Can't get a deep breath / Difficulty Breathing

[Baltmaa]

Hi - I've been having difficulty breathing for at least the last 9-10 years...and it's a daily thing.  I am 31 years old, am healthy (exercise almost daily, eat healthily, am not overweight, do not smoke, and only drink socially), and yet I always feel like my breathing is extremely laboured.  I constantly yawn to try to catch a satisfying breath.  There are some periods throughout the day where it's not laboured and I feel as if I breathe normally, but then it creeps up on me and I have to start yawning again.  My nose feels very clogged all the time and my chest, stomach, and back muscles feel very constricted when breathing.  It's especially noticeable when I am working out...especially running and lifting weights.  I have to stop every once in a while just to yawn (frustrating) to stop from getting dizzy.  It's also noticeable as I am trying to go to sleep and/or when I've had a glass or 2 of wine.  I was "diagnosed" with exercise-induced asthma 9-10 years ago, but I think this was a mis-diagnosis as the inhalers never work (I've tried all sorts) and they usually end up making me feel worse.  After using the inhaler I always end up coughing up fluid and my breathing sounds gurgle-ly  (so I don't take them any more unless I feel I really need to...note that I have never had a full blown asthma attack).  I'm worried that it could be something else (was exposed to TB as a teenager, but took the "horse pills" for 6 months and was told I was fine), but none of my doctors will really listen to me.  They see that I am slim and active, and they dismiss me - I live in the UK (free socialised healthcare - so not a lot of time to spend with patients).  Has anyone else experienced this?  I see lots of threads on here with the same topic, but they all have to do with taking medications, being overweight, being a current/past smoker, being depressed/having anxiety, etc.  Please help - I'm tired of living like this.  I'm worried that I could be living with something undiagnosed that could rear it's ugly head one day.

[mikey29483us]

i was just diagnosis with severe cause of c.o.p.d. plus just had a c.t. scan done my c.t. scane came back possitive nothing now my dr is trying to figure out why i have shortness of breath i have an ecko gram comming up soon, all comments welcome ty

[Daaniel43]

Hi Im a 13 yr old male, and about a month ago i started feeling these issues. Im a quiet person, usally stuck up in my room. So the day it happen I was watching tv with my brothers, it was winter and at first that was what I blamed it on. At first from the pressure on the chest and my dad and stepmom being smokers I thought it was cancer, lung to be exact. Every day I suffered throught lower chest pains and thought tommorow will be the day i drop to the floor. There will be nights aand days of haarsh pains and difficulty breathing but then it will be gone for two to 3 days. Today i reaserched the breathing difficulty aand read some posts. I started crying at some posts i found. They had the exact same symptoms. Im gonna tell my dad and we will hopefully go in for testing to make sure. Thank you everyone for sharing. I hope we find a cure for this.

[whereiscure]

The other thing I want to add, that exercises deplete your iron stores.  This is why it it becomes difficult to tolerate some exercises if your stores are already depleted.
I love running too. At some point I could not do it at all.
Now if I do anything, I try to be easier on my body.  I can do actually more in terms of running then i could do lets say 5 years ago.  But I will get muscle aches, bone pain afterwards.  It tells me it is too hard on the body and not worth doing right now.

[whereiscure]

