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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. I’ve been experiencing SOB for a year now. It’s consoling to hear others going through this. My SOB is daily, occurring randomly throughout the day. It feels more like an inability to take a satisfying deep breath. If I yawn, it will abruptly cut off at about 80% of the full yawn. My inhale is more labored than my exhale. And it feels like a heavy weight is in my upper chest, below the bottom of my throat. That said I still run 4-6 miles daily and while the symptoms are present, I still run at the same pace as before.
I had a full cardio and pulmonary workup. Lung CT, pulmonary function tests, MRI of heart, etc. I check out completely healthy. My doctors just assume it will go away or it is anxiety, but I have no anxiety in my life.
It’s been a full year and it hasn’t gotten better or worse. It’s the same. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
I do have a mild hiatal hernia and also have some post nasal drip. I am wondering if it could be LPR, which I found by googling. I may see an ENT.
Anyway I can’t live like this, so I’m hoping to get an accurate diagnosis, but don’t know where to turn.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Replies to "Hi. I’ve been experiencing SOB for a year now. It’s consoling to hear others going through..."
Hi @phinbar21, I'm sorry you've been experiencing this breathing issue. But I'm glad you found this forum and as you can see, there are many people who are experiencing the same symptoms. So you're definitely not alone! I know what you mean about feeling like your lungs are empty and can't fill them. We've termed that "air hunger" vs the SOB which would be more like labored or heavy breathing due to certain conditions like asthma, COPD, or just exercising.
Have you thought about cutting back or cutting down the frequency of running? When this all began for me, I would still run and it would seems to help but I've since only been running (which is really a light jog) just as much as my breathing can handle without pushing too hard.
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Understand … I went almost tens years with being short of breath upon minimal exertion but had nothing wrong with me until finally my husband suggested the doctors check my spine. An X-ray showed that I had a herniated disc at C5/6. I have also experience md the breathing problem that is discussed here and it was a little worse after surgery and somewhat better now but still occurs and I’m wondering if there’s another pinched nerve. Like everyone here, I was healthy and worked out at the gym previously. Just a thought for you and others