I sure need to do something!......

My panic attacks are getting more frequent, but on the plus side they don't last as long.
Still the cramps the nausea the difficulty breathing the shaking the desire to burst into tears are all very acute while they are there. I take paxil and I have some lorazapam for if it gets really bad. Reading can help but sometimes I can't even hold a book. Any one else suffer like this? What do you do?

You may try
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
He had horendous problems but somehow overcame them and lived to write about it.

Basically, I breathe through them, don't fight them and wait for them to end.

Once you are in a panic attack, there is nothing to do except wait it out.

One thing that really reduced my panic attacks was removing caffeine from my diet.

hmmm I only have caffiene in my morning coffee, but maybe I should cut it out all together. Thanks, hearing it firsthand is more helpful then reading it in a book somewhere. its so embaressing when it happens in public and there's no where to go.

Just find someplace to sit and breathe through it. You'd be surprised at how little other people will notice. And if you don't fight it or try to hide it, it won't last as long.

My husband holds my hand and makes little cooing noises and soothingly goes, "It's alright. It's alright. Shhhh. Shhhh." It's silly but it helps me.

If I'm alone, sometimes distraction helps before one starts. Anything to get my focus outside of myself rather than the screaming meemies on the inside.

I just read about this famous violinist who pretended to be an itinerant musician in a busy train station. Only one person recognized him and very few people stopped to listen.

People are in their own little worlds and won't even notice the quivering ball of goo. Those rare people that notice tend to be caring type anyway.

Yoga helped me so much, there are tons of books and videos I could recommend if you are interested.

Take the meds regularly, not whenever you feel like it.

See a psychiatrist. Books won't help you through a real panic attack.

thanks yes I do try to take my meds regularly. Sometimes tho I don't think of them until a PA is immenent

No meds for me, though I used to do cafeine and thankfully after the headaches of caffeine withdrawal, have passed to the other side of serious soda addiction. I turn to the Bible, it's available on audio (I like the Alexander Scourby narrations), and consistently find it "coincidental" how just the right word is made alive for me, like the word's alive, just like it claims to be. Another good--no, great--book also available on audio: When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada.

Thanks, my faith has kinda fallen over the last few years. Its time to boost it back up there.