A STUDENT who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis aged just 19 has told how the fear of telling his friends led him to suffer panic attacks.

Peter Rooney, from East Kilbride, only discovered he had MS by chance after he was hit by a car and admitted to hospital.

The quantity surveying student is speaking out about his own experience as new research reveals that an estimated one in five people now diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder each year are under 30.

Previous estimates had put the figure at just 12 per cent.

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Mr Rooney, now 24 and in his final year of study at Glasgow Caledonian University, was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS in September 2016 following weeks of tests and consultations.

He said: “When I was first told I had MS I was just totally taken aback – I didn’t think it was real. I didn’t believe what was happening to me and I didn’t want to believe.

“Christmas time when I was first diagnosed was really bad. At that point I’d dropped out of college and I still hadn’t told the majority of my pals.

"Only a select few of my friends knew about it and at the point I was still being a bit wary of them.

"I hated the idea of them feeling sorry for me, of me not being the same Peter that they knew before, and it all hit me.

“I was going to Amsterdam and I had a really bad panic attack the night before. I didn’t have anything packed, I didn’t know where my passport was and I think all the previous tensions of not being able to tell my pals and the fact that I was unwell caused me to break down.

“It was the first time I’d ever really been emotional that my life had been turned upside down.”

In Scotland, around 137 (19.2%) of the 710 MS diagnoses annually between 2012 and 2017 occurred in people aged 30 and under, compared to 18% for the UK as a whole.

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The findings have emerged in a study by the MS Society and Public Health England.

Scotland has one of the highest rates of MS in the world.

Factors such as lack of vitamin D, smoking, genetics, and geography are thought to play a part, with rates of the disease higher in areas farther from the equator.

Prevalence is also twice as high in Orkney than in Dumfries and Galloway.

MS is caused when the immune system attacks myelin, the fatty coating that protects nerve fibres, resulting in inflammation and injury which gradually impedes motor function.

It is highly unpredictable and, when diagnosed, no one knows how their MS will develop, or how disabled they may become.

Approximately 85% of people with MS are diagnosed with the relapsing form, where symptoms come in sudden attacks and then fade.

Two in three of these patients will go on to develop secondary progressive MS, meaning they become increasingly disabled with no periods of remission.

A smaller number of people are diagnosed with primary progressive MS, where symptoms gradually worsen from the outset.

Many still have no treatments available to slow or alleviate disability as the condition advances.

READ MORE: Multiple sclerosis map of Scotland shows Orkney still has highest prevalence

There are 15,000 people living with MS in the Scotland and around 7000 new diagnoses each year across the UK as a whole.

Mr Rooney is one of 30 under 30s living with MS in the UK who are backing the MS Society’s 'Stop MS Appeal', which is seeking to raise £100 million to fund research into new MS treatments.

By 2025, the charity hopes to be in the final stages of testing a range of treatments for everyone with MS.

Mr Rooney said he hopes to still be fit and healthy in five years' time, and has ambitions to work abroad in Australia or New Zealand following his degree and eventually to have a family of his own.

He said: “The idea of my MS progressing would be shattering. I know that a lot of solid work is going on in the background so I would have the hope, but in the back of my mind it would be terrible to know that all the hard work that’s been put in has just gone.

“I meet up with my doctor every eight months and go through results and discuss what the options could be if things change so I don’t think I’ll ever be in that dark place that I was in when I was diagnosed.”

Morna Simpkins, director of the MS Society in Scotland, said: “Today, most people will first experience MS symptoms in their 20s and 30s, when they’re working on their career, or perhaps thinking about starting a family.

"The condition is unpredictable and different for everyone, and that can make it hard to plan for the future.

“There are now over a dozen licensed treatments for people with the relapsing form of MS, and some emerging for early active progressive MS – but there is nothing to stop you becoming more disabled as your condition advances.

"Thankfully, we have never been closer to stopping MS, and with the discoveries being made right now, we believe treatments that slow or stop disability progression are a very real prospect.”