So, I have the same problem and it is for 9 years now.  I went through a lots of testing as well in the beginning:echo, EKG, PFTs, CXR, Stress PFTs.  On stress PFTs my O2Sats dropped to 92% and pulmonologist could not explain.  My VC was 120% and PFTs were not indicative of asthma.  I mentioned to the doctors I went through at the time about my previous mild anemia/iron deficiency.  They did not even repeat my hematocrit!  Pulmonologist said that I may need a lung transplant in a few years if it is worse and ordered alfa anitrypsin level, which of cause came normal.  He thought i had mild emphysema (I was 30 at the time).  I inflated my lungs really big when CXR was taken and it looked overinflated a little bit.  PFTs were not exactly for emphysema though.  In a few years i've had a chest Xray I did not inhale much and CXRay was read as normal.  Seemed like anemia was not as important or nothing significant.  Since I am a woman and doctors sort of ignored the fact and preferred to say me all these tales about hyperventilation and anxiety, including pulmonologist.  Then I  stopped going to doctors and complain since there was no point and I needed nothing on my records for a while.  My energy, concentration, indurance were all down since then.  Irritability, tiredness, exertion, falling hair, relationships problems, anxiety, restlessnes, pacing became second part of me.  Probably with this chronic hypoxia to tissues i was not thinking very bright and eventually forgot about my mild anemia. I thought i am predisposed to emphysema and that is it.  I never even smoked though to get emphysema!
I've had recently my blood count repeated and it still shows anemia/ iron deficiency only - severe now.  Doctors open big eyes and say I have to take iron.  I do, and may be it feels better, for a little.  The problem with iron deficiency/anemia is -it is very hard to correct.  So, now I am looking in a lots of courses of my anemia/severe iron deficiency.  My RBCs are small, they have very, very little iron and there are few of them.  So when I take  a deep breath my erythrocytes that supposed to pick up all the oxygen from the breath, do that but they are so pathological that it feels like there is no enough air afterwards-unsatisfactory breath.  So they do not pick up enough for my body.  I struggle, do another breath, another  and the same thing.  I try to relax, breath out many times, then may be some satisfaction happens.  But I am so exosted by then.  In medical terms it is a low oxygen carring capacity.  

So with anemia you feel you do not get enough air and you do not.  Blood just does not carry enough oxygen for the body needs.  The body tissues become chronically hypoxic.  All body systems can become affected.  Can be chest pain, swallen ankles, skin, indigestion..etc.  If you eat too much meat with that because it helps some with iron, it makes too much load on the kidneys, there can be backache b/l flank.  Kidney make erythropoetin that responds for erythrocytes production.  If something wrong with them there can be anemia of chronic disease.  All this anemias are very hard to correct.
I was reading on iron deficiency anemia.  It said that it is  very hard to treat because all iron taken does not get into RBCs somehow becuse body fails in someway.  Also if there is acidosis in the body from slightly dysfunctional kydneys or something else, oxygen does not bind to erythrocyes that easy, then it is a real screw.  You need iron, you eat meat and screw up the kidneys-can be vicious cycle.  Another thing, when PO2 in the blood drops to certain level (because of tissue hypoxia/acidosis/ increase lactic acid production) there are receptors in carotid body that fire to the brain and that produces hyperventilation-hyperventilation syndrom.  

So, the symptoms are real and there are reasons for all of them.  I do not believe you exams will be completely normal.  Even if Ht is ok, insist on checking your iron stores because you do have symptoms.  Anemia does cause shortness of breath.  Because it is chronic and suttle in onset and progress , you do not notice how it happens or happened to you.  Most doctors do not check iron stores if Ht is ok and this is how it gets missed.  

If there is anemia, it is totally not normal for the body.  You have to look into ALL, ALL causes and get it under control.  This is something not easy to do, to correct your hematocrit/iron stores.  I am having hard time myself.  But I know why I have my breathing symptoms.  I am sure most of the people who post here have different degrees of anemia/ iron deficiencies.  Iron defficiency is the most common nutritional problem.  Read on it.  It can be caused by a lots of staff.  It can worsen coagulation and predispose to bleeding and blood loss.  Like in women..some of them bleed and with time it gets only worse, then ablation/hysterectomy.. They have to check stool make sure you are not loosing chronically blood from the intestines.  There are some parasites that can live inside the body and drink your blood and make you very anemic.  There is a celiac disease there that can inflame intestines or cause atrophy of the papillar and they do not absorb that iron for you or vitamins.  testing for it though can be negative.  Only excluding glutein you see improvement in the body and feel better.  So it is complicated.


My breathing seems to be better with a lots of fruits in the diet.  
You want to clean them well though to avoid any cohabitants.

