Please tell me hyper-ventilating is different from a panic attack!

[Ben10isthespawnofthedevil]

Long story but I have an ongoing medical condition where I am waiting for tests to see if anything is blocking the veins around my collarbone. At present I am having trouble breathing as it felt like something was pressing down on my chest (right hand side) and on Monday night I was having so much trouble that DH called the ambulance. Due to the ECG (they asked me at one point whether my organs were reversed ) they took me into A&E.

When the triage nurse took my BP with the cuff, as soon as the cuff started tightening <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.nature.com/ki/journal/v70/n7/images/5001693f2.jpg&imgrefurl=www.nature.com/ki/journal/v70/n7/fig_tab/5001693f2.html&usg=__-zQMvBTKmilylcrMZfDkc9D6uTg=&h=315&w=421&sz=93&hl=en&start=4&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=SvpTVIJXVWPPmM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=125&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcarpal%2Bspasm%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dopera%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26channel%3Dsuggest%26tbm%3Disch&ei=wUXKTcqNN8KBOtCHlLgG" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this happened to my hands. It got worse with the torniquet (sp) for the bloods.

Now I wasn't having a panic attack, I was struggling for breath. It took around 2 hours for the hands to start to go back to normal. The charge nurse was very condescending and told DH that I was just having a panic attack and that he just needed to calm me down. Of course the nurse didn't tell ME that so I was getting more and more concerned about the hands as it really hurt and was so uncomfortable so my breathing got worse and worse etc etc. The chest xray was clear and so the doctor let me go as I am still under a private consultant awaiting further investigations.

Can you hyperventilate just by trying to catch your breath? I wasn't panicking when the breathing problem started, I was just really struggling to breath so was breathing short and sharp.

I used to hyperventilate sometimes when I was younger, it was generally when I was stressed out. It happens by taking quick, shallow breaths, the way to calm it down is to breathe into a paper bag.

I can't explain it very well, but I think that the idea behind it is that your body needs the CO2 to get to a certain level to trigger your body to take a breath. When you hyperventilate the CO2 levels don't build up enough to take a proper breath, so breathing into a paper bag helps the CO2 to get the right level and the breathing normalises.

(this is what I remember of the explanation I was given about 25 years ago, so probably isn't that clear or concise , but I hope it kind of helps you understand what happened)