worried about crying or making a fool of yourself at the dentist’s.

After years of trying various things to overcome my fears, I have made quite a bit of progress and don’t get as worked up in the run-up to appointments as I used to. However, during appointments, I do still get scared and do still get into a panic during certain treatments and procedures.

The biggest thing for me though has been learning not to be scared of being scared and learning that nothing bad will happen if I should panic during an appointment. Sometimes we can put an enormous amount of psychological pressure on ourselves not to be scared during appointments, when actually if you can develop a more relaxed approach about it and think “If I don’t get scared, that’s great, but if I do get into a bit of a panic, then that’s OK too”, the fear doesn’t seem to have as much of a hold over you. – from our message board


What is a Panic Attack?

A panic attack is when you feel some terrible symptoms, such as:

  • you feel really, really afraid
  • your heart is racing or seems exceptionally loud
  • you might feel hot and sweaty or break out in a cold sweat
  • you may feel dizzy or lightheaded
  • your legs become like jelly, and you feel like you’re unable to stand up
  • you may have trouble breathing, or feel chest pain or tightness, or feel as if you’re going to choke
  • you might feel numb or tingly in your arms or legs
  • you might experience a strange sense of unreality, maybe as if you’ve become detached from your body
  • you have thoughts of an impending catastrophe – such as having a heart attack and dying, going insane, fainting, suffocating because you’re not able to breathe, or losing control of yourself in some terrible, permanent, and embarrassing public way (or all of these!)

A first panic attack is usually an unexpected event that happens “out of the blue”, although you may be under stress at the time or going through significant changes in your life. It most commonly happens between the age of 18 and 35.


What are Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia?

Panic Disorder means that you are having panic attacks again and again, and that you are afraid of having another one. If you’re not afraid of the panic attacks, then it’s not panic disorder.

Agoraphobia means that you avoid situations where you could have another panic attack, for example, situations or places where you’ve experienced panic in the past, or places from which escape might be difficult or help unavailable in the event of a panic attack. Typical examples include bridges, shopping malls, driving, air travel, elevators, undergrounds – the list goes on! In severe cases, people avoid more and more situations until the only “safe” place left is their own home.


Are Panic Attacks Dangerous?

“No” is the short answer. Our bodies are equipped to deal with (and indeed generate) panic attacks. But that can be hard to believe when you actually experience severe panic attacks.

Panic attacks are the result of an ancient survival mechanism called the Fight, Flight or Freeze response. When our bodies evolved, the main danger we had to face was a big predator who saw us as a meal. And even though the world has changed a lot since then, our bodies respond to danger (or perceived danger) in the same way.

When our bodies get a danger signal, they respond by preparing us for either fight, flight, or freeze – depending on the circumstances. If the attacker looks smaller or weaker than yourself, then fighting would make sense. If the attacker is bigger and stronger, but slower, you can choose flight and run away. And if the predator is both stronger and faster, the best response would be to freeze and keep really still, in the hope it doesn’t notice you.

Most people have experienced similar sensations to those of a panic attack before, in a real emergency or in a situation they found frightening – heart pounding, adrenaline kicking in, a change in blood flow, a change in breathing. But in these situations we attribute the bodily changes to a real fear or danger. And in any event, our minds are occupied with dealing with the emergency. So we don’t perceive the symptoms as frightening in themselves. Perhaps we don’t even notice them.

In a real emergency, our minds wouldn’t be searching for reasons why we are feeling this way – no need to attribute the bodily sensations to being about to die, or go crazy, and so forth.


Why do people develop Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia?

Typically, when someone has their first panic attack, they don’t receive much (if any) information about what it was that they experienced. You are then left to make sense of what happened on your own. Some common explanations you may come up with include:

  • I was going to die (e. g. from a heart attack, stroke, or suffocating, caused by the heart “acting up”, not being able to breathe, or a chemical imbalance)
  • I was going to “go crazy” and lose my mind, and end up in a psychiatric hospital
  • I was going to faint
  • I was going to lose control of myself in a very embarrassing and public way (e. g. falling to the floor and soiling myself, screaming loudly, acting crazy)
  • All of the above!

The type of explanation(s) you come up with will depend on your previous life experiences and fears. For example, if you are a shy person, you may fear making a fool of yourself in public. If you have a friend who unexpectedly died from heart problems, you may fear having a heart attack. If you have a relative with a mental health condition like schizophrenia, you may fear going insane. Or you may come up with a different explanation altogether, but these are the most common ones.

Avoiding situations which could bring on a panic attack is a protective mechanism. Sadly, it’s a mechanism that always backfires, because it makes the situation worse in the long run.


What can I do if I experience Panic Attacks, Panic Disorder or Agoraphobia?

Unfortunately, there is no quick-fix solution (unless you’ve only just started having panic attacks, in which case a quick read of the book recommendation below may well do the trick). Beware of websites which make promises along the lines of “Get Rid of your Panic and Anxiety in 7 days”. There are many of these anxiety scams on the Internet.

But there are tried-and-tested ways of addressing your fears and overcoming (or at least hugely improving) the panic problem.

The most common one is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Usually, this involves the following steps:

  • Learning about panic attacks and finding out what the physical sensations mean
  • Learning calming techniques such as belly breathing
  • Keeping a diary of your panic attacks where you write down what you experienced, where it happened, what may have triggered it, how long it lasted etc.
  • Creating an exposure programme which starts out with the situations you feel you can handle the easiest. As you become comfortable with these, gradually you start tackling more difficult situations or places.

