The shortness of breath you have experienced can be very distressing. What you describe does fit the picture of the hyperventilation syndrome as suggested by your lung specialist saying “...its just all in my head”. In this circumstance, its being in your head could be due to a problem with the part of your brain that sends the signal to your lungs to breathe, called the respiratory center, or it could be primarily on an emotional basis, usually associated with chronic anxiety. It is highly likely that the second of these, an emotional basis, is the cause of your distress. In addition, once one becomes aware of their breathing, it is easy to become obsessed with it, especially when your life is lacking many of the normal distractions, as mention “I dont work i don't go to school and i don't have much of a social life “.
Were there a physical or anatomical cause of your abnormal ventilation, it should be readily apparent after 5 years and the strongest argument against that is that your symptoms spontaneously resolved after the first 2 years. In all likelihood, further medical testing, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or CT scan, would be normal.
I strongly suggest that you seek counseling to: 1) help you find ways to get back to work or to school, as that will be therapeutic, and 2) seek ways to interact with others to develop a social life and reverse your current isolation. In other words, get help to engage yourself in life and reverse the current pattern that gives you so much time to think about your breathing. Without counseling along with good medicine for chronic anxiety, neither of these will be likely to happen. It has been reported that counseling plus bio-feedback plus acupuncture may be more effective than any one of these approaches, alone.
It is very difficult to break-out of a life style such as yours. It can be done but you definitely need help to do it.
Good luck.
I also had a deviated septum fixed. Same with a lot of people I've spoken to. There seems to be a strong correlation between the three conditions.
I'm getting surgery soon to fix my GERD as I have a theory that this will have a domino effect in helping me recover.
Thanks bardcan. When u had your shortness of breath before your tried the Linden method, was the Sorthness constant? were u constantly thinking of your breathing? My next step would be to go for a neurological checkup to see if my phrenic nerve that controld the diaphragm has be damaged of is not working properly or if my C3 C4 C5 vertabrea have been compressed cuase i heard that can breathing problems. But i truely believ its something more on the mental side, and is possibly aggrivated with the gerd/lpr. I did have a deviated septum nut fixed that a couple eyars ago.
Ok, well you need to eliminate anxiety as the cause. Try the Linden method (you can order it online) - it worked for me. Basically, the method is to try distracting yourself with extremely engaging activities till you are no longer thinking about your breathing.
If this isn't satisfactory, then it is possible that there is something wrong with your nervous system that is causing muscle spasms around your lungs. I suggest this because I suspect it's what I have. I 'cured' myself of my anxiety some time ago, and lead a normal life now, but do experience a shortness of breathe that seems to be unrelated to any anxiety and is aggravated by my GERD and nasal dysfunction.
Does your nose work?
Good luck!