Can mirtazapine cause shortness of breath/ trouble breathing?
Posted , 12 users are following.
Plz, anyone whos got experience with it , comment your story/ what you felt and how long it lasted, but only the ones who felt this side effect. Plz be specific !
Now a little background of my story ⤵
I never got any trouble or problem with my breathing. Yes, it was a bit short but it never gave me problems. I started tapering mirtazapine 1 year and a month ago, because i read so many bad things about antidepressants that i didn't want that in my system, so a started tapering. The first 7 months i didn't experience any breathing issue , although a few weeks before getting the breathing issue i noticed i was breathing from my mouth than my nose because i felt it a bit difficult? But it was mild and then boom! One day it started really bad and now is been 6 months almost 7 with it. It sometimes goes away or so i think, but it comes back and sometime a bit more bothersome. I have gotten check ups like: The air in my blood wish was perfect, an x ray of my lungs and multiple times check with a stethoscope to make sure my lungs sounded well and everything came out really good/ perfect, However i still feel and suffer from this and is very bothersome to a point it drives me mad. And on top i have another year left to taper, how am i going to keep handling this when is sooo annoying? Anyone can relate? plz let me know!
1 like, 30 replies
grace83710 Yaralee98362
Posted
hi, its terrible, it makes my insomnia worse. How is your sleep?
Yaralee98362 grace83710
Posted
Can you tell me what symptoms the trouble breathing causes you? also my sleep has not been good because of some pretty bad symptoms that makes me feel like fainting, is hard to explain, but really bad. Also, i have a question, did it made your period come early or late? mine now, this month seem to come early by 5, almost 6 days! i'm scared!
grace83710 Yaralee98362
Posted
i have the same problem like yours. Are you still on it?
Yaralee98362 grace83710
Posted
yes, I'm still tapering 😦
Yaralee98362 grace83710
Posted
yup i know what you mean, even though mine most of the times affected me at day, but it also sometimes affected me at night which gave me trouble falling as sleep and constantly with fears of having a lung problem which could cause me death and lost of suffer before dying and all kinds of fears from it ( thoughts of all king of lung disease) 😦 also i have discovered ( dont know if you have it as well) but my nostrils get clogged congested more than what it didn't before because i have sinusitis, and is hard to breath clearly from your nose so that make the shortness of breath or trouble breathing more complicated)
greg2273 Yaralee98362
Edited
I started 10 months ago, 15 mg, then 30, then 45. I was a new person,, I could think, do , socialize, concentrate, and generally live way more comfortably. Then 5 months into it, wham, anything and everything made me puff, scary shortness of breath, like if this gets any worse, I am going to pass out. Some tit would only last 20 minutes and other times for hours. I couldn't get a hold of any doctors ,so i went to ER, That started with a long list of appointments and tests, In the mean time I reduced my dosage quite quickly, down to 7.5mg in 3 steps in 12 days.All the lung and heart function test came back just fine. Nothing amiss anywhere. At first a little bit of cloneazapam helped with the anxiety that came with (maybe) but does nothing now.. Like you, I feel like Either I am going mad or depression symptoms are showing, I am behaving like I am handicapped because depression caused thoughts make me think negative things. I don't like sitting around because it feels more exagerating and I tend to dwell on it. It's hard not too... It would be nice to relax and not fight to breathe. The shrink says its anxiety. But don't suggest how to make it feel better. They are all pretty tight with anti-anxiety meds. It's like they get demerrits if they write a prescription. If feel for you Won, is there any medication that is helping you right now , is it hard to taper off the drug. ???? I read somewhere that this histamine receptors in your body get filled or something with the atoms of the Mirtazipine, will send the link later i can't find it right now but this is interesting, keep in touch. https://www.drugs.com/sfx/mirtazapine-side-effects.html
Yaralee98362 greg2273
Posted
Same with me when i started mirt. I started that med when the first ones prescribed to me made my stomach ( gastritis) worse so i had to be put on other which was mirtazapine and vistaril. The reason i got in to meds was because i suffer from anxiety, depression and ocd( like 2 or 3 themes of ocd) but also i was prescribed on them because my psychologist lied to me saying pills cured in most cases and helped with my suffering to go away and that i would've been better. LIES! he never said to me all the horror and the real face o taking pills for damn mental problems. So naive me got into them as a desperate sickening for help without knowing how horrible it is to get off them and how long it takes. I know everyone is different and a few dont even experience withdrawal and symptoms, wish we could've all be like that but it doesn't work that way. For me, like you said, the first 3 weeks i felt normal( amazing relax without any intrusive thoughts or any of the nightmare ive been