Hello all, I'm facing the exact issue with breathing, done all the test possible for lungs and heart, all results were normal. One doctor advised to do a sleep apnea test, and I did that as well and the result was that I had a mild sleep apnea. First thing tried a mouth appliance that moves the lower jaw forward, which I wear during sleep that helped reduce the attacks that I had.
However the doctors recommended I use a CPAP machine and it didn't help that much.
I realized that my issue is not related to sleep apnea and most probably it's related to some issue in my airways, as you all mentioned opening up my mouth to try to gasp for a breath made me think that I'm opening my mouth to expand some part of the airways. Which helps with getting a larger quantity of air into the lungs.
The lung function tests won't show any issues in the airways because the test is done through mouth breathing and the mouth has to be open wide.
To dig deeper into my issue as most of the doctors started saying that it's a mental issue related to stress or anxiety which similar to most of the replies here I didn't believe in.
I bought a smart watch that monitors my oxygen levels during the day. And noticed that my oxygen levels were dropping more during the day than while sleeping.
Because I'm using the mouth appliance during sleep and it's expanding my airways that's why my oxygen levels during sleep are much better.
During the day I don't have the mouth appliance on and oxygen drops below 90%
The plan now is to start new tests bronchoscopy most likely to check all airways and lungs. I will keep everyone posted once I do the tests and their results.
If this test shows that everything is fine I will do another test which is to check if I have pulmonary embolism, even though I don't cough at all