quick question on shortness of breath

[tonyad]

Hello Frienda,

I am curious as to why so many people with MS get short of breath so easily?
I used to be so active working out, swimming, hiking, dancing......but now I get
short of breath just going from car in to store. It makes me feel like crap!


Just wondering how and why the breathing is affected like it is. ....( for me anyhow), part
of it is because of lack of doing things I used to to keep my endurance up due to the fatigue
and other crap we deal with???

Just thinking out loud. Trying to learn more and more and take in all I can since my dx a few weeks ago.
Have a safe weekend.
~Tonya

[essdipity]

Oh, here's the citation if anyone wants to read further--

http://health.yahoo.com/respiratory-diagnosis/lung-function-tests/healthwise--hw5022.html

ess

[essdipity]

Yahoo's heath section offers some cleary written and understandable descriptions of pulmonary function tests and what they show. When there are abnormalites, these fit into one of two categories, obstructive problems and restrictive problems. The obstructive category includes asthma, COPD, etc. As to restrictive, here is a quote:
=========

In restrictive lung conditions, there is a loss of lung tissue, a decrease in the lungs' ability to expand, or a decrease in the lungs' ability to transfer oxygen to the blood (or carbon dioxide out of the blood). Restrictive lung disease can be caused by conditions such as pneumonia, lung cancer, scleroderma, pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, or multiple sclerosis. Other restrictive conditions include some chest injuries, being very overweight (obesity), pregnancy, and loss of lung tissue due to surge

===========

I have very poor diffusion (transfer of oxygen from lungs to blood). I have not been told that MS is related to this, nor have I been told that diffusion level and shortness of breath upon exertion (me, big time)  is caused by poor diffusion. I haven't been told these things aren't related either, since it's very hard to get an opinion out of them. Instead I get shilly-shallying about my being out of shape. But why? Could that be because it's so hard to exert?

All this is maddening, isn't it?

ess

[Lulu54]

As far as trying to learn more and more about MS - good for you.  Take it a bit at a time - there are so many different things to understand about the MiSerable disease and it is especially difficult to process because no two MS patients present the same way.

Don't overwhelm yourself - you have a lifetime to learn more .... That's a good fact to know too ... we will live basically as long as people without MS.  

There are so many variations of this disease it makes my head spin.

Lu

[Lulu54]

hi there, so sorry you didn't get some answers earlier to your question.  This is an ongoing debate - what is really causing our shortness of breath?  Is it related to our disease or is it a symptom from our lack of exercise like you noted?

I found a good page on this question at ms.about.com/od/signssymptoms/a/respiratory_gen.htm

if this gets zapped I will send it to you in a pm.

Its a common problem - they say some studies show over 30% of MS patients have breathing problems.

be well,
Lulu

[tonyad]

A gentle "bump" please   :)