Pain while breathing after waking

[ehrmann21]

I am a woman 24 years of age.  Starting in my late teens, I started having sharp pain when breathing after waking.  I noticed that it was only when I had a very deep sleep.  I have always been a deep sleeper, meaning not waking up during the night, so its strange that this started in my late teens.  I am not concerned about my condition, and don't think its a disorder.  I believe it could be pain from my ribs expanding after waking, and/or its pain from my lungs expanding from me taking deeper breaths.  I often get 10 hours of sleep a night, and when I have that along with being a deep sleeper, I tend to wake up with sharp pain when inhaling.   I beleive my heart rate drops very low when I sleep, causing me to only inhale very small amounts of oxygen, therefore during the night my lungs / ribs would not expand at their maximum, and if this goes on for hours, it could cause pain when waking, because I would be taking deeper breaths, making my lungs/ribs expanded more.   This pain can last a minimum of 30 min up to 2 hours.  But after I wake, the pain is reduced after each breath I take.  When I first wake up with this pain, I would measure it a 7 out of 10.  This is very common for me these days, I would say It happens 4 days out of the week.   This condition only happens when I sleep long periods of time, 9 + hours, and have a deep sleep.  Im just curious if this condition has a name.  Other than waking, I do not feel this pain at all during the day.

[National Jewish Health]

This sounds very much like muscular ribcage pain, as opposed to lung pain.  It has no specific name and is not a disease, but may well be related to deep sleep accompanied by shallow breathing.  This, in turn, may be related to the position in which you sleep.  You might want to try a variety of positions, altered by pillow placement.

It is very unlikely that this pain is an indication of any serious disease, since it has occurred for many years.  If this ever worsens, you might want to get a formal sleep study, in a hospital sleep lab.  If this is related to shallow breathing, the use of a positive pressure breathing mask that would keep your chest expanded, might be helpful.

[Amanda_S]

I am 22 years old and I have had the same problem.  This is very new to me.  I am 22 years old and the past 3 months its very common for me to wake up in alot of pain when I breath.  I went and saw the doctor and he had me take an O2 test.  They send you home and text your oxygen while you sleep.  The doctor said my O2 levels droped to 85% so they think it maybe sleep apnea.  You may want to go ask your doctor if he thinks theres a chance of that.