I have frequent feelings of anxiety and panic attacks accompanied with heart palpitations

As for whether anxiety and panic attacks damage your health, yes they can. Anxiety, when it becomes chronic, increases your risk of respiratory illness, gastrointestinal illness, and heart disease. And chronic anxiety also means these health problems are harder to treat. I'd strongly advise you to look for help now. Anxiety can be treated. With medication and therapy, along with self-help relaxation techniques for anxiety, you can beat this thing and feel better again, without the long term risks mentioned above. It's exactly because anxiety can impact your physical health that you shouldn't become one of those people who doesn't get treatment.

I would look at some crucial things here. Are your heart palpitations accompanied by other symptoms? If you experience shortness of breath, dizziness, blurred vision or chest pain, or all of those? If so, the palpitations you are having could be the sign of a more serious underlying medical problem rather than panic attacks, something that is possible even in people who have already been diagnosed with panic disorder. 

Even if you are "only" having panic attacks, you need help, mate. There are medications that could help reduce your symptoms of anxiety real fast. Please look into them because they can really improve your quality of life. You obviously want them to end. 

I have heard it said that 94% of all illnesses are worse when you have stress. In that sense, anxiety attacks, which obviously involve large amounts of stress, are indeed damaging to your physical health. Even if they weren't, your mental health is suffering. No person should have to live with anxiety for long stretches of time. 

Treatments you can look into include but are not limited to:

• Antidepressants
• Benzodiazepines
• Therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy. This can be done alone or in a group. 
• Natural remedies for anxiety disorders like valerian and St John's wort. 
• Relaxation techniques for anxiety like exercise, breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, dance, and massage.

The strange thing is that I am not normally an anxious person, or at least I don't think of myself that way. It's true that I've been under a lot of stress lately, what with my father being ill in another state and financial worries and work stress, but I would never have pegged myself as the kind of person who gets panic attacks.

I'm 33 and generally in good health. I would think I am too young to have heart problems! I do get chest pains, which I think is the palpitations themselves, and shortness of breath as well. I think those are all related to panic attacks though and I can't see what else could possibly be wrong.

For heart palpitations, a lot of people find it helpful to induce coughing. Fake cough until it becomes real. You can also splash cold water on your face, hands and wrists, and push down like when you want to go to the bathroom. In addition, deep yogic breathing (breathing exercises) are great relaxation techniques for anxiety as well.

Over the longer term, you will want to look into mindfulness, yoga, and regular exercise. I have heard that magnesium supplements can also reduce heart palpitations. I am not sure if that works for heart palpitations caused by anxiety though.

I understand. Panic attacks, or anxiety disorders for that matter, don't just happen to certain kinds of people though. They can strike anyone, though it is true anxiety disorders have a tendency of showing their face in childhood or adolescence.

Considering what you have written, I would not think your heart palpitations are caused by something other than panic attacks, though there is never any harm in asking your doctor about that. What I said in my last post, I meant that having anxiety means that everything else to do with your health is just that much worse as well, in the long run, which means you need to take it seriously and not treat it as "oh, just something I get sometimes".

Insane amounts of people with anxiety disorders don't see doctors about their symptoms. Just don't be one of them.

Panic disorder is a chronic mental health condition, but that does not mean there is nothing you can do to reduce the frequency of the panic attacks you are getting. Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to reduce anxiety overall and the frequency of panic attacks so I'd definitely be looking into that. As for medication, antidepressants also bring down the number of panic attacks you will have. Then in addition to that, there's exposure therapy, which can be scary but effective, and there are also self help videos you can watch specifically to help you reduce your anxiety symptoms, designed by therapists. If you prefer that to face to face therapy I'd ask a few therapists about that.

Just keep in mind that it is not at all impossible to have both anxiety/panic disorder and to also have some medical issues. This is not an either/or thing. You can have both, and unless you have a proper diagnosis, are you really going to know what is going on yourself?

This is why I would suggest a thorough medical checkup to address the heart palpitations as well as your anxiety symptoms. Once you know where you are at, your anxiety and palpitations can then be addressed with a treatment tailored to your diagnosis.

Yes!!! Did you know that lots of people, women in particular, are sent home when they arrive at the ER afraid that they are having a heart attack, told that they are merely having a panic attack? Women are much more likely to be misdiagnosed, not just because their heart attack symptoms tend to be slightly different but also because they get heart attacks less often on the whole and women are often seen as irrational, hence more likely to have panic attacks than heart attacks. There are some differences in symptoms between anxiety attacks and heart attacks, but the main ones are that anxiety attacks are caused by anxiety and heart attacks are not.