carrying for so long) 9 years of suffering all , but then i discovered the true face and decided to taper, a decision that was not easy to take and gave me more anxiety. Now i'm at 1.4 mg 2 years if tapering and the list of things i've felt is long, thank God i've managed and my health has not been directly affected like something really bad but cant say is good good either cas i feel withdrawals and symptoms most of the times in a day. About the ER like i mentioned in my first post i also went to the ER to get the check ups ( air in my blood, x ray and the stethoscope to make sure my lungs soundedoned ok) everything came good ( since that was all the check ups i could afford to get) Also I'm very impressed that you went soo fast from such high dose to 7.5 mg since thats a big no because with this meds everyone has to be very careful, sometimes the problems don't come at once and can take some times to come but they come alright. Be Careful, hope that big drop doesn't affect you. Yes anxiety and depression makes the situations 100 times worse than what it is and feels. For me like i said, soo much fears of dying from a lung problem, i've always been scared of drowning and this made that fear worse, i cried a lot, felt super depressed ugh it was really bad, i even got obsessed with my lungs to a point i wanted check ups every day and couldn't think of anything but that i was going to die young. Really bad and something i will never forget. But there's something i can say i discovered from all of this bad experience, YES anxiety plays a big roll in here, and it is because we are feeling anxiety, maybe worse because of the meds, the tapering and the side effects, and sometimes we dont even realize we have anxiety and can make us feel like we have a lung problem. When i felt i couldnt properly brath and all that jazz i sat down in front of a fan and the air made it much easier for me to breath wich proves it is anxiety playing with us plus all that other crap from the med. I can I know soo much how you feel , because is the same way i thought and now still sometimes think of it when i get is for some seconds or minutes. Sadly cant tell you about any med that helped me put because i never took anything besides this pousion of med, but i can tell you that after the year, it went much away, just sometimes i can get it but briefly, and it is mostly when the air condition is bad or there's to much pollen or things that causes alergy and trouble breathing, and also when i remember the bad situaton ( the trouble breathing/ shortness of breath) then i can experience it because i get very scared and start to feel anxious and then well i start feeling the trouble breathing but goes away) So i think that the best for this is time, to give time and see how it goes 😕 . So my conclusion is YES is the med 100% causing this, YES it takes time and cant tell you for how long you will feel it because everyone is different but YES is the medication making you feel this horrible side effect. Either while taking the full dose or tapering like it has happen to many. And about if it's hard tapering, well for me it was because i experienced very scary thing, not as really bad as others but it wasn't minor either, to say that this november 2 will be 2 years of tapering this med and i still have a long way to go till i'm finally mirt free, till i finally stop taking it, till i finally come off of it. And to finalize this, YES the histamine also causes this, because mirtazapine also incresses histamine because it wants you to starve yourself because the list of food you should not eat while on mirt because of the histamine is soooo long you will starve youself. So not much to do there,if you want you can stop eating some stuff but wont help because if you eat other things that can make the histamine go high, is no use. Gosh, this med is horrible and i cant believe that some people are soooo blind they cant see it, i feel scared for the ones who took this for years, when the time comes for them to come off of them, it will be a nightmare for them ( i hope im grong) but take me as example, i only took the full dose (15 mg which was my prescribed dose )for almost a month, and look how long it has taken me to taper? unbelievable. Hope you get to feel much better and both of us can keep that better and never again experience such horrible situation. Hope you also keep in touch 😃
greg2273 Yaralee98362
Edited
I was on Mirtazapine for 5 months with side effects that were tolerable. But one day out of the blue I started puffing while doing moderate work. I thought I was out of shape, but this was rediculous. The shortness of breath continued even after reclining in my chair. It would go on for hours and I could not concentrate on anything. It was always there, in my face. My shrink said it was anxiety and was addament about it. I had absolutely NOTHING to be anxious about. The med had taken away 27 years of hell. The severe depression was non-responsive to anything I tried. I even tried Ketamine and ECT and many drugs. The 'hard to breathe' feelings would get so severe that it would pull my good mood down. It was scary in the fact that if it did not let up I would go back to being a vegatable. A non-life. Suicidal. I did not want to live. But luckily it would let up occasionally. thank god. I could not bear for it to go on and on and on. I don't know how you could do it..
