This week something new happened to me... Not once, but twice I had a panic attack. Here's my story:

Earlier this week, I went to the bloodbank for a donation. I've done this a few times before and never had much problems, but now things went slightly different. I went there and even before entering the building, I felt completely lost and almost started to hyperventilate. I've had slight feelings of anxiety before, but this was worse than anything I ever experienced. So I turned around and went home to calm down. After an hour or so I was back to my old self. I didn't think much about it and just thought I'd give it another go on another day.

That other day was today. I had asked my girlfriend to come with me just in case. When I came home from work, we did a little shopping and on our way home we visited the bloodbank again. I was nice and calm, I have a disliking of needles, but I'm not afraid of them or anything. I was called for the pre-donation check, where they check bloodpressure and stuff like that. During this checkup I had a mild anxiety attack, but I took my meds (ritalin) and a few deep breaths and I calmed down again. I explained my situation to the nurse and she was very understanding. The testresults were all good and I could go back to the waitingroom. I had a sandwich and something to drink and then was called for the actual donation.

I went in, quite cheerful, I even made a joke (they asked which arm to draw blood from, I smiled, pointed at my girlfriend and said 'hers'). I sat down and made myself comfortable on the chair. The usual checks and verification of personal info were done, so far so good, but when they started to prep my arm to draw blood, I had another anxiety attack, well actually more like a full blown panic attack. I couldn't stop shaking, I started to cry (pretty pathetic site it must have been, a full grown man crying his eyeballs out). My girlfriend and the nurse tried to calm me down, which kind of worked, but on the second attempt I went into a panic again. I just couldn't calm myself down. I got up, got my stuff, mumbled I'm sorry to the nurse and left.

I never had this kind of reaction before, Just the fact that I could react in such a manner to something as simple as donating blood, which I've done more than once before, really got me scared. What if I lose control like this in another situation? I don't know what to do.

Stimulants can cause latent panic disorders to come out.

Yes stimulants do cause panic attacks. But how long has you been on stimulants QUICKzAND? If you have been on them for awhile, it would not make sense to just suddenly start having panic attacks. Usually those symptoms present when first starting the medication, in some for or another. And, you did state that the Ritalin helped you calm down. Dosage changes? Have you had an life changes recently?