Does anybody get winded, breathless from talking?

[percythetrain]

Hi everyone, I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with me. I have a long history of being easily winded from normal activities including singing and reading aloud, even when I was a child. You might think "asthma" is the most probable explanation but my spirometry was normal, so was my chest xray. I also had several normal ECGs and blood tests, as well as an echocardiogram that showed a very mild dysfunction that my doc thinks is completely common, irrelevant and asymptomatic. As you might imagine I got second, third and fourth opinions and the consensus seems to be that it's asymptomatic.

The thing is I'm still winded and find it difficult to hold a conversation without getting winded and dizzy, which is very alarming.

Does someone ever get anything like this? I have respiratory allergies and some broncospasm but my doctor doesn't think they're bad enough to cause my symptoms. Hope to hear from anyone if they've had these symptoms.

[sial72]

I had these symptoms for a few months, in my case my Iron was within the normal levels but very much at the lower end. I started taking Iron and my shortness of breath seems to have improved.
I was also going through a lot of anxiety at the time and now I am less anxious so I'm not really sure if it was the Iron, the decrease in anxiety or both x

[percythetrain]

Hi Sial72, I'm glad you're doing better! I used to think that it might be anemia but docs say my iron is good and so is my hemoglobin (sp?). I did have anemia last year supposedly and was given iron tablets. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a multivitamin and see what happens :)

[sial72]

The hospital said my iron was ok, it was 19 in a normal range of 16-135, so docs said it was within normal range.
But went to my accupuncturist (she is also a nurse at a top hospital) and she said that is too low, low enough to give me symptoms. She reckons anything below 50 is low. In fact she is with a group of people campaigning for the normal ranges to be changed on Iron results.
What is your Iron?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Muscular tension can play a part in it too. I've always had tension in my diagphram and it would cause similiar when walking. I have asthma and I thought it was this but if I stop and breath consciously with my lungs there is no problem, I'm just very tight lower down.

If you do a lot of manual breathing, that could cause it too because we tend to breathe how we think is normal but it just makes us tense and tired because it's not how our bodies would normally be breathing.

Vitamin & mineral issues seem worth a look too though. If it's an energy thing, B vitamins may need checking over. Remember, we burn through nutrients quicker than those without anxiety as we are worked up more so those RDA's our governments tell us are not necessarily applicable as we are not in that normal range (just like how sports people don't use RDA's either as they need more to cope with the demand).

Do you have an mucus issues? Mucus is an inflammatory response in such as asthma but if you have excess mucus in the nose or throat it could impact on you as it moves like with allergies such as hayfever. I don't mean into your lungs, it could just be the throat and you feel a bit clogged up from it.

[percythetrain]

Hi Sial72! My iron in blood seems to be 85, so that's probably pretty good. My clinic has a cutoff from 25 to 150 so your result would have been considered abnormal here. I guess it's one of those things where different docs have different opinions. It's a good thing you were able to find someone who helped.

Hi Terry! I think you might be onto something, I do have lots of muscular tension along with my SOB. Even my doctor thought I might have asthma but then my spirometry turned out normal and the bronchodialator they gave me for it had no real effect on neither my SOB or lung function (which was normal with and w/o the bronchodialator)

I've been taking clonazepam and trying to relax but there's still a part of me that's convinced this is a rare, probably fatal disease these folks haven't been able to diagnose yet. I know most people in the forum feel that way about their symptoms, it's just difficult not to when you feel so ill and no one comes up with a diagnosis lol