what can cause breathing disorders?

[momshouse]

My poor daughter Ashley has seen every doctor under the sun to find out why she has these symptons...breathing difficulties...chest pain...light headness...fainting and near fainting...headaches...tingling in hands and arms...her legs feel like there are huge weights on them...she is also very tired. Now, she has been diagnosed with pleurisy and she also had a D-diner blood test that came back elevated. The doc did the D-diner test because he was looking for blood clots because she is on birth control pills because she has endometriosis. She also had a chest xray and a CT Scan with dye on the same day. They found she did not have any blood clots, but the doc never told us why she has pleurisy. We found out ourselves by looking on the internet that pleurisy is do to an underlying condition to many different diseases...one being cancer...another heart disease...another kidney or liver disease. His final word that day was she had asthma and pleurisy! We have come home with no answers once again. We are sooo confused...she is really scared that now she could have cancer, heart disease or a number of diseases that can cause pleurisy and a elevated D-diner blood test! Has anyone out there had the same symptons? Has anyone been diagnosed with Pleurisy? Has anyone had these symptons and had an elevated D-diner blood test? Can birth control pills still be the problem? ANy help would be much appreciated! Thanks to all!

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Welcome to the MedHelp forum!
An elevated D-dimer test apart from indicating a clot in the body could also be high due to recent surgery, trauma, infection, liver disease, pregnancy, eclampsia, heart disease, and some cancers. An elevated D-dimer alone is not significant. It needs to be followed up with other tests. I suggest you consult a cardiologist first and rule out cardiac causes of breathlessness. Then a CT scan of chest should be done. It is difficult to comment beyond this at this stage.  Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!

[think110]

Please see my post under Kidney infections from yesterday. We have almost identical symptoms. Read my post and have your daughter see if we have matching symptoms.