It isn't the panic attacks that are the problem. It's the fear of having a panic attack that has become the overwhelming problem.
Panic attacks themselves aren't pleasant but they can't kill you, can't make you disabled and certainly can't send you crazy. For reasons known only to yourself, your nervous system has become over sensitised by stress, worry, loss, disappointment, grief, shame, whatever. Your nervous system has reached anxiety overload and it's decided to complain. Hence the panic attacks.
Your panic attacks (PAs) are fuelled by your fear of them. Fear hormones are keeping your nerves over sensitised which is what produces the panic attacks.
If only you could lose your fear of them you would starve your nervous system of the fear hormones that are keeping it sensitised and are producing the panic attacks.
So how do you stop your fear of them? I hear you asking. We've established that a PA's bark is worse than its bite. It makes you feel awful but you know it will shortly pass and you will be unscathed.
First, stop fighting your PAs. Fighting causes more stress and tension: the exact opposite of what your nerves need right now to recover. You win not by the punches that you give but by the punches that you take.
Second, you agree to accept the PAs for the time being. Let them come, you're a good enough actor to not let on if you're in a public place. Just agree to co-exist with them for the moment, like some sort of unwelcome guest. They are not life threatening, they don't last long and by accepting them you cease to fear them so your nervous system gets a chance to recover. Which it is waiting to do if only you would stop bombarding it with fear.
So I repeat again, it's not your PAs that are the problem, it's your fear anticipating them that's causing you these episodes.
I also respectfully suggest that once you've had an ECG and a scan you accept the united diagnosis of the medical profession that your heart is fine and God does not want you back any time soon thankyou. Any chest discomfort is another well known anxiety symptom namely muscular tension in the chest, not a latent heart attack. So do remind yourself: your heart is fine and you can't cure yourself of an illness you don't have no matter how hard you try.
So that's the exit plan: accept your panic attacks, let every muscle go limp and offer no resistance, surrender to them completely, let them wash past you, you now have the measure of these irritating episodes.
Just keep accepting, but it must be true acceptance, not just 'putting up with'.
Learn to live with your panic attacks and you'll be able to live without them.
