Panic Attack: A Psychological Event That Mimics Heart Attack

Your chest tightens, you notice your breath getting shorter and your heart rate skyrockets. Your mind is now confused about whether you just experienced a heart attack or the condition has something to do with your mind. While most physical diseases have straightforward symptoms that can be easily interpreted by the person who suffers from it. However, some health conditions can be tricky, for instance, making out the difference between a heart attack and a panic attack. It is interesting to know that a psychological condition can mimic a physical condition to the extent of making the person believe that they are in a health crisis. Simran Rao shares how while recovering from COVID-19, one day she felt a bout of breathlessness and uneasiness to the extent that she had to rush to her physician's clinic, thinking it was some cardiac event. After she was made to run through a couple of diagnostic tests, she found out that it was nothing but a panic attack. It will be a good idea at this point to know how to differentiate between the two conditions. Heart attack versus panic attack A heart attack is a physical health crisis when a part of your heart doesn't get enough blood which might result in muscle loss and in some cases death if the treatment gets delayed. One might experience chest pain or pressure, a pounding heart, pain or discomfort in the upper body and sometimes a feeling of fainting. A panic attack on the other hand is a psychological condition which can be a sudden attack of overwhelming fear or anxiety. The symptoms of it might resemble that of a heart attack but also might have an additional feeling of impending doom. While a panic attack is not life-threatening, a heart attack can kill. So it might always be a good idea to get it checked immediately even if you are confused about whether the experience is physical or psychological. Location of pain As per some health experts, while the symptoms of both conditions resemble each other, however, there are subtle differences that must be observed. In a heart attack, the pain might radiate to other areas like the arm, jaw or neck. While in a panic attack, the pain might remain localized more or less and might subside in few minutes. A squeezing sensation of the chest is primarily associated with a heart attack. Pain in a panic attack might be sharp and stabbing. Understand the triggers A heart attack often some physical discomfort, many times it might follow some physical activity like climbing stairs and other such physically straining things. However, if you experience similar discomfort when you are resting and you have no history of panic attacks, then it might be a cardiac event. Both heart attack and panic attack can wake you up from sleep but the latter has some emotional trigger to it like a nightmare or some emotional discomfort. Duration matters Panic attacks might last for a few minutes to an hour but will eventually go away. Pain caused by a heart attack might fluctuate between high and low but will never vanish unless the condition gets treated. Panic attack can make your heart race Panic attacks can trigger a fast heart rate because of the overwhelming emotional stress but is unlikely to cause any physical damage.