@gabrielm First of all I just want to say thank you for starting this thread, I suffer from this air hunger or something like it for almost ten years now and sometimes I just feel so alone and it’s hopeless. @tisch im right there with you.

So, my specific issue is the feeling that about every minute or so I take this huge chest breath that feels like it’s barely getting over this “hump” followed by shorter breaths. A never ending and definitely un natural cycle. I identify with sooooo many of your guys symptoms, but one symptom I have that I can’t really find anyone else with is I CANT TALK WITHOUT LOSING MY BREATH. Literally 90% of the time I speak I run out of breath before I can finish, and I don’t mean I feel like I’m running out breath, I mean I literally do. Anxiety or no anxiety, reading to myself at home or speaking to a stranger. Always, no matter what.

I can run for miles though. Strange, right? It has gotten less dominant over the years and at least it’s manageable, there were months where I wouldn’t even get out of bed because living out the whole day with every breath uncomfortable was too much. I’m 26 by the way. I have seen doctors for anxiety meds, pulmonary tests, speech therapy where they even looked at my vocal cord for dysfunction, asthma inhalers - absolutely nothing!

Whenever I take that deep chest breath, it physically feels so good, like a shot of relief of cool air creeping into my lungs. But I know it’s not natural. I know I shouldn’t be feeling that. My next step is to see a breathing specialist that takes all factors into account so I can keep checking them off the list. I don’t even expect to find a cure to this at this point, but I gotta keep trying just in case.

Thank you for reading this whoever does. I will read what you write to and I sympathize with your problems. Y’all aren’t alone. This shit sucks! I just want to breathe normal!!!!