Hi all. I am a 20 year-old, active female, 5'4, ~100 pounds. I am a vegetarian and I eat very healthily. Unfortunately, I am a smoker, but I only smoke about 5 cigarettes a day and am trying to quit. I have a history of generalized anxiety and anorexia nervosa, but no physical illnesses to speak of.
Recently, I have been racked with extreme anxiety about my health. This began with an incident about a month ago where I was bitten by a stray cat and was terrified I had developed rabies. I had not, of course, but the shock of my own mortality has stuck with me and really thrown me for a loop. Then, about a week later, I was out with my friends and suddenly experienced a numbness/tingling in my lower jaw. It went away after drinking water, so I chalked it up to dehydration, but it was a significant scare. After that, I managed to convince myself variously that I was having a stroke, that I had throat/mouth cancer, lymphoma, and Lyme disease. Within the last week, my anxiety has been out of hand. I have been having episodes lasting 15-30 minutes in which I feel short of breath and as if my heart were pounding out of my chest. For the last 4-5 days, these episodes have been accompanied by sudden hot flashes, dry mouth, diarrhea, vision that is somehow "strange" (not blurred or obstructed, just a bit off), feeling not quite dizzy but off-balance, and the sensation of brain fog that makes me feel strangely absent but does not hinder my ability to read, talk, or write. The vision and feelings of absence sometimes linger past the attack itself. For the last 2 days, I have had a sensation of dull pressure (not painful, just unusual) that comes and goes under my left clavicle, about midway between the middle of my chest and my shoulder. I just went to the campus health center at my college today, where the doctor checked my heart with a stethoscope and assured me that everything seemed completely fine and healthy. I have been trying to ignore it; I even went to the gym and did a fairly strenuous workout to try to reassure myself. But I am absolutely terrified that I'm having a heart attack. My dad had a heart attack at 52, and I am terrified of it happening to me.