He Noticed He Was Breathless At Night And Went To See His Doctor
Nobody told me that, well I was told that every time I had a heart attack the muscles in my heart died a little or were damaged, and that they wouldn’t recover at that time and up to the present time there is no recovery, although they’re working on it! And…the consultant, no not the consultant, the surgeon that actually did the thing said that he didn’t think he would get rid of my breathlessness completely with this but it should do me. It should prevent any more heart attacks coming and should look after me for… I think approximately 10 years. And that was that. I had a triple bypass and I had a nurse come and take out the stitches and see me here, and then she went ill and I never saw anybody again for about 7′ years. When I started getting very alarmingly puffy, and especially alarming was getting breathless lying down in bed and I thought well this is not right, this is something wrong. And… it was then I went down to the local doctor and it was an emergency appointment so it was a lady doctor, who was very good, and she decided to send me for a scan in the the hospital. And there was an Irish lady doctor there, who had a good look at everything and said there hadn’t been any great deterioration in my heart, but it might be a good thing to see the consultant.
How Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosed
Right now, theres no test to tell if someone has chronic fatigue syndrome. Doctors ask a lot of questions . They also will do a thorough physical exam.
Doctors also usually order blood, urine , or other tests to check for conditions that cause similar symptoms. They may send a person to see other specialists to help with the diagnosis.
A doctor may suggest meeting with a psychologist or a therapist who can see whether mental health disorders might contribute to or mask CFS.
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Being Unfit Or Having An Unhealthy Weight
When we are unfit, our muscles get weaker. This includes the muscles we use to breathe. Weaker muscles need more oxygen to work, so the weaker our muscles, the more breathless we feel. Its really important to keep active so you can manage your breathlessness better.
Being an unhealthy weight can also contribute to make us feel breathless.
- If youre underweight, your breathing muscles will be weaker.
- If youre overweight, it takes more effort to breathe and move around. Having more weight around the chest and stomach restricts how much your lungs can move. If you have a body mass index of 25 or more, youre more likely to get breathless compared to people with a healthy weight.
People who are severely overweight can develop obesity hypoventilation syndrome. This is when poor breathing leads to lower oxygen levels and higher carbon dioxide levels in their blood.
Maintaining a healthy weight may help you to manage your breathlessness better and be more active. Read more about eating well for healthier lungs.
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What Are The Stages Of Pulmonary Hypertension
There are four main stages of pulmonary hypertension. The World Health Organization calls these functional classes. Theyre based on the symptoms you feel and refer to how well you can carry out your daily activities. As PH gets worse, the symptoms become more noticeable and more disruptive to your daily life.
- Class 1: You dont have any symptoms.
- Class 2: You dont have symptoms when youre resting. But you feel some discomfort or shortness of breath during some routine activities. These include household chores and climbing stairs.
- Class 3: You may still feel fine when youre resting. But its now much harder to do normal tasks because you feel tired or short of breath.
- Class 4: You have symptoms even when youre resting. The symptoms get worse when you try to do any normal task.
What Can You Do To Help Ongoing Breathlessness
There are some breathing control techniques that can help to reduce breathlessness. Examples include:
- Relaxed, slow, deep breathing: breathe in gently through your nose and breathe out through your nose and mouth. Try to stay feeling relaxed and calm.
- Paced breathing: this may help when you are walking or climbing stairs. Try to breathe in rhythm with your steps at a speed you find comfortable.
- Controlled breathing. This involves using your diaphragm and lower chest muscles to breathe instead of your upper chest and shoulder muscles. Breathe gently and keep your shoulders and upper chest muscles relaxed.
Use different comfortable seating and standing positions when you feel breathless. Different positions suit different people but examples include:
- When standing up, lean from the hips with your forearms resting on something at a comfortable height, such as a chair or kitchen work surface.
- When standing or walking, put your hands on your hips or in your pockets.
- When sitting, lean forwards, resting your forearms on your knees, on the arms of a chair, or on a table.
Arrange the things you use every day to make sure they are easy to reach. Try to stay active but take a rest when you feel breathless and then start again.
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Shortness Of Breath And Fatigue Are Symptoms Of
Asthma: Asthma is inflammation and constriction of the bronchial tubes. Attacks can be triggered by airborne allergens, stress, cold air, air pollutants, acid reflux, and more. Shortness of breath, wheezing, and chest tightness are common symptoms. The restriction of air flow can lead to fatigue.
Obesity: Obesity is a condition in which you have accumulated enough excess body fat to cause health problems. Shortness of breath and fatigue are common symptoms of obesity and the condition can lead to other life threatening health problems such as sleep apnea, heart problems, and stroke.
