Shortness of Breath

[mwarnerx]

I (Smoker, 45, normal health) recently had an episode lasting around 10 days of feeling like I was intermittently deprived oxygen.  This would come and go. Shortness of Breath, chest pain, lightheaded/tunnel vision, some tingling in my arms. Mornings started out OK and then around late morning/noon -- It would start.  I would stand walk and breath deeper and this would seem to alleviate the situation a bit.  Now after 10 days I'm feeling much better -- almost back to normal other than some pain around the left pectoral area.  Doc checked me out said all looked OK and I should reduce my Caffeine intake (not more port of coffee each morning). I had a similar situation summer of 2003 - Lasted around 10 days off and on then went away.  Doc said ocular migraines back then.

The one thing common to both these periods are that a week before these symptoms started -- We replaced the Carpet in a few rooms in our house. When we removed the carpet, the floors were pretty dirty with left over home construction residue (dirt, dust, dried spots of spackling compound).  I scraped, swept and vacuumed those floors to clean them prior to having the new carpet installed.  House was built in 1997 (so I don't think asbestos oriented).

Is there something that I could have inhaled that would cause these symptoms for about two weeks?  I almost feel like I inhaled all this dirt and spackle dust and it turned to a glue-like substance in my lungs and took a couple of weeks to clear.  Medically Logical? Temporary or a sign of permanent conditions to come?

[mwarnerx]

No I have never taken those medications. I tend to stay away from them. I am a migraine sufferer as well and only take advil/aspirin when conditions arise.

[horsealex]

Please, if you would, please let me know if you took any of the named medication. I almost died of a breathing attack myself and the only thing I did was taking prescibed pain medication...
You can email me directly to ***@****

[National Jewish]

It is very hard to determine the exact cause of what you are describing and whether you will have this again.  It is very possible that you had an exposure to some chemical in the carpeting process, such as fibers, glue, etc.  This could have caused some of your symptoms, as well as a high exposure to dust or molds.  Any of these things could give you some problems that are exposure-related and therefore temporary.

One easy issue to deal with is the smoking.  Undoubtedly, exposures to the respiratory track are magnified by the damage caused by smoking.  Cigarette smoke heightens the inflammatory process and will make irritant effects much worse.  Of course, all the other issues with smoke from lung and heart disease, as well as the heightened risk for cancer, certainly apply to all smokers.

Good advice would be to not be the person to remove the carpet again and stop smoking.

[horsealex]

Did you at any point take for pain: VICODIN, OXY-CONTIN, HYDROCODONE, PERCOCET, MORPHINE,

[Inanga]

the symptoms sound like classic hyperventillation syndrome. You feel like your short n oxygen so breathe harder and bigger but you get more oxygen whcih can cause the diziness, tingling, tunnel vision, chest paind (from over infaltion). The answer for that is to breathe SLOW and LOW - using the diaphragm properly rather than the chest. After breathing out rest for a second or 2 before brething in. This allow the O2 and CO2 levels to normalise. If you don't break the cycle of breathing harder and harder you can get into a panic attack where you feel you can't get a breath. you over inflate you chest to get more air but that somhow registers as not getting a breath. I've been through all of the above, and also found a food allergy affected my stomach (bloating) which caused resisatance to the diaphragm breathe. The allergy also caused mucous in my upper respiritory area which made it difficult to breathe through my nose. This felt like I was stuggling to breathe but mouth breathing was still easy. Mouth breathing encourages chest breathing though. I avoid soy/wheat/gluten and this problem has gone and I have no problem diaphragm breathing now.

I wonder if you had some allergic reaction to something in the dust which triggered something like my case? learning to avoid the allergies and diaphragm breathe were the 2 biggest steps forward for me.  best of luck