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Mysterious shortness of breath: What has helped you?
Lung Health | Last Active: Oct 23 10:20am | Replies (3405)Comment receiving replies
Hi all! I have just finished reading this whole thread. I also have all of these exact symptoms. I am a 20 year old female who is healthy and I also play college soccer and am about to return to school. So this situation is very scary for me. I started noticing this "air hunger" on June 28, so I've had it for about 6 weeks. I first noticed this happening while I was on my cruise trip and we were in Puerto Rico. We went snorkeling that day and a little bit after that I noticed this breathing thing occurring. I have to "fight" to get a breath, I crave that deep satisfying breath, I can only sometimes get that deep breath, I normally try to get the deep breath through my mouth (I don't know why but it makes it easier it seems), I also have chest/heart pain that is on my left side and makes me want to try to massage my heart, I have had a fast heart rate from this which I think is just caused by anxiety bc of not being able to breathe right. I have had all bloodwork done and everything seems fine. I have had a lot of heart exams done as well. I wore a heart monitor for 2 weeks and everything seems fine. I have an average heart rate of 90 which is higher than it used to be. I have a feeling I'm dealing with some anxiety because of these symptoms, but I don't believe it is causing it. I have not seen a pulmonologist, ENT, or GI. My doctors all are trying to write this off as I know most of you have experienced also. They are trying to pin it on stress and anxiety of course. I was prescribed lexapro which is an anti-depressant and anxiety medication. I am very hesitant to try it as messing with my neurotransmitters scares me a lot and I don't believe this will fix the problem. I also have a therapy appointment in a few weeks. Have any of you tried anxiety medication or therapy to help this? I am wondering if it is mainly a mental thing as all of us have gone through so many examinations and all come back normal. Let's please keep this forum going, so we can maybe solve this!! Please give me any advice 🙂
Replies to "Hi all! I have just finished reading this whole thread. I also have all of these..."
Hello, @oliviah9. oliviah9
I hope by now they have figured out the cause of your symptoms. Please update if you can. I had developed shortness of breath and chest pain and was told it was anxiety. Three weeks later I was rushed to the hospital with massive pulmonary emboli. As you had gone diving, you may have developed something in your lungs or the long trip may have caused a DVT that has broken up and moved towards your heart and lungs. My heart rate had increased, which was normally 60 or less, but they didn’t attribute anything to the heart rate that increased over 100. I did end up developing anxiety, as I had struggled so badly to breathe. Medicine may help anxiety, but I found the best thing was to practice various techniques that I learned from my PTSD specialist. Most of it is just a form of distracting you from the moment that is causing you anxiety. Some of the strategies are to close your eyes and think of some place that is relaxing and then start gong through a process telling yourself that you can feel your shoulders relaxing, your arms, etc all the way to your toes. Then focus on your heart beat and breathing, still picturing that relaxing environment. Sometimes you can’t sit still and close your eyes to go through the entire process, so a quick distracting technique is to look for a certain number of visuals things, smells, sounds, etc. You can also count in your head and take breaths as you do it. I’ll count 1-2-3 and take a breath and hold then breath out at the same 1-2-3 rate. It helps control my breathing so I don’t hyperventilate and panic. I don’t like how medicines make me feel, but sometimes they are helpful during rough times when nothing else works.
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I would also like to know because I to have the same problem