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Mysterious shortness of breath: What has helped you?
Lung Health | Last Active: 5 days ago | Replies (3422)Comment receiving replies
This is an interesting concept. Did you just resist the urge to take a deep breath even though you wanted to and feel the SOB and eventually it became normal again? @tonyagregg- did you have a stressful event prior to the supposed "tick" of starting? I read about something else posted earlier about sighing dyspnea which sounds like it could overlap with an OCD related type of behavior. In sighing dyspnea, a stressful event/time usually precedes the episodes in which the patient suddenly feels as though they cannot breathe. It is not a panic attack. A panic attack is acute and as we know our SOB is not an acute event it is more chronic (As is the condition I am describing, sighing dyspnea). I wonder if somehow my CO2 levels are all out of whack because I have been been struggling to take deep breaths for over a month now.
I went on a run yesterday and my breathing was fine even though it was 86 degrees and humid. However, this morning and last night (as I was up 3 times in night nursing a baby) my breathing is bad again. In stillness I notice I have to take deep breaths that can't be satisfied. The fact that I am able to go on a run might signify that there is no physical pathology going on? Anyone else okay during exercise but not good at night or other times? I do also feel a tightness in my chest which confuses the issue for me--reinforcing my anxiety that in fact there is some (terrible) underlying disease. For reference, I am a 41 year old woman (full time working mom of three young kids...so sleep deprived and with plenty of stress to go around).
Replies to "This is an interesting concept. Did you just resist the urge to take a deep breath..."
Oh and my apologies if I already asked you this, sometimes these threads crossover and I forget.
@nycmom yes I just resisted the urge to take a deep breath and it eventually went away. Although it was not easy I kept reminding myself I was getting the oxygen I needed. Not sure if you have read my story, but this feeling of my need to take a deep breath started back in November when I got a treadmill and started running. I was 43 at the time. As far as running I felt good doing so it would be later on that evening that i would feel the need to take a deep breath. I did not feel stressed out or worried about anything, so i dont know why it started. After many test to make sure it was no major organ causing this, I kept talking it over with a doctor friend of mine and he was the one thst mention a tick. I am a mother of 3 and maybe subconsciously I was stressed, but didnt realize it. To be honest before I decided to resist the urge I would sometimes get worked up trying to get that deep satisfying breath and it would make it worse. I am still running and every now and then I feel the urge to sigh or breath deep and I resist it and dont even worry about it anymore. I hope this helps.
@nycmom Back when the SOB first started back on 2012, I also did the best I could to resist taking a deep breath. This, combined with breathing exercises and only breathing through my nose, made the SOB go away for a good year. But for whatever reason it came back. So I think CO2 levels has something to do with it and for whatever reason, breathing gets out of sorts. Mine has been present consistently for a couple of years, but this time it persists no matter what I do, though I have been able to manage it to a tolerable level using breathing exercises. But I'm going to try to resist taking a deep breath as much as I can and maybe over time I'll get out of the habit of taking deep breaths even when I don't really need to.
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My issues started right after I was running...got too overexerted. The doctors don't seem to think there is a link, but I keep having to remind them the last time I got that overexerted I ended up collapsing. In my case though they thought they saw pericarditis on my ultrasound stress test, they also told me they saw pericardial effusion, pleural effusion, and atelectasis. Did they test you for anything like pericarditis? For you does it feel like your chest almost closes up and you can't get a deep breath down?