what about lower heart rate first?

[cass455]

My daughter is experiencing what we think are anxiety symptoms, but she says her heart rate goes extremely low before racing.  She says it's like it almost stops first.  Is this normal for anxiety or not?  She takes meds prescribed by ER when she went in a few months ago for anxiety symptoms (heart pains, high heart rate, numbness in arm) and the meds do seem to help after about 30 minutes.  She has had an EKG, echocardiogram and stress echo and all came out normal.  She is in her last year in college and the psychiatrist there at the school pretty much just told her to "go to her happy place" when she has these attacks.  They come out of the blue at all times of day or night.  Where do we go from here for help?

[JGF25]

Sorry...CBT stands for Cognitive behavioral therapy where they teach you techniques to calm yourself down when you are having anxiety or panic.  Tell them you don't want to hear "go to your happy place" because to me that is just stupid.  Breathing techniques, replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, etc. are what you are looking for.  

Alternatively, there is a book I read called Self-Coaching by Joseph Luciani.  You can get it on Amazon for about $10.00.  I really liked it and she may find it useful.  I know I did.

You can find a psychiatrist or psychologist on this website.  You can search by State.

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/prof_search.php

Clonazepam is the generic name for Klonopin which is actually what I take at night.  It is a long acting benzodiazipine, around 6 to 8 hours.  I find that it works best in the first few hours however.  And yes, it does take about 30 minutes to kick in.  It can built up to a steady state in your system if taken regularly and I believe that is usually when it is dosed twice a day.  However, it should only be taken as prescribed on the label and I don't know what your label says.  

[cass455]

Please let me know what you mean by "CBT"

[cass455]

Thanks for the input.  I will ask her about taking her pulse at time of attack.  She was prescribed clonazepam-? Does that sound right?  She says she does not have any depression or anxiety types of other symptoms that she feels would send her into an attack.  She is a very happy girl and is doing well in school, so she doens't see the correlation with her life and even general anxiety.  
Just talked to her and she says she does take pulse during attack and just says it does go down and then races afterwards.  I told her to actually count and record the pulse rate at that time.
What else can I do to help?  Where do we find a good therapist if that's what she needs?

[JGF25]

It looks like they have ruled out any heart problems.  Does your daughter take her pulse when she feels like her heart rate is low?  If not, this could just be another symptom where she is panicing and thinks her heart rate is low.  

You mentioned medication, what type did the ER prescribe for her?  Also, we cannot all just simply "go to our happy place."  If we could, then there would be no need for a forum like this.  I think she needs to see a psychiatrist that can actually help her and/or a psychologist the specializes in CBT.  The CBT and medication together usually work very well.  

If she is still having these panic attacks while on some type of medication, then I am thinking a re-evaluation should be done by a NEW psychiatrist.  

Best of luck!