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kingsfan4life2
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PathStep 54 Compassion hearts510 Forum posts21 Forum upvotes10 Current upvotes10 Age GroupAdult Last activeJuly, 2024 Member sinceSeptember 7, 2015
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Chronic Shortness of Breath - How to deal with it?
Disability Support / by kingsfan4life2
Last post
 May 29th, 2016
...See more Hello all, For those of you who haven't read any of my previous posts, i deal with chronic anxiety, and by chronic i mean daily, moment to moment. I'm on medication and have altered and changed medications and seen many different doctors about my condition and symptoms. My most bothersome symptom is chronic shortness of breath. I breath hard, heavy, through my mouth, and even doing small tasks or concentrating on something long enough i will begin to become more out of breath until i have to just stop what im doing and take a break or remove myself from whatever i'm doing. My rib area gets very tight and restricted and perpetuates the cycle of shortness of breath. Furthermore the more short of breath i am i have a spasming/twitching feeling in my upper abdomen (i believe its my diaphragm), and the more short of breath i am, the worse this sensation gets. I've tried stretching, relaxing certain muscle groups, slowing my breathing, via pursed lip breathing, meditation, and much more. I've researched this topic very very extensively and found other people have suffered from the same thing. It seems to be a cycle, that once started is incredibly difficult to break. I've also learned it's called hyperventilation syndrome, which basically is breathing too much. Some experts aren't certain about whether anxiety and or stress triggers the overbreathing and it perpetuates or overbreathing triggers the anxiety and the sensations of anxiety cause more overbreathing. Also there seems to be a chemical component to it. Low levels of CO2 trick your body into thinking you aren't receiving enough oxygen and causes you to breathe harder and faster which in turn worsens the symptoms. Futhermore, CO2 dialates your blood vessels meaning it easier for oxygen to get transported to your body. So low levels of CO2 in your body constrict blood vessels and makes it more difficult for the delivery of oxygen and this worsens the symptoms even more. So it's this whole physical and psychological chain of events that negatively feeds into itself. Its a vicious cycle that i've been caught in and have no idea how to get out of. I've researched many breathing techniques. Belly breathing, posture adjustments, breathing into a paper bag, pursed lip breathing and non of them seem to work or get rid of the shortness of breath. So then i've tried to address it from a psychological perspective hoping i could resolve some possible deep issues that may be causing this. I've had mixed results, and the breathing issue continues. I feel incredibly stuck and need some help. Sorry for the long post but the whole reason i'm posting this is slightly out of desperation, because i've tried so many things, and dealt with this for so long that i'm kind of throwing my hands up, because what i'm doing is just not working. I'm hoping someone else out there has had similar experiences that they were able to remedy and can share their experiences. any thoughts, ideas, comments, support, and etc is greatly appreciated. thank you everyone for your time.
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