@gabrielm @tonyagregg @merpreb @chrisdh5
So much of what you are describing sounds all to familiar. Please keep me in the loop as well. I'm a 37 year old mother of 4. My constant fight to breathe is the only thing that gives me anxiety. Everything else that's been mentioned, I've been tested for. Had my lungs checked, oxygen level, blood work, allergen tests, Gerd, all of it. No one can tell me why I spend every day of my life fighting just to breathe. It's physically and emotionally exhausting. I've tried all the normal breathing exercises always mentioned online, except for the Buteyko method that @gabrielm mentioned, which of course I will be trying immediately. Usually by the end of the day, and sometimes earlier, I am crying to my husband, telling him how badly I just want to be able to breathe! I'll be ok for short periods of the day, but for the most part it's a struggle. A nightmare, really. Even meds my doctor told me to try for anxiety type stuff like clonzopam, Valium, ativan...some don't help at all, some have helped make it manageable for maybe a couple of weeks, 2-4 hours at a time (with the SOB still always right under the surface). The meds that helped a bit at first don't take long to lose their effect and I'm constantly finding myself back at square one. It effects my every day life, my ability to be the parent I want and need to be. This has been going on for about 18 years. As others have said, there is so rhyme or reason to it. No correlation with activity level, season, I'm not sitting around stressing all the time, working myself into a panic attack. I just for no apparent reason become extremely SOB, it feels as though oxygen is not getting into my lungs fully or that my breaths are insufficient...it's hard to describe unless you go through it, I'm sure you know. NOTHING helps, NO ONE can tell me what's causing this, and no one seems to have any ANSWERS. After struggling for whatever amount of time to breathe, and then finally getting a nice deep breath that actually feels satisfying to your lungs is SUCH a good feeling. But then it's gone. Does anyone have any updates? I'm desperate for answers and help. Maybe I should have made my username dyingtobreathe instead. Lol