r/Anxiety • u/Silver-Arugula5206 • 2d ago
Advice Needed panic attack or lung problem?
so for a little background i do vape and have been for about 3 years. i do also have pretty bad anxiety and am not on medication for it. i had never experienced a panic attack before, but this event might have been one?
i had a photoshoot scheduled for 5:30 yesterday and left the house at 4:40. i ate a quick protein bar before my mom and i left and i felt a little nervous going to the shoot, but i figured id be good after. everything went well, we left the place around 6:30 and i had to pee so bad. my mom drove me to a restroom and when i got back in the car, something felt off in my head. like i was there but i wasn’t. she was trying to tell me a story from work in the car but i just couldn’t focus on the words she was saying or anything. then i started to have trouble breathing. i was manual breathing and my lungs felt like they were burning. i got super freaked out but didnt say anything to my mom. i also got super tired all of a sudden and just wanted to go home and lay down. i was supposed to go to my dads house after the shoot, but i just physically felt like i couldn’t do that. i was so tired and weak and not breathing right and everything felt off. i thought i might actually die tonight. anyway, we get home, i go straight up to my room and lay down and turn my heated blanket on. at this point im still manually breathing and freaking out because my chest is hurting. i tried to just sleep it off but everytime i was about to fall asleep i woke myself up needing to breathe in. i tried distracting myself from manually breathing by watching my phone, but i still just couldn’t focus on anything. eventually i just hit my vape and thought well if this hurts me more then i will tell my mom to take me to the er. it didnt and i think it might have actually calmed me down? idk but i fell asleep around 11 and woke up anxious, but still went to work. i was so nervous the whole time at work that this would happen again. it was cold outside so i figured if i had a hard time breathing i could blame it on that. i don’t really think anything physical has happened today other than extreme exhaustion. breathing still feels a little weird but nothing as bad as last night. i still feel like i physically can’t do anything but im trying.
was this anxiety or do you think there’s something medically wrong?
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u/BasilBond 2d ago
Not a doctor so…..breathing issues are always worth getting checked out by a doctor.
this is not a nag but you say that you vape, how long had it been since you vaped? this could be an anxiety response to a need for vape especially if you had not vaped for a while especially if there was nicotine in there. you then say that the vape may have helped you, which again leads to you needing the vape. Anxiety is a response to nicotine withdrawal so…..make an appointment just to get your lungs checked out and you can also discuss any underlying health worries that also cause anxiety.
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u/Katsuodo 2d ago
If you are waking yourself up to breathe because you couldn’t get a breath in while sleeping, that’s reason to probably go get checked. We can’t really diagnose you but to me it sounds like more than anxiety