Can Electrical Shock Injuries Cause Anxiety and Panic Attacks?
Because everyone is different, and there are so many variables, the amount of injury a person sustains will also vary. Most people aren’t severely hurt with low voltages of electricity, but if a person already has a heart problem, low voltage could kill a person. Low voltage is considered to be fewer than 500 volts and high voltage is considered to be current that is over 500 volts.
Regular household current runs from 110 volts to 220 volts. When my daughter was about 5 years old she was watching her grandfather working up on the roof of our house. He had his electrical tools up there with him and the cords were plugged into an extension cord and the cord was plugged into an outlet on the inside of the house.
The cord was touching an aluminum ladder. My little girl tried to climb the ladder to watch her grandfather work. When she took hold of the ladder she was stuck to it and couldn’t let go. She was shook up from being shocked but she wasn’t hurt. However, when she got older she got shocked when trying to unplug her hairdryer and she got zapped with electricity.
When my daughter got shocked, she felt it go through her hand and into her arm. She remembers that her vision went black for a second and then returned to normal. That same day she started having severe anxiety and panic attacks.
She was hospitalized for a couple of days and there were no heart arrhythmias. Her doctor didn’t believe that getting shocked with electricity could cause symptoms of anxiety. However, before she was shocked she had no anxiety or panic attacks. She said that she has never felt the same after having that electrical shock. When I did some research, I found that some people do have behavioral and neurological changes after getting electrical shocks.
It is believed that electrical shocks can even cause depression and other psychological disorders. See what Dr. Benoit Bailey says about neurologic and neuropsychological symptoms caused by electrical shocks.
The cause for neuropsychological symptoms associated with electrical shock injuries isn’t understood. Dr. Bailey mentions that the symptoms of electrical shock injuries are similar to those in people who have cranial trauma. There seems to be at least short-term neurologicalal and neuropsychological symptoms in a low percentage of electrical shock injury symptoms.
Note to the reader: Feel free to comment if you have any clinical experience with neurological and neuropsychological symptoms associated with electrical shock injuries.
Sources:
Personal experience
3 comments
Hi my name is john i got electrica shock while working a houes fire in febrary of 2014 I was pulling a fire holes out of the houes and put both of my hands on the door way wich was aluminum door frame my cloves were wet and i felt my ares go num thing it was were i was breathing to fast unit i felt somthing go agoss my chest and my arms started to lock up on so i pulled away and my haert stated to beat fast so i was trasported to the ER by EMS they said it was just a panic attack. but i did not feel right it was diffrerent. It took days for me to get over it. so now i have had servere anxiety attacks since that shock and developed depression. i have a fear of evething now or of dieing.
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