Hungry for breath

[Froggles1]

Hi everyone,

I was just looking for advice. For the past year or so, ive been getting spells where I feel hungry for breath. When I breathe in its like I can’t catch my breath. Sometimes it makes me yawn. I am starting to worry 😢I’ve recently started feeling a tightness in my neck, chest & back when I breathe in.

I had full blood tests a couple of months ago which tested iron, thyroid etc. I was still not feeling right even though they came back as normal so I rang back & over the phone a separate GP decided it was ‘mood’ related & said to up my exercise (I exercise most days anyway)

I rang today as Googling frightened the life out of me & couldnt get through. I just feel very let down & worried. I am an anxious person but I manage it well & know the difference when something is physically wrong any advice welcome xx

‘’Air hunger’ is a symptom of low iron and you could suffer symptoms even in the ‘normal’ range if you are the low end of normal.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986027/

My DH had that feeling quite often at the start of covid. He was prescribed anti-anxiety meds and it stopped completely.

Always ask to see your blood test results.

Definitely could be anxiety related, I get this too. Exactly this.
Google chronic hyperventilation syndrome and see if it sounds familiar. That's what I have.
If it does there are some simple breathing exercises that really help, mostly involving breathing out longer than in to help balance the o2 and co2 in your blood and muscles and stop the negative feedback loop your body gets stuck in.
Good luck, hope this helps!

Assuming there’s nothing medically wrong, do some reading around breathing pattern and nose/mouth breathing. If you always mouth breath then your airways get used to the sensation of fast flow of air compared to if you breath through your nose. This can cause an air hunger type feeling.

Nose breathing and breathing from your tummy rather than the top of your chest can really help.

Ask for spirometry. I had this; the spells were quite random and had no obvious cause. We went through endless investigations, bloods, X-ray, anti-histamines, you name it, until the GP finally sent me for spirometry. This revealed poor lung function; hospital tests confirmed small airway damage (nobody knows why or when it happened) and I am now on an inhaler which manages the problem very well.

Also a typical.symptom of low but B12. This is not routinely tested for and even when it is, the standard test doesn't always pick up an absorption problem.

Do you have other symptoms?

I was also going to say B12 deficiency as I have had this as a symptom and didn't realise before I was diagnosed. I also used to sigh a lot and people thought I was rude/bored but it was an air hunger thing.

@dontdisturbmenow @Rainbowgravy oo I’m not sure if they did. I know they did ferritin but not sure on b12.

Other symptoms are feeling low, hair loss, aches, brain fog and also my cycle has been a bit irregular. I was convinced thyroid but at 3.1 they wont consider treatment x

@Spodge yes I think you’re right. I noticed they have an option at another gp near me for private spirometry so been thinking I might do this if ny gp doesnt suggest. Its difficult atm as they triage everything over phone & I get really flustered when I speak to them :(

All you symptoms could point towards B12 deficiency so I'd ask them if they have tested it and if not ask them if they could.

@Rainbowgravy thank you & all for the replies. I hadn’t considered that so will ask what they tested exactly in January & go from there! Thanks again