Women are more likely to report panic attacks than men.
“It’s as if a vice is squeezing me.
She began to hyperventilate, her heart started racing and she broke out in a sweat.
Pressure began building in her chest.
Then I started shaking literally to the core of my body.
Lesko asked to leave early and fled to her car.
She collapsed into the driver’s seat and burst into tears.
It took about 30 minutes before she was calm enough to drive.
She hasn’t been able to go back to work.
How she copes: Lesko is still struggling with how to manage her panic attacks.
She is reluctant to take medication, but she is seeing a therapist through telemedicine.
And that actually helps.
“I knew something terribly wrong was happening.
One morning almost 20 years ago, J.T.
Lewis hailed a cab because she was late to work.
As she settled into the back seat, Lewis noticed the car seemed unusually hot, dirty and cramped.
The driver’s seat was so far back it seemed to be crushing her.
She felt sweaty and light-headed.
“Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe, Lewis recalls.
There was this crushing chest pain.
I knew something was terribly wrong.
Was I dying?”
After a battery of tests, the doctor told her there was nothing physically wrong with her.
The pressure in her chest.
The feeling that she couldn’t breathe.
Sweaty and pallid, she asked the flight attendant for some water.
I was frustrated, confused and humiliated, Lewis said.
I began avoiding business travel.”
After that, the panic attacks started happening more often.