[Girlrunner]

Everyone keeps saying we all have the same thing. We all may have similar symptoms but there are too many things out there that all cause these very similar symptoms. For me, it began about a year ago. I had just gone through a semi stressful breakup and began a new job all around the same time. I went out one night and woke up in bed having difficulty breathing. I was in such a panic and it didn't go away for days. My Nurse Practitioner internist said it was from tonsillitis and put me on Prednisone (steroid) and an oral antibiotic. Of course that did not help at all! If anything, it made it worse. I weaned myself off the Prednisone (as it was only for a week or 10 days). Anyway, I went back a couple of months later and she told me not to worry about it, it was anxiety. So I considered it and evaluated my life. By now I was over the breakup and my job was going well, and didn't feel stressed at all. 7 months (totaling 10 months approx) later I am still suffering from the same issues. My symptoms include:
Rapid, pounding heartbeat. Short of breath/difficulty breathing (I have to yawn and take DEEP breathes to try to get sufficient air). Weakness. Shaky. Dizziness. Tired sometimes. Occasionally see blood in my mucus (could be sinus related).
I am not experiencing depression (as I am always happy) and the only time I feel anxious, if you will, is after I begin to experience the breathing issues and heart pounding.
I was a runner, and now I don't run anymore because I am afraid I will have these symptoms during a race. :( And I love running.
I have been to the doctors/specialist (Pulmonologist, Internist, Cardiologist, Allergist, ENT) sooo many times and they all keep saying asthma and rhinitis and giving me so many inhalers. They say my oxygen levels are pretty good (between 96% and 99%) but my lung capacity has ranged between 49% and 106% during many visits, though averages at 80%. I can accept that I may have asthma, but my Pulmonologist says the heart and other symptoms sound like MVP. At this point I just want to know what it is so it can be treated. I am tired of feeling poorly and just want to know what this is so I know what I can and cannot do. Anyway, I just wanted to share this since so many of us do feel the same way, and no matter what we all have - I hope everyone finds their sense of peace. Good luck! When I find out what I have (if I ever do) I will repost!
Everyone keeps saying we all have the same thing. We all may have similar symptoms but there are too many things out there that all cause these very similar symptoms. For me, it began about a year ago. I had just gone through a semi stressful breakup and began a new job all around the same time. I went out one night and woke up in bed having difficulty breathing. I was in such a panic and it didn't go away for days. My Nurse Practitioner internist said it was from tonsillitis and put me on Prednisone (steroid) and an oral antibiotic. Of course that did not help at all! If anything, it made it worse. I weaned myself off the Prednisone (as it was only for a week or 10 days). Anyway, I went back a couple of months later and she told me not to worry about it, it was anxiety. So I considered it and evaluated my life. By now I was over the breakup and my job was going well, and didn't feel stressed at all. 7 months (totaling 10 months approx) later I am still suffering from the same issues. My symptoms include:
Rapid, pounding heartbeat. Short of breath/difficulty breathing (I have to yawn and take DEEP breathes to try to get sufficient air). Weakness. Shaky. Dizziness. Tired sometimes. Occasionally see blood in my mucus (could be sinus related).
I am not experiencing depression (as I am always happy) and the only time I feel anxious, if you will, is after I begin to experience the breathing issues and heart pounding.
I was a runner, and now I don't run anymore because I am afraid I will have these symptoms during a race. :( And I love running.
I have been to the doctors/specialist (Pulmonologist, Internist, Cardiologist, Allergist, ENT) sooo many times and they all keep saying asthma and rhinitis and giving me so many inhalers. They say my oxygen levels are pretty good (between 96% and 99%) but my lung capacity has ranged between 49% and 106% during many visits, though averages at 80%. I can accept that I may have asthma, but my Pulmonologist says the heart and other symptoms sound like MVP. At this point I just want to know what it is so it can be treated. I am tired of feeling poorly and just want to know what this is so I know what I can and cannot do. Anyway, I just wanted to share this since so many of us do feel the same way, and no matter what we all have - I hope everyone finds their sense of peace. Good luck! When I find out what I have (if I ever do) I will repost!

[becky246]

I know what you have been through.  I have suffered for 20 years with tirdness and at times feeling like I could not breath. The doctor put me on medication for anxity which only slowed me down more. Other doctors call it being depressed, sure I am depressed, who wouldn't be after 20 years of not knowing why I get so tired I can't breath good. someone PLEASE listen and help all of us.