Hi I'm Andre, I am a 19 year old sophomore at UIUC, and have over the past month been experiencing many symptoms of panic disorder. Initially what triggered my constant anxiety were chest pains that brought me into the health center at school, the emergency room, and eventually my physician back home who even ordered an echo-cardiogram (due to my father's Marfan syndrome). All my test results proved normal. When I returned back to school, I awoke in the middle of the night feeling hot. I panicked, thought I had a fever and almost instantly made a connection between my physical symptoms and a disease. The next day the feeling continued and I could not stop worrying about it. I read a posting in one of my classrooms that talked about meningitis going around, and began to believe I had it. I rushed to the health center for the third time that month. Things like this have continued to happen, always in the same cycle. I have a physical symptom (cold hands, headache, nausea, chest pain, stomach pain, etc.) and immediatly associate these feelings with a disease. My most recent worry has been a brain tumor, or cancer. I have insomnia and was prescribed Alprazolam to help me sleep, but I continue to wake up in the middle of the night. I know I am still young and a healthy person, but I am everyday plagued by these constant worries. My family has been very supportive but do not really seem to understand. I have seen a mental health professional and just yesterday began to take Zoloft (the side effects also worry me extremely). I don't necessarily fear having another panic attack, but instead fear I am sick with some disease or deadly illness that has not been found. If anyone has similar experiences it would be a relief to hear about these things because I feel very alone with these problems. Thank you so much.
-AndreUIUC