joshuapryce1987 Yaralee98362
Posted
Anxiety causes breathing issues, and this is what should be addressed.
rozB Yaralee98362
Posted
H i, i have been on Mirtazapine since July, 2020 my dosage is half a 15mg tab at night.. i find it absolutely zonks me out and from 3 to 5 hours a night i now get the full 8 and then some. i have noticed in the passed month a terrible feeling of not being able to take a full deep breath. Although my anxiety issues have eased (feeling like every bump cough or rash was imminent death) i have continued with the tablets to get the sleep i need. i have decided to take my self off them after reading about shortness of breath being a less common side effect. If it eases the symptoms of breathlessness then i know it was the mirtazapine. I was surprised to find this forum and so many people that have the same issue. I will go to my GP after a few weeks and discuss all this with him.. i also suggest that you go back to your GP and let him/her know that you are having issues with it.. it could be an allergic reaction to it.... or something else all together.. All the very best for your health...
Marys1226 Yaralee98362
Posted
hi, hope everyone is doing better than before. I'm new and I've been reading all the comments and my heart goes out to you all, and also to let you know that I am also having shortness of breath from taking matr also. My dr gave it to me for sleeping, and to me all it did was give me nightmares, gained a few pounds, bloated, and really bad shortness of breath. i been to the ER 1000 times and no one can find nothing wrong but i can feel it and it was driving me crazy. i was on 15 mg on and off for like a month then i was taking half that for like 3 days then when i saw that the matrazapine was the problem with my breathing i quit cold turkey and it was awful. the tingling, ringing in my ears, and not being able to sleep not to mention the nightmares my gosh i wouldn't wish this on my worse enemy if i had one. i been completely off it for a full 7 days and my breathing feels a lot better but not completely i just hope my breathing will go back to normal and how long will this take because its the worse feeling ever. has anyone recovered from the breathing problem? I've been taking it on and off for 3 months. not no more and never again!
nancy94544 Yaralee98362
Posted
I developed shortness of breath not long after I began taking it . Maybe a week or 10 days. And it makes me feel quite fatigued. I see my doctor this week to ask about it. I've only been on it about 3 weeks now.
nancy94544 Yaralee98362
Posted
I developed shortness of breath not long after I began taking it . Maybe a week or 10 days. And it makes me feel quite fatigued. I see my doctor this week to ask about it. I've only been on it about 3 weeks now.
chronogrim Yaralee98362
Edited
Wow, so glad I found this post. I've been having terrible shortness of breath since starting mirtazpine. I thought it was serequel. Once I got off that it went away, now it's back again! I've been on mirtazpine for a year and now I think I'll have to taper off. All my tests and vitals were fine. Whenever I'm sitting down it gets bad. If I drink alcohol or caffiene it gets way worse! The only other notable drug I'm on is propanolol. My life is pure suffering with this condition.
chronogrim
Posted
It's been 2 years since i posted this. My shortness of breath is almost completely gone. It wasn't the medications, it was all in my head. I can have a severe shortness of breath attack and I mean it's intense. Now I can stay super calm during it and not really care if it's happening. It only happens when I lay down to sleep anyway.