Weight Gain / Lack of Exercise: Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct explanation. You dont have to be obese to feel the effects of weight gain and general lack of exercise.
Asbestos-Related Diseases:Asbestos exposure can affect the entire body but most often causes conditions that affect the lungs. Among these are asbestosis which is scaring of the lungs, and mesothelioma which is cancer of the lining of the lungs. Both can take decades to manifest symptoms. Symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue, and pain.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder:Generalized anxiety disorder is a mental health disorder that involves chronic anxiety and excessive worrying for no known reason. GAD can cause shortness of breath, fatigue, muscle tension, irritability, difficulty swallowing, hot flashes, trembling and more.
What Can Make You Short Of Breath And How Doesshortness Of Breath Relate To Muscle Diseases
Breathing problems can have a broad range of causes that are more common than muscle disease. Sudden shortness of breath can be caused by life threatening conditions, such as a heart problem or an asthma attack, and may require immediate medical attention.
Long-term shortness of breath is most commonly caused by a problem with the lungs, but anything that affects function of the muscles required to breathe can also cause serious breathing problems. There are three main muscle groups involved in breathing: the diaphragm, intercostal and abdominal muscles.
In a number of muscles diseases weak breathing muscles can be a major health issue. This will often occur in the latter stages of disease progression but can also be one of the first symptoms that encourages somebody to seek help from their doctor, such as in Pompe disease.
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What Is Shortness Of Breath
Breathing is a vital bodily function that ensures every cell you have has enough oxygen to survive and that toxic carbon dioxide is removed. Effective breathing requires healthy lungs to perform gas exchange, as well as the functional activity of a number of different muscle groups that enable air to be drawn into and expelled from the lungs. This process largely occurs passively but can also be consciously controlled. Any problem with this process can cause shortness of breath which be the sign of a serious problem and may require immediate medical attention.
Heart Attacks In Women
Although hard-to-read heart attacks happen to both men and women, they are more common in women. One reason for this is that men’s symptoms initially set the standard for recognizing heart trouble. Now a growing body of research shows that women can experience heart attacks differently than men.
Understanding sex differences in heart disease is important. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women. Although it mostly affects older women, it isn’t rare in younger women. One in 10 of all women who die from heart disease or a stroke are under age 65, and this age group accounts for one-third of heart- or stroke-related hospitalizations. Even so, younger women and their doctors don’t necessarily suspect a heart attack even when all the signs are there.
In a survey of more than 500 women who survived heart attacks, 95% of them said they noticed that something wasn’t right in the month or so before their heart attacks. Two most common early warning signs were fatigue and disturbed sleep. Some women, for example, said they were so tired they couldn’t make a bed without resting.
Chest pain, a common early warning sign of heart trouble for men, was further down the list for these women. Those who did have it tended to describe it as pressure, aching, or tightness in the chest, not pain.
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Treating A Tight Chest
Your doctor will conduct tests to determine the cause of your chest tightness. If the tests for a heart attack come back negative, your symptoms may be caused by anxiety.
You should discuss your symptoms with your doctor to determine when to seek immediate medical attention if you experience chest tightness again. It may be possible to link your chest tightness to other symptoms thatll help you identify anxiety versus a cardiac event.
A Chest That Is Heavy & Tiredness With A Shortness Of Breath
With the advent of the Internet and ready access to medical information, both professional and lay, researching illnesses and their symptoms is just a few mouse clicks away. This easy availability of information sometimes makes for arm-chair doctors when the real thing is necessary. Its important to rationally review your symptoms and, if ever in doubt, seek medical advice.
If you are experiencing serious medical symptoms, seek emergency treatment immediately.
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Indirect Consequences Of Stress And Anxiety
The way we breathe is a powerful aspect of self-expression. Anxiety, emotional constipation, and other habits of mind and dysfunctional and self-limiting behavioural patterns might be associated with strong breathing patterns, especially shallow breathing.
Shallow breath is what we do when we literally hide . It is also what we do when we feel like we want to hide! Deep breathing is one of the main practical suggestions for fighting anxiety. Its a feedback loop.
Habitually breathing shallowly can be so subtle for so long that we dont even realize theres a problem until all the contributing factors and bad habits and vicious cycles are too deeply entrenched to break free a classic boiling frog kind of problem.
All of this is a rather complicated mess to try to sort out, but Im not going to leave you hanging. Here are several relevant, practical self-help articles. They all focus on what you can do about these issues:
Muscle Aches Fatigue And Shortness Of Breath
Muscle aches, fatigue and shortness of breath are three symptoms that often present themselves concurrently and are common to a variety of disorders or illnesses. The seasonal flu is the most common cause of this triad of symptoms, but the root of the problem may also be a more serious condition such as bronchitis, pneumonia or other viral or bacterial infection.
