I feel like I can't take a deep breath

Hello Kenzi!

I hope you resolved this issue and are feeling better. I am going through the same thing myself and its driving me insane. I have had all the possible tests and everything comes back OK.

If you are still here and found a solution for this please let me know as i am so desperate nothing seems to work, and nobody seems to understand it. 😦

You have practically described everything I've been experiencing for years now. It is the worst feeling and to not have an explanation of what's causing these issues is very frustrating. I'm currently 33 years of age and last year My Rheumatologist diagnosed me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome possibly from a virus I got when I travelled to Indonesia back in 2009. I also show auto immune symptoms similar to Lupus & now for the last 4-5 years my breathing issues have worsened. I feel like I can't get the breath in even when relaxed but if I make my self yawn I get some relief but only temporarily. I also have pain in my chest and in my left shoulder. Doctor's just tell me its probably CFS, Fibromyalgia, Allergies and recommend antidepressants even though I don't feel depressed?? I used to feel quite fit & strong but now I'm struggling with the simplest of things. I strongly believe there's an underlying issue going on. I just hope the doctors are doing the right testing. Sometimes it feels heart related but doctors don't seem to think so.

Also to add to my previous posts, It seems to have flared up again albeit not as bad as my first episode. I have also linked these 2 times with a back muscle problem, to clarify the breathing causes no pain or discomfort whatsoever, just that sensation of needing to take a deep breathe every minute or so.

I wonder if it is a muscle restriction?

The way I describe it is as if something is physically restricting my deep breaths. I am aware something is aggravating me to think I need a deep breath.

I am back on Omeprazole and still taking iron supplements so in theory this shouldnt have come back. Confused again.

lots of this sounds like chronic hyperventilation syndrome which I have been diagnosed with. I have that same sensation that I can’t catch my breath and my body involuntarily draws in an extra breath. Your body can also do this by yawning or coughing or sighing It is possible to treat with breathing exercises. Our bodies need to be retrained to not breathe as much as they are. This sounds totally counterintuitive but if you google chronic hyperventilation syndrome it makes sense. our bodies have become used to too little CO2 and will do whatever it takes to dispel it when we sctually beed it Whether that’s sighing yawning or gulping for air. what our bodies are actually doing is taking in more in order to dispel more. There is a technique which can help called Buteyko breathing. This helps you reduce your breathing and the symptoms will drastically reduce. As a first measure you can sit calmly, breathe through your nose and try to stifle those yawns and sighs which will make everything worse again. Try this for 20 minutes!

don’t dismiss this as the same as hyperventilation through a panic attack. I don’t suffer from anxiety and this developed over a period of time, which can happen.

lots of GPs don’t know about this, but I have found a respiratory physio who uses Buteyko. hope this helps.

So much great info in this forum.

I've been experiencing the inability to always take a deep breath for almost a year now. It's been getting worse and now I struggle daily.

My GP prescribed daily walks and yoga (cobra pose). The yoga hasn't seemed to help, although maybe it's because I'm not doing it right or enough.

But the physical issue with the ribs that was previously mentioned sounds like a great clue for me. Because my symptom seems to have gotten worse as I've gained weight. So maybe my issue is more physical.

So I've made a list of things I'll be trying:

• Lose some weight and reassess
• Mold testing in house - no one mentioned this, but I do wonder
• Back massage
• Look into SCIO biofeedback
• Test for Hiatus hernia
• Learn Buteyko breathing

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences and ideas.

Ive been suffering from this for the last 3 weeks. Started out of the blue on the train on the way in to work one morning. Not a particularly stressful day, just another random Wednesday.

Ive had a bunch of tests:

Blood Sat : Normal (99%)

ECG : Normal (3 ECGs in the last 8 months)

Echocardiogram: Normal

Spirometry: Normal

Chest X-Ray: Normal

Blood Tests: Normal (various blood tests including FBC and Thyroid Function)

I've spoken to 3 GPs, a Respiratory Consultant and a Cardiologist - they're of the view that this is anxiety/stress related.