Another method is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In a nutshell, this method teaches that getting rid of anxiety isn’t the answer. Rather, accepting the sensations from anxiety, while doing things you care about (despite how you feel) is the key to finding relief. It teaches techniques for “mindful acceptance”, a sort of Buddhist concept which denotes living in the present moment and observing and accepting anxiety, rather than getting caught up in it and fighting it.

Tackling panic attacks can sometimes be a lengthy process, and not expecting a quick, complete “cure” and being more chilled about it can be very helpful. ACT helps with that.

If you choose to work with a qualified mental health professional, you may find them using a variety of perspectives.

Self-Help

Some years ago, we had a close look at available self-help books on panic attacks. The Panic Attacks Workbook by Dave Carbonell came out tops – so much so that we asked Dave (who’s a really nice guy) to review some of our web pages! It is easy to read and great value for money and gets excellent reviews on Amazon. Please note: there’s now a revised and improved second edition out (it’s the turquoise book, rather than the purple first edition):

The Panic Attacks Workbook Second Edition by Dave Carbonell

Working with a mental health professional

Some people find that they can overcome panic attacks using self-help alone. But you may

  • prefer some extra help and expertise from a real human being in person
  • find it hard to keep motivated
  • feel overwhelmed by the task
  • feel you’re not making any real progress
  • have other difficulties in your life in addition to panic attacks – for example living with an abusive spouse, drug or alcohol problems, severe depression, or post-traumatic stress.

In such situations, you should enlist the help of a qualified mental health professional:

Finding a Therapist


Dental Phobia and Panic Attacks

Panic attacks can make visiting a dentist much harder. You may feel trapped in the dental chair, you may fear embarrassing yourself, you may fear being unable to breathe during a procedure, and you may fear being unable to tolerate your fear.

You can find all sorts of tips for dealing with dental fears on this website. For example, many people are worried about the numb sensation triggering a panic attack. You can find out more here: Fear of Feeling Numb

Some of the tips which our forum members with panic attacks have recommended include:

  • telling your dentist about your phobia and panic attacks and the dentist being understanding and kind
  • bringing a close friend or partner along
  • frequent rest breaks and counting
  • anti-anxiety medication for the night before the appointment and on the day
  • you can look into sedation options (nitrous oxide or IV sedation), if you feel that sedation would help you. Nitrous oxide can make you feel very relaxed, while IV sedation makes you both relaxed and sleepy.

Panic attacks are nearly always preceded by anticipatory anxiety of frightening scenarios. The key to handling anticipatory anxiety is recognising that these thoughts are just additional symptoms of anxiety, and typically contain exaggerated and unlikely predictions.

The following comes from the Craigentinny Dental Practice’s free Beat Your Dental Fear e-course, and really sums it up:

How (not) to fight “fight or flight”

So many phobic patients that I have helped over the years have told me about their previous visits to the dentist where they felt short of breath, had temperature swings, felt faint and even occasionally passed out altogether. This makes these poor people feel like they are in a blind panic which of course did nothing to help their mental state or reduce their anxiety.

Panic

Does any of this sound familiar? So what is actually happening to you when “the fear” starts?

What is happening is your body is kicking into gear a protective reflex that is as old as time. We used to rely on our “fight or flight” reflex for survival. In modern times it is rarely of any help to us. Understanding the process that your body is going through is the first step to controlling it.

When you get scared or frightened your breathing gets faster and shallower, the body produces a compound called adrenaline, this makes your heart beat faster, and diverts blood away from the surface of the body and the brain. The net effect is that you feel your heart pounding, you may feel dizzy or even faint. The blood is actually directed towards the muscles and heart ready for you to either “fight for your life or run for it.” This is often called our fight or flight reaction.

You may be familiar with that feeling as it comes on and think “oh no here we go again…” – it literally is like going over the top of a rollercoaster and down the first big drop.

Fight or flight in the dental chair

In the dental chair, this reaction is totally counter-productive but as it is an in-built, almost “animal” instinct, we can do little to stop it once it starts so you are simply along for the ride. You may be able to reduce its effects but you can’t stop it until it has run its course.

So what do you do?  The trick is to avoid tipping over the top in the first instance, which means taking your time with a new dentist and slowly (and I do mean slowly) building your confidence one step at a time.

The very worst thing you can do is ask the dentist to do all of your treatment in one session to “get it over with.” You will have the fight or flight response and this will almost certainly confirm all of the negative things that your inner voice has been saying. Do you think this will help your dental fear in the long term or make it worse? Yes, you’ve got it… it will make it worse. So please if you do nothing else follow the next piece of advice:

Work with your dentist to take small steps over a series of visits. You can then go at a pace that is comfortable and hopefully avoid setting the fear rollercoaster in action. Each time you go to the dentist and have a GOOD experience, the positive internal voice that tells you that this is all ok and nothing bad will happen will be reinforced.

© Fraser Hendrie, reprinted with permission


If you are unable to leave your home

In the UK at least, it is certainly possible for a dentist to come and see you at home. But be aware that treatment is very limited, basically just very simple fillings, extractions and dentures. The Community Dental Service is the main provider of home visits in the UK. Your local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCGs) in England, Local Health Board in Wales, and Health Board in Scotland and Northern Ireland should have a contact number for you (or contact NHS England on 0300 311 2233 for info on services in your area). In most areas of the UK, you’ll need a referral from a GP, health visitor or social care professional.

You can also e-mail local dental practices and ask if they offer home visits (and cater to people with dental anxiety and fear).

You can find out more on our Special Needs page.


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© Parts of this text adapted from “Panic Attacks Workbook” by David Carbonell, reproduced with permission

Visit our support forum to get help with this and other fears, or to simply get things off your chest!


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