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Mysterious shortness of breath: What has helped you?
Lung Health | Last Active: 4 days ago | Replies (3422)Comment receiving replies
Hello,
This sounds just like what I experience. I came across this while doing a search on constant need to yawn, as mine has recently flared up again.
Seven years ago, i began having weird breathing feelings. At first, holding my breaths for a few seconds seemed to get things back on track. It wasn’t long, however, before o was constantly feeling like I needed to yawn, or take a deep breath. Sometimes that deep breath would satisfy for a few minutes while other times it just didn’t feel like enough. In the beginning, I also experienced a lot of hyperventilation, tingling, dizziness. I believe that was all do to getting scared by the breathing. I went to DRs for a few years trying to figure it out, only to be told that I was making it up.
It was terrible for several months. I couldn’t sleep, or do many activities I normally would. Slowly, the constant need to yawn and breath deeply settled down, only bothering me once and a while. I had a couple of flare ups, but for the most part was fine. I began to realize that for me, if I thought about it to much, it would get worse. I found that if my mind was completely focused on something else it would be gone until I thought about it again. I was combined the issue was completely in my head; now I’m not so sure.
After about five years of only having minor encounters with this issue, it has returned almost as strong as in the beginning. It came back a month ago when I had a cold and hasn’t since left. It still gets better when my mind is focused on something else, but it never completely goes away. Do you find that it gets better for you when you are focused on something else? Do you wake up breathing normally, or is this present the moment you awake?
This has been driving me so crazy lately. Please let me know if you find anything that offers relief.
-Emma
Replies to "Hello, This sounds just like what I experience. I came across this while doing a search..."
Hi, I’m 16 yrs old and have been experiencing shortness of breath off and on some days it’s better then others, but yes, it seems that when I am busy and not thinking about it as much it seems to kinda disappear but as soon as I start worrying about it it gets worse, and sometimes I experience dizziness, but I feel like I make it worse by worrying about it. I know I have allergies, asthma, GERD, and acid reflux, but I’ve never mentioned shortness of breath to my doctor, so I’m really wondering if it’s something I should be worried about and mention. I’ve been taking my omeprazole for almost 14 days now but I’m still experiencing it.
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Hi @emmylou89. Sorry that you have been going through this. I know how you feel! There was a time when it was so bad for me that it was impossible to get my mind off it. In fact, I had panic attacks it go so bad. It has since improved a lot, but I still have the need to get a deep breath every few minutes and I still can't fully exercise. But I think you might find benefit in doing the Buteyko Breathing method; it helped me in the beginning. Then you need to keep up with doing moderate exercise multiple times a week and keep that up, since exercise (when done with the correct breathing technique- basically only breathing through your nose) builds up CO2 which helps with breathing. Look in the previous comments to see the link to where you can learn this method. Do keep us updated on how everything goes and how you are doing. If you find a solution, let us know so everyone here can explore these solutions for their own individual breathing problem.