A few things ive noticed about this symptom:

• The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes and the more I notice it, which in turn makes me want to draw that deep breath even more, and so on. Its circular.
• Exercise doesnt seem to have any effect on it - I mean its still there while I'm exercising but no worse than normal - if anything after say 45 minutes of rowing or something it seems better if anything.

I'm now looking into CBT to try and get it resolved.

Wondering if anyone has experienced similar?

Please read my previous posts as I am updating this regularly...I had started a diet recently and it cleared up, figured I was feeling good about myself, so maybe it was anxiety. UNTIL...I tried a piece of chocolate as a treat , ot flared up again, but not too bad.

3 days off chocolate, cleared up. Chocolate this morning and bam...my GP said it could be a sensitivity to chocolate which is provoking a silent GERD effect, Omeprazole if needed but otherwise, looks like I will be steering clear of chocolate now! (and good riddance if it causes this!!). Worth a try, its amazing what the smallest most 'innocent' food can do!?

Merry Christmas everyone xx Good health for 2020 xx

hey! is anyone experiencing stomach pains as well? im starting to freak out a little.

Hello, I'm a 44 year old pharmacist and I've been experiencing this issue for the past 3 months. I know just enough about the medical field to have diagnosed myself with everything from asbestosis to ALS. This has been the worst few months of my life.

Right after Thanksgiving, I began having the terrible inability to take a deep breath which led me to panic. I somehow got in with a pulmonologist 5 days later and remember thinking if they don't help me, I'm jumping off a bridge because this is unbearable. I have two kids and wouldn't really do that but it had me in a terrible state. I went to ER and urgent care while waiting for pulm appointment. Chest X-ray at ER was okay and urgent care gave me some Xanax, which helped a little. At the pulmonologist appt, she mentioned X-ray looked a little hyper-inflated and "emphysema-ish" but said it could be normal since I'm thin (?) I've never smoked but I guess you can still get it, so then it stuck in my mind. Anyway, PFTs showed some obstruction, partially reversible with bronchodilator. So they said maybe asthma (which I've never had) triggered by GERD since I also have gastroparesis (of unexplained origin of course) where there's a delay in my stomach emptying food. As for GERD- I never feel heartburn but apparently silent GERD can lead to aspiration of food into lungs, which would explain why I was waking up gasping like I lost my breath. She also made a comment to NP "Why does she have gastroparesis? Have we thought of hemi-diaphragmatic paralysis?" which COMPLETELY freaked me out. Anyway, tried a steroid/bronchodilator inhaler that night and felt the first relief yet. I was much better for about 3 weeks, continuing on the daily inhaler. Then it came back beginning of January. I saw a second pulmonologist who said the original PFTs were crap because my effort was poor. He said we could do methacholine challenge but I doubt you have asthma. He said breathing issues at rest are almost always anxiety. Ugghh I do actually get short of breath climbing stairs and talking as well but it's true my main complaint is the inability to take a deep breath, even at rest. They set up another PFT/spirometry and I later demanded a HR chest CT. Now I need to mention something I did two days before the symptoms originally developed. I've never smoked anything in my life, but that Friday after Thanksgiving I took two puffs of a relative's vaping pen (THC). Yes, complete idiot with all this vaping injury in the news. I mentioned it to the pulmonologist and he laughed it off (the 2 puffs I guess). A little too coincidental for me though. They don't know why it only affects certain people out of nowhere, so why not me? A hypersensitivity or something. He thought I was anxious because I had vaped when in reality the vaping didn't even occur to me until about 2 weeks into this whole ordeal. So I get the CT and it doesn't say "clear chest" as I would assume. Instead it mentions things like thickening and bronchiectasis, things you shouldn't have according to my Google search; things that point to asbestosis, mesothelioma, pulmonary fibrosis and all your basic nightmares. Yet the pulmonologist says he looked at the scan and there's nothing to worry about. Huh? Why is the stuff mentioned then, even if it says mild and occasional?

**To anyone out there who got the chest CT (especially high resolution)- Did the radiologist note anything on your report? Is it typical for them to note small things that aren't ultimately (clinically) a big deal? How the heck am I supposed to know the difference?? It freaked me out! So I went back to the original pulmonologist and she concurred with the other pulm that there was nothing of concern on the scan. As for bronchiectasis, it doesn't go away but you want to make sure it doesn't get worse by treating any lung infections right away, etc. I've never even had lung infections that I know of...so where did that come from?? It's usually a result of multiple past infections.

