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Mysterious shortness of breath: What has helped you?
Lung Health | Last Active: 7 hours ago | Replies (3356)Comment receiving replies
Hello Gabe, I stumbled upon your post and find myself in a similar situation.
- Cardiac evaluation shows a normal heart ( I did have some PVC's but they 're gone).
- Pulmonary assessment indicates normal lung function
- Blood tests reveal mostly normal results, albeit consistently on the lower edge of hemoglobin, suggesting mild anemia
My shortness of breath (SOB/Air hunger) lacks a discernible pattern, except for exacerbations in dry air and sometimes stuffy humid conditions. During the day when I don't think about it it's not very noticeable but during sleep some I am often in a dreamy shallow sleep because of it. I know because when it's not there I sleep much more deeply and comfortably.
Intriguingly, my passion for running remains largely unaffected, except during high-intensity speed work (track workouts), where I notice an impact on my breathing.
While acknowledging my anxiety, which may contribute to the issue, the persistence of symptoms prompts further exploration. On occasion, I resort to using an asthma inhaler at night, despite lacking a formal asthma diagnosis and there's a subtle improvement, leading me to speculate that it might be related to airway relaxation.
I find myself at a crossroads, grappling with the uncertainty of whether this is simply a part of who we are or if there's an underlying and treatable cause. Your insights would be greatly appreciated. Please share your thoughts and experiences.
Replies to "Hello Gabe, I stumbled upon your post and find myself in a similar situation. - Cardiac..."
Please read my other posts, I’ve helped people like you get off this health anxiety I’m a one in a million case forum. It is anxiety. Anxiety isn’t all in the mind the body reacts to its reaction. You have sob/air hunger rn your body is scared of it it thinks it need to be rid of it needs to fix it so it pumps more stress around your body and causes more of the symptom. How to fix? Acceptance therapy. DARE, Shaan kassam, Claire weekes are few of names that teach it. You have felt this less when you got busy with life when you stopped trying to stop it stopped trying to not feel it. When you forgot all about it. I reached rock bottom couldn’t leave the house for six months and now I’m a better person than I was before I had the symptoms. I had zero mental anxiety at that time so I too was so unconvinced of anxiety diagnosis I was told many times while I wanted to find a physical reason.
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Hi @whoami, thank you for sharing your situation. I hope you know through this forum that you're definitely not alone!
And thank you for providing this information. I'm glad you went through some tests to start eliminating things that could be causing it. You mention about slight improvements when you use an inhaler. Your lung function test came back normal, though I'm not sure if it would catch the possibility of occasional or sports-induced asthma. That could possibly explain the improvement when using an inhaler.
Have you tried reducing the intensity if your running for a time, just to see how that might affect your breathing overall? I definitely had to play around with the intensity of my own exercise until I found a "sweet spot" where I wasn't pushing my breathing too hard, but it was meaningful exercise.
Also, have you done or considered getting a sleep study done?
By the way, I too had mild anemia in my bloodwork back over a decade ago, which I think has since resolved, but at that time I seemed to be lacking in some nutrients. I'm not sure if that played a part in breathing symptoms, but I am speculating that lacking certain nutrients can affect the ability of the body to transport oxygen regularly.