Topics: Little Mix, Mental Health, Celebrity, Podcasts, Advice
Little Mix's Perrie Edwards has opened up about 'rushing' herself to hospital after experiencing symptoms she thought was a heart attack.
The star recently featured as a guest on Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast, where she delved into her life in the girlband, and challenges she has faced along the way.
The 31-year-old Little Mix star said she started experiencing strange symptoms while on a trip to Las Vegas with the other members of the band, and she rushed herself to hospital.
Perrie recalled the feeling that she was 'dying', and thought she was experiencing a heart attack.
Advert
It was until much later that she realised it was a panic attack, and she had been struggling with anxiety.
In the episode, the singer said: "It's random but it started a good few years ago when me and the girls were in Vegas so, something happened and I'd just started experiencing like panic attacks out of nowhere.
"And it was really scary and I thought I was dying at the time, like, I thought I was having a heart attack."
She noted that staff at the hospital had asked her if she had been using any substances, but insisted she hadn't taken anything of the kind.
A panic attack can feel as though your body is shutting down - you can become nauseous, dizzy, have a racing heartbeat, or experience pins and needles/numbness.
According to the NHS, they usually last between five and 20 minutes, and despite feeling life-threatening, they are not dangerous.
Since Perrie's first experience, she started to have more frequent panic attacks.
At a time that was particularly bad, she feared she was going 'insane' and wondered whether her loved ones were going to section her.
After years of therapy and working through her struggles, it seems as though improvement has been made and the panic attacks are slowly getting less frequent in her life.
She said: "I think now it's almost like I'm at the stage where, instead of trying to avoid the anxiety which I do, like as soon as I feel the tingles in my neck and I feel the anxiety creeping in I start panicking and then I spiral.
"Whereas, instead, I'm trying to learn to like be with the feelings and be like 'ok why do I feel like this?'"
A panic attack has been described as a symptom of the 'most severe form of anxiety'.
