I would like to tell my story with SOB, but I will have a hard time doing it in English. Anyway, I'll try to do my best (with the invaluable help of Google Translator).
I feel very identified with most of you. I started with the need to sigh, take a deep breath and yawn in January 2021. Sometimes I couldn't complete a satisfactory breath, or I couldn't yawn no matter how many times I tried. Also, I had a strange feeling in my chest, as if something were squeezing me and preventing me from breathing. I even lost the strength in my voice. I went to the hospital urgently and my cardiologist (I had a small heart attack in 2015) got scared and did all kinds of tests (echocardiogram, ECG, stress tests, etc.) which, just like you, gave normal results. So I went to a Pneumologist, who ordered a spirometry and a high-resolution CT scan. The spirometry was normal and CT indicated a very very mild emphysema (as a result of smoking in my youth). He told me that it was practically imperceptible and that it would not progress if I continued without smoking and that, of course, this emphysema was so slight that it could not give me any symptoms.
And here I am, having bad days and worser days, suffering panic attacks when the days are very bad because it really is very distressing.
I have gone through all the paths that many of you have gone through (I have a hiatal hernia and GERD diagnosed by a Gastroenterologist). I have taken psychiatric treatments and therapy with psychologists. Nothing has worked so far.
Sleeping is the only thing I've noticed that works. In the morning I wake up breathing freely. But as the hours go by, everything returns. Sometimes, as soon as I get out of bed, other times it starts hours later. But always, always, the worst comes in the evening and at night: tightness in the chest, yawning, sighs,... always very frustrating.
And here is my testimony. I don't know what else to say, except that if I have any news, I'll let you know.
Thank you very much for reading me. I hope that I have been understood (I do not know if what I have written will have been translated ok). Please, if there is something you don’t understand, feel free to ask me.