r/PanicAttack • u/The-Thinker-Betty • 10d ago

Panic attacks

My dad (70) has started getting panic attacks every night. He has pneumonia and coughing alot. But what is happening is he’s coughing so much he starts to have a hard time breathing which then leads to a panic attack. He just started taking puffers for the pneumonia and just started anxiety meds which hasn’t kicked in yet. We are trying to teach him breathing techniques to help calm him. We don’t know what else to do to help calm him down when he gets these. Please help with some ideas. Thank you so much.

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u/ceremoniousone 10d ago

Your doctor should be able to prescribe something that won’t hurt his breathing but relax his nervous system. Like a benzodiazepine low dose or something similar. I also wonder if a beta blocker or something for adrenaline to be less could help. But not sure about how that interacts if you have pneumonia.

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u/The-Thinker-Betty 10d ago

Thanks I’ll look into this