Fun fact: a lot of the symptoms of a panic attack are the same as the symptoms of a heart attack. This comes in especially inconvenient if the focus of your panic attack is fear of a heart attack. It's basically a self-confirming incorrect diagnosis.

This happened to me once, the second time I ever had a panic attack (the first being when I was a toddler). My heart started racing and I hyper focused on it; took my blood pressure and it was a high so I called the advice nurse who told me to have someone take me to the ER. Basically the only way the situation could have been worse is if I’d actually been having a heart attack. I was preparing to accept death at age 20.

What made it worse was the doc in the ER did an ultrasound on my heart as I was coming down from my freak-out. I was thinking “wow, that’s amazing! That’s my heart inside of me!” Then the doctor says, “this side of your heart looks a little thick but otherwise it looks fine” and never followed up. I try not to think about that too much.

One of the most frightening experiences of my life at the time, but it was super interesting in retrospect.

Something very similar happened to me (20, m) recently, I drank too much coffee, felt my heart racing and had an impending sense of doom being worried to the point where I was also (trying to) accept my oncoming death. This was also happening while being on an intercontinental flight which I don't recommend.

In retrospect I also have kind of similar feelings about it, although I'm afraid the experience actually caused me being worried a lot more about some minor health issues in the last year.

We called an ambulance once for my ex expecting a heart attack that turned out to be a panic attack. The ambulance crew that responded were very clearly very used to people confusing the two, and stressed it was better to call again than not if she was not sure.

> inconvenient if the focus of your panic attack is fear of a heart attack

This is called Cardiophobia.

Yep, I went to the ER for what I was sure was a heart attack, and it turned out to be a panic attack. It was weird, I did not feel particularly anxious other than my reaction to the constricting pain radiating from the left side of my chest.