Hypothyroid symptom - hard to breathe

Question

Does anyone else experience the symptom of it occasionally being hard to breathe? And by that I do not mean that you feel like your airway is tight or blocked and you can't get enough air (although that does happen to me if I get upset or am sick). What I mean is that sometimes I can just be sitting at my desk and I am so fatigued that I feel like just breathing is a huge effort, like it takes so much energy just to breathe in and out. My husband notices when this happens to me because my exhalations become louder.

Smilerdeb · Answer

I am on thyroxin for Graves and Hyperthyroidism after having RAI and going Hypo.
Levels pretty stable now despite massive stress.

alfonsina · Answer

Are you on medications?, the weird thing with me is that I have been with that "hard to breath" symptom, and at the same time extremely tired, when I started in a very low dose of Nature throid. When I was ready to increase my dose I could not deal with that feeling of being breathless and an eye twitching that also showed up (it was driving me crazy), so when the time to increase my dose came I switched to Armour. It is being a week now and I do not feel better with the hypo symptoms, but at least I do not feel like I have to drag myself and make a huge effort to breath. The eye twitching also stopped. I have to increase the dose again in one or two weeks.

Kaz1969 · Answer

Yep, I get it too, feelslike the only way to get enough air is to yawn, problem is that once you become aware of it it tends to make you anxious and then you concentrate on your breathing even more and it becomes a bit of a vicious circle, then you start to think that you need to "remember" to breathe otherwise you might stop! Try and do something to take your mind off of it, a little exercise works wonders and also reassures you that if you can exercise with out stopping breathing it can't be that bad. Good Luck !

6hashi · Answer

I experienced that too ,the same as you described and as peggy64 described !!

Smilerdeb · Answer

I have had that breathing sensation while Hypo....as if I cannot get enough air and I need to yawn very hard to get air.
It is common in Hypo.

peggy64 · Answer

I have had that exact same problem. It was like I forgot to breathe, and then all of a sudden I would realize, I need some air, and then it would be hard to pull it in.

It ended up being due to a magnesium deficiency caused by the hypothyroidism.