So at this point, I'm searching 1) vaping injuries, 2) asbestosis/mesothelioma because I've used Johnson's baby powder for 3 decades on upper body (breathed it in) and apparently the talc contained asbestos (as you've probably seen in the news), 3) ALS which I won't even get into because that was ruled out. 4) Also, I saw a neurologist who tested my phrenic nerve (reluctantly because he said it's not going to be an issue). The nerve controls your diaphragm and sure enough he couldn't get a normal read on the right side after like 20 attempts. So he did needle EMG and said it's fine, that's not causing it. Why is every test coming up abnormal but yet they say it's not causing it? Let me not forget to mention- that second PFT/spirometry I had done was normal except for 55% on DLCO (diffusing capacity of O2 for CO2) - not good. Again- don't be concerned, we'll re-test in 6 months (sigh). Also, maximum expiratory pressure was a bit low. Why are these things abnormal if they don't explain it? I will say DLCO was not abnormal in the first PFT but that was a different office and I felt the second test was performed much better.

They want me to do cardiopulmonary stress test (may show something on diffusing evening and the heart rate stays around 100. I'm at my wit's end because this horrible breathing issue is still there. I've raised my bed and taken Pepcid daily, don't eat after 7pm etc. to rule out the reflux/aspiration cause. I guess it's helped not wake up gasping for air but I'm still having the smothered issue during the day. I can't take a deep breath but maybe every fifth attempt and it feels like there's something coating my throat, also like there's a lump in it (throat symptoms might support GERD). When it feels very mucus-y I take guaifenesin and it seems to help my breathing somewhat. I don't know if that's the bronchiectasis causing that but I thought people cough a lot (and produce phlegm) when bronchiectasis flares up (not so much have breathing issues). I feel like they should have given me an antibiotic just in case. Oh! and I did take an oral steroid for about a week that a family member had since pulm didn't want to prescribe one. I did that in case the vaping injury was real (and maybe too mild to be obvious on CT). I wanted to do what I could to treat if it was vaping related, granted 2 months later a steroid probably isn't as effective. However, it did seem to help for the days I took it but now it's back. Unfortunately, I can't just keep taking steroids because of side effects so I stick to the inhaled one. This is just a depressing ongoing mystery and I have to be my own detective because they just don't know- too many specialists if you ask me. No one puts the whole body together anymore. Where is Dr. House??capacity for oxygen). I also saw cardiologist and he ordered ECHO plus two week monitor because I do get palpitations sometimes and random tachycardia of 115-120 range when not exercising. Yet I'm able to take 20-30 minute brisk walks every evening and the heart rate stays around 100. I'm at my wit's end because this horrible breathing issue is still there. I've raised my bed and taken Pepcid daily, don't eat after 7pm etc. to rule out the reflux/aspiration cause. I guess it's helped not wake up gasping for air but I'm still having the smothered issue during the day. I can't take a deep breath but maybe every fifth attempt and it feels like there's something coating my throat, also like there's a lump in it (throat symptoms might support GERD). When it feels very mucus-y I take guaifenesin and it seems to help my breathing somewhat. I don't know if that's the bronchiectasis causing that but I thought people cough a lot (and produce phlegm) when bronchiectasis flares up (not so much have breathing issues). I feel like they should have given me an antibiotic just in case. Oh! and I did take an oral steroid for about a week that a family member had since pulm didn't want to prescribe one. I did that in case the vaping injury was real (and maybe too mild to be obvious on CT). I wanted to do what I could to treat if it was vaping related, granted 2 months later a steroid probably isn't as effective. However, it did seem to help for the days I took it but now it's back. Unfortunately, I can't just keep taking steroids because of side effects so I stick to the inhaled one. This is just a depressing ongoing mystery and I have to be my own detective because they just don't know- too many specialists if you ask me. No one puts the whole body together anymore. Where is Dr. House??