Teen with anxiety

Hi Ryan,

There is always a very small chance that there is some other problem, which almost everyone with anxiety feels, which makes the anxiety worse, even if we try not to think about it. You'll get the common advice to see a doctor and make sure you are fine, which seems to be what you did already...however it's always in the back of our minds that "was that enough?, did he/she miss something?, etc.). Although I am not a doctor, I did experience the same issues you have plus more as time went on, but in the end, after going to many doctors, er, and reading self help books, all came to one conclusion that I have anxiety/panic disorder and I have to first believe it and then decide what to do about it. I decided after years of suffering through it, to admit it to myself and believe that I am physically ok (meaning I don't have another problem which I always seemed to fear), and that I have to find a way to defeat it. For me it was to find the cause of it (if that was even possible to do). In my case I had a lot of symptoms, sometimes one or more, sometimes it would change, from tight chest feeling to difficulty breathing to left arm/jaw/back pain. To feeling jumpy, even had the feeling of paralysis and numbness. It started when I was 23, and I didn't figure it out till around 33. For me it was mainly two things...however the first and to me the main problem (what I couldn't control with talking with psych doctors or medicine), was my diet, what i was putting into my body...for me it was smoking, caffeine, artificial Sweeteners. I went cold turkey and stop all three at the same time (which I had terrible withdrawals for about 1-1/2 months!) , ate better, and exercised at least a little. That was it...and it worked by taking my panic/anxiety and pains away. The second part of my problem was not having control of situations occurring around me...which although made me stressed, doesn't put me into anxiety/panic anymore. I think it was because those mental things, although make me have anxiety, wouldn't ever manifest because I could now control it fairly easily because I could now...with the diet being the main problem. Sometimes I think that a lot of people have this disorder because their diet prevents them from fully conquering it with mental help for the mental side of it. I fooled myself for thinking that I was alright because I stopped smoking or caffeine, but I don't truly get better until I cut all of it out. Hope this helps, the only other thing that I think was making me have pains/anxiety was a gerd (acid reflux) and post nasal drip...which got better once I improved my diet and eating habits.