Hard to Breathe???

Ive been suffering from shortness of breath for three weeks now coupled with swallowing difficulty and tugging/stabbing pain in my back. And yes, there are quite a lot of moments when I gasp for air and fear that I might just die out of tachypnea. My blood and ekg are normal but goin through gi test next wk. My father died last july and my dr attribute the symptom to that... I just want all these to end because it's taking over my life! Please help........

I've read up on that and it will actually make you feel like you're not getting even more oxygen since that is what your mind is telling you your body is craving.
I would just recommend breathing techniques. In through the nose slow and long, hold it for just a sec and blow it out of your mouth slowly. Do this a couple of times and see how you feel.

Hi,

i get weird feelings all the time to do with my breathing and I know it`s purely mental! When I was ill I had a fear I couldn`t breathe and the fear seems to keep coming back, when I become conscious of it I panic and think I can`t breathe. Keping busy is the only way I don`t think about it.

Debs

I have the same problem as so many people on here. Every now and then I cant get that nice deep satisfying breath that I need sooo bad! It seems as if it happens more when it is hot and humid but yet it still happens from time to time when it is on the cooler side. I just started feeling like this within the last three months and I just dont understand why. I stopped taking my birth control which was the patch probably a month before I started feeling like this and it makes me wonder if that has anything to do with it. I can't live like this, I dont know what to do. Does anyone know if there is medications that you can take to relieve this?? Please help! :?

I am in the same boat as the rest of you. I can't get a good breath alot of the time. I am learning that when I am stressed it is alot worse. Does anyone find they also have some indigestion when they are having the problem. I find I have to burp more and if I do sometimes I can then get a good breath. Also does anyone find that exercising is hard when you can't get a good breath. I am pretty active and when I am walking I have to stop a few times just to get a good breath. I have been harping on this for the last little while because I had a couple of panic attacks and had trouble swallowing my own saliva. That was pretty scary as I had never had anything like that before. The doctor wants to put me on zoloft but I am really wiery. I am not depressed and I only had two panic attacks a month ago as I was dealing with something at the time. I have been reading about the terrible withdrawal symptoms from zoloft and other antidepressants and that scared me. And if I don't have to I won't.
Has anyone went on zoloft and had relief from the trouble breathing?

Hello all, you won't believe how good it is to know i'm not the only one suffering from this! I'm 25 and very fit and healthy but this came from no-where and has been going on for about a year. It comes and goes but some days are much worse than others. I find if i've been out drinking the night before it's 10 times worse but then some days it doesn't affect me. I'm sure it's all in the head but not depressed or anxious so don't really get it. Could really do with a cure but no-one really seems to have an answer. Hoping it's just one of those things that goes away but very much doubt it. Just dealing with it at the moment and keeping my fingers crossed it goes away!

:cry: i've been on and and off med's my whole life for major panic and anxiety attacks and i'm 33 and still deal with it. It has literally ruined my life. My remedy for the past 6 years has been booze and it ruined my relationship with sooo... Many people. Im now a full blown female alcoholic cuz thats the only way I can breath is if I am under some kind of euforia! My fiance" takes all my money and everything from me so I can't buy booze and then I end up going thru dt's, I sneek the money any way I can cuz if I don't have it I get real bad panic attacks which started by me being diagnosed with major post partom deppression 7 years ago, that was after a fifth child, never stopped since! I need help bad cuz meds don't cut it for me, "just the booze", and alot of it! Please any advice could help. Thanks! Diamond

I certainly don`t wish any bad luck on anyone but it sure is good to hear that i`m not the only one with these symptoms. Finding it difficult to breathe properly happens to me at times too.It happens out of the blue and I don`t even know what triggers it. It will last for a few hours and then go away until another unexpected time. Is it possible to be anxious about something and not even know it? I have small things on my mind but nothing major. Could I still be having anxiety attacks? :?:

I too have had and continue to have many of the symptoms mentioned on these posts, which I am confident are all driven by anxiety:

- shortness of breath
- chest pain
- ache in throat
- back pain
- panic attacks
- twitching eyelid (not too bad this one but worht the mention!)

for people looking for a remedy I would say this:

the first thing to consider is counselling. You may have some issues that you havent dealt with (i did with my girlfriend at the time!) and once you begin to tackle these you will start to break the spell of anxiety. Your body is usually freaking out for a reason - maybe its sounding the alarm that something is wrong with your life?

If you are confused becuase you dont have any obvious reason to be "stressed" then perhaps counselling isnt for you. However, I still think you have to employ the same basic approach:

since anxiety is essentially a "psycological" problem, logically it needs a psycological treatment. I think this is why some people say in there posts that "it goes away when I am at work or distracted". In other words, when you strop thinking about it because your mind is occupied with something more positive, it goes away.

Obviously anxiety is a circular problem and we all know how terrifying it can be when the symptoms begn to feed off each other and things begin to malfunction in the body promoting a panic attack - a vicious circle. However, by the same token we should draw comfort from this fact: surely we need only find a way to reverse the cycle to create a virtuous circle (like non sufferers) and feel well again?

This gets to the heart of what I am trying! To say: postive thinking.

Im not religious/spiritual but I belive that you have to do everything you can to feel good and keep busy. Afterall if you lie low and worry about it you are likely to make it worse. - just like it comes on worse when you go to bed because the mind has no distractions and naturally starts focussing in on it.

So I reccomend you distract yourself with anything and everythign at your disposal: other peoples company / exercise / sunshine / listening to music / partying / singing / dancing / anything!

