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Mysterious shortness of breath: What has helped you?
Lung Health | Last Active: 6 days ago | Replies (3422)Comment receiving replies
@dcasta1, your situation sounds like mine from years ago when my breathing issue first came about. The panic attacks are definitely not fun. There were times it was bad and it triggered the feeling of panic so I had to learn how to calm down and deal with those.
I'm glad you were able to learn some things to keep the panic at bay. Have you looked into breathing exercises? As were a lurker in this thread, were you able to read about any breathing methods mentioned here? The one I always recommend is the Buteyko breathing method. There are a few people who teach it, but out of everything I've done, this breathing method is what helped me the most. It helped the air hunger go away completely for a couple of years early on when mine first came up, but I still use it today to keep the air hunger at bay. I especially learned "rescue exercises" which helped if I felt a panic attack coming on.
I've been able to do physical exercise which has also helped with the breathing greatly. Are you involved in any sort of exercise routine?
You mentioned about a possible link between your diet and air hunger symptoms. Sometimes eating a lot of food or eating heavier foods can cause some interference with the diaphragm, which could exacerbate the underlying air hunger. It does the same thing for me; if I eat too much I find it more difficult to breathe, so early on when I was looking for ways to manage symptoms I would eat smaller meals spread throughout the day or fast for hours in the day or a few days. That seemed to help me a bit.
Replies to "@dcasta1, your situation sounds like mine from years ago when my breathing issue first came about...."
I tried some breathing exercises I learned through the Calm app, but I did not feel that it helped me much. Regarding exercise, I used to do some light jogging for 30 minutes 3 times a week, however, I stopped after my second panic attack. I was so scared of having another panic attack that I stopped doing anything that would trigger my symptoms. I don't have any exercise routine at the moment.
Symptoms Update: I have been doing the colon cleanse for 5 days now. I also read a bit about the LNB and I'm not sure what has helped me the most.
Day 2 of the colon cleanse, I was still having the symptoms at a 75%. Meaning I was still having the urge to take a deep breath a least once every 1 to 2 hours and not being able to complete the deep breath at least 1/3 of the time. I did change the colon cleanse from taking the supplements to taking Olive oil and Lime on day 4.
I started to look into LNB the night of Day 2. I noticed the following.
- When I'm dealing with the symptom, I noticed that my stomach is sucked in. Kind of like flexing my stomach to not look fat. I was not aware of me doing this until I paid attention to my body.
- I try to take a deep breath with my chest and 1/3 of the time I'm not able to. Things that stood out are that I try to push my chest forward/upward and move my chin up trying to get that last piece of breath.
I'm currently doing the following after noticing the above.
1. Relax my stomach when I start to get the feeling of taking a deep breath. It gets a bit hard because at this point I switch to manual breathing since I focus on my breathing too much. So, I need to make sure I breathe slowly and through my stomach.
2. Take a deep breath with my stomach instead of my chest.
I would say that the symptoms are at a 95% controlled. The feeling sometimes goes away by just relaxing my stomach muscles and breathing slowly. If the feeling does not go away, then I'm able to take a deep breath 100% of the time by using my stomach instead of my chest. I'm giving it a 95% because I still get the feeling every few hours.
One thing that stands out is that the feeling of taking a deep breath feels different when I do it with my stomach than my chest. When taking a deep breath with my chest, I seem to breathe in until I feel some sensation in my chest that would indicate that the deep breath is completed, it's hard to describe the feeling. however, when I take a deep breath with my stomach, the deep breath is short, but fulfilling. More like a sigh rather than a yawn. Not sure if that makes sense.
I'm going to complete the 15-day cleanse and continue breathing through my stomach. I will update you guys in a few days.
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I recall growing up that one was not to go swimming for an hour after eating....and I now do not exercise for an hour after eating. I have noticed more difficult if I do not wait.
Digestion requires support and that takes away from demand muscles have