Two years ago I had an horse riding accident where I strained (or sprained?) ligaments in my neck, cracked ribs, bruised (or collapsed? I can't remember exactly.) lungs, and just generally through my whole upper back out of whack.
For two years I have had a real shortness of breath all the time, in any position. There is no phases where now I can breath, now I can't; I just can't. Unless I have someone light walk on my back or if I bend backwards over a couch or if I kind of jerk my right shoulder up and my left shoulder down or vice versa and really pop something in my ribcage, or it feels like my ribcage, or twist hard in my chair sometimes I get a couple breaths relief but that's it.
I can't get a full breath so I've found myself unconsciously holding my breath so that when I do breath it's a deep breath, or forcing myself to sneeze or yawn to reflexively take a deep breath.Sometimes when I hold on to something and keep my spine really straight and take a hard fast breath I can get a full one. At the "peak" of the breath, it feels like something is constraining my lungs like a cage or something and it hurts.
I've been to chiropractors, doctors and they've taken xrays and hooked me up to electric muscle therapy things and they say everything is fine. One doctor even told me that it was all in my head and to see a psychiatrist, that I had an anxiety disorder. My blood oxygen level is fine, but I just always FEEL like I don't have enough breath. Another doctor told me it's because I smoke, but I've had this problem long before I started smoking so I don't see how this is it.