After about a week I ended up in the hospital with a severe panic attack. I felt as though my heart was skipping beats, I could not breath, like my throat was swelling, and me entire body ached with an unimaginable pain.

The doctors in the hospital told me I must be anxious about school. Never in my life prior to this had I ever had an incident of any mental health problems. I was never anxious, never panicked, was extremely together and level-headed.

I went home and several hours later had to be taken back to the hospital with my symptoms ten times worse. My father, across the country, was worried and called his cousin who is a doctor. He fortunately asked what medications I was taking, did his own research, and discovered my symptoms were likely due to the strong dosage of CIPRO. My father contacted the ER doctor, who told my father that this was impossible. My father's cousin, in turn, called the ER and insisted that I be taken off of the CIPRO.

Ever since this incident I have had sever anxiety problems. I experience terrible panic attacks. No doctor would ever tell me that CIPRO could possibly have anything to do with this. To this day, I lie to doctors when i get UTI's, and tell them I get hives when I take CIPRO, because this seems to be the only way to get them to stop trying to make me take it.

I was convinced to try again a year ago, and two hours after the first dose I again thought I was having a heart attack. My mother recently read an article about the adverse effects of this drug, which lead me to do my own research.

I believe that drug companies are pushing this unsafe drug to doctors. I was given free samples of CIPRO!!!!!

My life has been changed by this experience. I was studying archaeology, and had dreams to live and study in the Middle East. My anxiety has kept me from doing this, because I fear being away from good medical care if my symptoms were to return.