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How Does Shortness Of Breathpresent In Muscle Diseases
In muscle diseases the muscles required to breathe can become tired and fatigued resulting in shallow breaths. This can become particularly apparent when lying down, as the muscles have to work harder when in this position. The muscles required to keep airways open can also fail to work effectively, causing interruptions in breathing during sleep, a problem called sleep apnoea. This can result in symptoms such as morning headaches and mood swings that someone may not naturally attribute to muscle weakness.
Signs of shortness of breath caused by muscle weakness can include:
- Increased shortness of breath on exertion or at rest
- Difficulty breathing lying down
- Snoring, gasping or choking at night
- Morning headaches
Dr Berngard: ‘breathless Tired Dizzy It Could Be Pulmonary Hypertension’
- Boulder Community Health
Pulmonary hypertension occurs when the pressure in the blood vessels leading from the heart to the lungs is abnormally high. When PH strikes, it forces the heart to work harder. If left untreated, PH can lead to heart failure.
PH is not curable and was once considered rapidly fatal. But today, many patients enjoy longer, healthier lives thanks to the availability of medical therapies,S. Clark Berngard, MD, of Boulder Valley Pulmonology told a crowd of more than 100 people during a free health lecture held in Lafayette, CO.
However, proper treatment is essential and early, accurate diagnosis is key.
Signs Can Be Mistaken for Asthma, COPD or a Heart ConditionAccording to Dr. Berngard, early in the disease the symptoms are subtle. Many people have PH for a long time before they realize something is wrong, he said.
But once symptoms of PH develop, they can look like other conditions, causing them to be confused with other conditions such as asthma, COPD or a heart problem.
Dr. Berngard said the signs and symptoms of PH include:
- Shortness of breath
- Low oxygen levels
Determining the Exact Cause is KeyThere are numerous causes for PH, which can be familial or acquired as a result of other medical conditions such as heart disease, lung disease or connective tissue disease. In many cases of PH, the cause is unknown, Dr. Berngard said. Pinpointing the underlying cause of PH is essential for the best treatment and prognosis.
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Why Am I Short Of Breath
On this page, we explain the different causes that can make you feel breathless.
Breathlessness is a symptom. There are many possible underlying causes. But the main causes are:
There are other reasons too.
If you get breathless on a regular basis, you might have been diagnosed with one of these causes. Often theres more than one. And others can develop over time. If you notice changes in your breathing, tell your doctor. Conditions that cause long-term breathlessness can often be treated to some extent, but some cannot be fully reversed. Its important to learn how to manage long-term breathlessness, so that you can live as well as possible with it.
Weakness Fatigue Shortness Of Breath
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Research And Statistics: Who Gets Shortness Of Breath
Overall, shortness of breath is one of the most common of all medical complaints. It accounted for more than 7 percent of visits to hospital emergency rooms and as many as 25 percent of office visits to general practitioners, according to a report in the December 2016 issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, the German Medical Associations international bilingual science journal.
That number is certainly higher since the novel coronavirus pandemic has driven more and more people to hospitals, says Maxfield. However, its important to recognize that difficulty breathing can be caused by many things other than COVID, says Dr. Nagrani.
Indigestion Nausea And Vomiting
Often people begin experiencing mild indigestion and other gastrointestinal problems before a heart attack. Because heart attacks usually occur in older people who typically have more indigestion problems, these symptoms can get dismissed as heartburn or another food-related complication.
If you normally have an iron stomach, indigestion or heartburn could be a signal that something else is going on.
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Chest Pain Pressure And Discomfort
Most people with heart attacks experience some sort of chest pain or discomfort. But its important to understand that chest pains dont occur in every heart attack.
Chest pain is a common sign of a heart attack. People have described this sensation as feeling like an elephant is standing on their chest.
Some people dont describe chest pain as pain at all. Instead, they may say they felt chest tightness or squeezing. Sometimes this discomfort can seem bad for a few minutes and then go away. Sometimes the discomfort comes back hours or even a day later. These could all be signs your heart muscle isnt getting enough oxygen.
If you experience chest pains or tightness, you or someone around you should call 911 immediately.
Pain and tightness can also radiate in other areas of the body. Most people associate a heart attack with pain working its way down the left arm. That can happen, but pain can also appear in other locations, including:
- upper abdomen
American Heart Association , some women may even think their heart attack symptoms are flu-like symptoms.
A heart attack can cause exhaustion due to the extra stress on your heart to try to pump while an area of blood flow is blocked. If you often feel tired or exhausted for no reason, it could be a sign that something is wrong.