For me, this is all that works. Im sure anti depressants might relieve the symptoms temporarily via physiological means, but personally I would rather not have to fall back on them (paradoxically, at some depp level I think it would depress me!)

i realise none of this is easy - in fact its very hard, and everyone has to try and find somethign that works for them. But personally I believe positive thinkign is the only way to deal with it. Dont forget its a phantom condition - its not real!! - so try and rise above it if you can, stand up to it and not give it too much credence, as it were. You are bigger and better than this crazy anxiety, so good luck in the battle everyone!

Hi,

i was diagnosed with hyperventilation syndrome about 3 years ago after suffering scary syptoms for 5 years. It started when I developed asthma. I get blurred vision, don't breath naturally at all, very forced, yawn lots, always tired, always tense. After diagnosis I had some breathing physiotherapy which to be honest didn't do a lot for me at all.

Symptoms get worse when i'm anxious - which is most of the time because i'm anxious because of the symptoms, ends up becoming a viscious circle.

I am now on an antidepressant for the problem and although I was loath to go on it, its the best thing I could have done, my symptoms are still there but are much milder. In general I am much less anxious and I suppose when you have this for a long time it can become very depressing.

Things are starting to get worse lately after I have returned to work after being on maternity leave. Have read about this thing called buteyko which i'm thinking about giving a go, some kind of breathing therapy.

I had all the symptoms, could not breath, heart beat fast, thought I might faint, maybe I was dying, stomach trouble. I went to the doctor. He tried to put me on meds like xanax and zoloff (?). I said no thanks. My wife found the midwest center for stress and anxiety, got the tapes and gave them to me. The most valuable part for me was the breathing technique and knowing that I was not going to die. In just a couple of weeks I stopped having panic attacks and have not had one in over 6 months. I was having them almost every day. Major improvement in my quality of life. The program is worth....? A few hundred dollars I think...Go to www.Stresscenter.Com to get more info. It is a lifesaver!!! Send me an email if you have any questions. I am not an agent for them. Just an extremely grateful customer who is responding on every board where I see these complaints. This is my crusade (at least one of them). Don't take drugs!!! My mom almost died when she ran out of zanax (bad heart combined with extreme stress). It runs in families, too. My mom and sisters all have panic syndrome. It is not dangerous if you are reasonably healthy, just scary.

Good luck and stop your suffering!!!

Peter

Been having same symptoms for 8 yrs.It suddenly got much worse last fall.I developed anxiety, I quit smoking it got even worse.I go all day almost everyday and can not get good breath in. I yawn constantly to get a deep breath in.It begins to hurt my upper back and ribs from straining in so much.It is hard to even tack care of my little girl because I am always trying to breath in deep.I have had almost every test known to man ran on me, nothing wrong!I suppose it must be a psychological issue. I never notice it when I fall asleep, but as soon as I get up bam it starts up.I beleive this generation is full of stress and it is to no surprize we are all having this.I refuse to take meds for the rest of my life, I am getting my strength from god and I feel better every day! Lol

Hello everyone,

it is a bit comforting to know I am not the only one experiencing this stress-related breathing problem, so thanks for sharing. For me it started this june, and when I went to the clinic this july and mentioned it the doctor, he listened to my breathing and ruled out asthma but basically told me that I should just ignore it. Four months later it still occurs on a regular basis but it finally dawned on me that this is most probably the fallout from dealing with my wife's cancer last year. She made a full recovery but between last summer and this spring, but it was tough, I had to be there for her, I was always worried about getting sick myself and not being able to take care of her, and this is how I must be dealing with the stress of the eight months. The only weird thing is how it manifested itself several months after her last treatment...

I too am thankful i'm not the only one with this. I'm 25 years old and one day all of a sudden (at work) I started having this feeling like I needed to draw a deep breath constantly - ordinary breaths didn't seem to give me enough oxygen. Now - 3 months later, i'm sorry to say it hasn't gone away. I don't consider myself stressed really at all. I went and had a full checkup and lung x-ray after a really bad run of it but they couldn't diagnose it conclusively but yeah, they said it's likely stress. I don't know what to do, I can't live with this for the rest of my life (like one guy said he has). I'm pretty desperate at the moment. Even now i've got it. There is no pattern to it either. If I find a sure cause or remedy, i'll be sure to post it here.

I also suffer from this problem it has been continious for 5years now and im 24. I thought when I was 19 it was down to being serverly overweight, since then I have trained for 5years compulsively and still this bloody problem persists and does effect my training. Reading previous posts I realise this probably is down to anxiety and stress and no matter how much I train it wont bloody go away!!! Although on the way home from work today ill be purchasing a large tub of vix!!!

Wow, wow, wow!!! I am so happy that I found I am not alone. Even just reading thru these posts i'm already getting some satisfying breaths. I tend to sigh and have a need or hunger for air.

I have stopped smoking after 15 years and I excersize daily and im pretty healthy. I at one stage about 8 years ago I got rushed to hospital for a suspected heart attack and they sent me home with antacids. Since then I have been getting palpitations and shoprtness of breath. I have been to 2 cardiologists and had a miriad of other tests and the result is always good with no problems. The one thing that has helped was I once took a strong tranquiliser during an bad episode (thought I was having a heart attack again) and the intense relief that came after 10 minutes was so amazingly wonderful that I started laughing and crying.

Anyway to conclude I am almost 100% certain that this is a mental/anxiety/stress problem.

Wish you all the best