Hi @ljmontgo, and welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. Those of us on Connect are not medical professionals so we can’t diagnose conditions. However it is a place to learn from shared experiences and insights.
It looks like you’re not alone in having these intermittent breaths. I did a little research online as well and found a few links to sites with people asking the same question...but not really answers.
Like you, the patients are concerned about the breathing, but it appears it’s not a serious medical issue and more of an annoyance. However, looking through them I did notice that the onset of the symptom usually, but not in all cases, began some period after an event, such as surgery, periods of stress, impact to the chest, a cold, influenza, asthma, sleep apnea...the list goes on...
Do you remember anything taking place before your symptoms began?
For your peace of mind, it might be worth a trip to your physician to make sure there’s no discernible cause.
Here’s one of the links I found, though the entries are quite dated. See if these stories sound familiar. Hopefully we’ll get some community members responding who may have had similar experiences as yours.
https://www.medhelp.org/posts/Respiratory-Disorders/Strange-Involuntary-Breath/show/14555
Thank you very much. I didn’t have any obvious precipitating lung related event but recent blood test keep showing below average blood sodium levels. At one point I felt so weak that it was a struggle to get to a sitting position after lying in bed. Of late I have been adding salt tablets but the breathing issue hasn’t stopped yet. I have some other blood work that’s still outstanding. I will update when the results are in but these episodes happen hours apart so it’s hard to figure out what is the trigger.