voice change

[studenthazard]

I know I suffer from chronic hyperventilation easily.
Lately I've been having real trouble with it again. When I go for a short walk (break in between work for 20 min) I get real out of breath and heavy chest, lump in throat feeling, feeling supertired afterwards and anxious at the same time. I'm guessing it's the usual hyperv. syndrome rearing its head.
It is the first time though that when this happens I have real difficulty speaking. My voice trembles, similarly as when somenone gets emotional, but I'm not emotional about anything at all! When I do try to talk firmly, I lose my breath even worse.
1. Its really irritating because people look at me funny for it and it kind of makes my social anxiety rise.

2. Its also starting to worry me, because it keeps getting worse and happening more frequently. And its keeping me from getting my hyperventilation under control again. Health anxiety definitely worsening

Anyone experience this before? I couldn't find posts on this topic.


PS: I do also have problems with stomach, real swollen stomach feeling and difficulty swallowing food, so maybe some mild GERD? but I dont think the two are connected, because thats been going on for months and the voice thing the last 2 weeks

[.Poppy.]

I'd be willing to bet that it's a spinoff from your anxiety.

You get slightly out of breath (which is normal) => this makes you anxious about hyperventilating so you become even more out of breath along with the other symptoms => you are now tired and breathing fast and your voice comes out sounding different because you aren't using the usual air stream, but now you've picked up on it and your mind has latched onto it so you are AWARE of it. And when our anxiety is aware of something, we are anxious about it and it gets even worse.

I had a period of time where I thought I was losing my voice. I think I had a hoarse voice some morning and for some reason just decided this was the end. I spent an entire vacation (!!) nearly unable to speak, because I thought my voice sounded odd and that my family would notice and then they'd freak out, so I'd freak out even more...

8 years later and I can still speak just fine. It passed pretty quickly (thankfully) but yeah, all anxiety. Our minds are incredibly powerful.

[studenthazard]

Thank you for the fast reply!!!

I know where the anxiety spiral takes me and so I've got some coping mechanisms, but its difficult to handle because everytime I think I've got the whole physical symptoms all figured out a new one shows up.
And just the fact that it keeps spinnning through my mind way too many hours in a day, its exhausting

---------- Post added at 21:09 ---------- Previous post was at 21:07 ----------

I am glad I've got this forum to turn to when it gets too much, so thanks. Just the understanding is already helpful!