Air Hunger / Dyspnea / Pseudo Dyspnea / Breathlessness - It's Horrible!

Here's how to maybe fix yours! It fixed mine!

If you've found this article, you are probably looking for some way, any way - to cure the sensation of air hunger more often described as not being able to catch a full breath or by its medical term, dyspnea.

I have written this article as someone that has recently experienced this condition and after 12 weeks of discomfort, have finally come out the other side and put it behind me. I simply want to share my experience in the hope that it may help others dealing with this condition.

So - to explain the condition a little bit more.

The best way to describe air hunger is simply to say that those that suffer feel like that can't catch a full breath; it is as if you weren't getting enough oxygen into your lungs. 

Every 1 or 4 attempts results in being able to get a full breath, but then the following attempts fail and the sufferer spirals into an anxious episode of worrying about their breathing.

In between continuously sighing and yawning to relieve the sensation, the function of breathing becomes something that the individual begins to obsess about and focus on. The sensation becomes all consuming and quickly spirals into anxiety and depression.

To be clear, when this started I was a relatively healthy & happy guy in my late thirties living a pretty good life. I had no reason to be anxious, I am married - drive a nice looking car and have a really loving family. Of course, like many - I have my ups and downs, nothing however that would class me as suffering from anxiety or depression any more than the next person. Any issues in life, I am pretty resilient and adopt a what will be will be approach.

It was a Thursday and I remember saying to my wife that I felt like I couldn't get a full breath of air. I was really worried about it and spent most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday on the couch - continuously trying to get a full breath. By Sunday I started to really panic about it and went to the emergency room.

At the emergency clinic the Doctor took my blood pressure, tested my O2 saturation and listened to my lungs - no problem found on all three counts. 

No wheezing or any reason that I should be feeling short of breath, so he prescribed a Ventolin inhaler and sent me on my way with an assurance that I was in generally good health and had nothing to worry about in relation to my heart or lungs.

Over the next couple of days the feeling didn't subside or improve so I booked an appointment and went and saw my family Doctor. We discussed my condition and he started off with a course of standard tests.

Blood tests, clear.

Chest X-Ray, clear.

Full general work-over, clear.

At this stage I went back to my Doctor after the above tests and literally broke down in his office. By this time it had been 2 weeks of continually thinking about getting a full breath and it had consumed my life. I ask him what the next step was and he starts asking me about my mental health - I was in disbelief.

I straight out tell him that my anxiety is now through the roof on account of simply not being able to get a full breath, and that this sensation is the only thing that is bothering me. He gave me two questionnaires and assessed my mental health and tells me that I am now bordering on severe depression!

The result of this appointment is that the Doctor wants to refer me to a psychiatrist and believes my breathing problems are related to anxiety / my mental health.

At this stage I am saying to my wife that I am not anxious, that something else is going on and I don't know what to do. By this time I am not leaving the house, I am on the couch - falling deeper into depression and starting to question why this was happening to me.

My wife decided to book me into see a specialist at a breathing clinic which I followed through on.

I went and saw the breathing specialist whom said that I was a textbook case of having an anxiety related breathing disorder and told me that I needed to learn how to breathe again. By this stage I am now starting to believe this to be the case and really take the breathing exercises that she is teaching me seriously.

Over the next couple of weeks my anxiety about the condition lessened as I realized I was not about to die however every single waking moment of the day, I was still focused on getting a full breath, regardless of how much time I spent meditating or doing the breathing exercises I learnt at the clinic.

By about the fourth or fifth week I am now at my wits ends. I have thought a few times about suicide and I am no longer enjoying life. My friends are rallying around me and trying to help, checking in with me to see how I am doing. I'm bad. I'm not leaving the house and I am feeling really bad to be putting my family through the worry of dealing with me - in particular since it is looking like I have some kind of mental illness or anxiety related disorder causing me to focus on my breathing all day long.

I went and saw a physio, to rule out issues with my muscles or diaphragm that may have been contributing to not being able to breathe properly, the physio said there was nothing wrong with my muscles - nothing that would be causing shortness of breath.

I went to a chiropractor that told me my spine had a number of subluxations, one of them which was probably causing the breathing issues - I was ecstatic at this point however after one adjustment, I actually felt worse and so never returned.

It was about the seventh or eighth week when I returned to fishing for answers, refusing to believe I was dealing with anxiety. It was at this time I went back to square one and started with a process of elimination.

Not being able to get a full breath, based on all the literature I had been reading is caused by a problem in one of the 5 body systems below.

1. Heart - tick, no problem found.

2. Lungs - tick, no problem found.

3. Blood - tick, no problem found.

4. Circulation - tick, no problem found.

5. Muscles - tick, no problem found.

So, having exhausted the 5 main physical reasons that could be causing the sensation of wanting to get a full breath of air I finally found what was going on for me!

True dyspnea is worsened by physical exercise / movement, as the demand for oxygen is increased causing the shortness of breath to become worse. 

In my case, the opposite was true - if I was occupied, busy and upright - the air hunger seemed to be less; this is how False dyspnea is defined.

What causes false dysnea? 

So, I had finally figured out that my condition was not dysnea, and more correctly classed as false dyspnea. I set about reading about the causes of false or pseudo dyspnea  and found that it is caused by one of three things.

1. Panic. No - ruling that out at the offset, I have nothing to panic about, apart from the shortness of breath / air hunger!

2. Anxiety. No - I was fine before the air hunger came along, so I refuse to believe I have anxiety.

3. Esophagitis.

Eso-pha-what?

Exactly what I said!!! - and then the penny dropped given I have had the odd reflux issue here and there in life but nothing major.

Here is where it got heaps better for me and if your situation is sounding very familiar to mine, read on!

Esophagitis is an inflammation of the esophagus, mostly caused by acid reflux - this is, stomach acid that has for some reason made its way back into the esophagus, there are a variety of reasons or causes as to why this can happen.

Acid is all good in the stomach because the stomach has a thick mucous coat that protects it whereas acid in the esophagus causes inflammation or esophagitis.

Everyone will reflux acid into the esophagus during the day however for the most part we have anti-reflux defenses which wash the acid back into the stomach. When our natural defenses fail, we can then go on to develop esophagitis. 

Well known symptoms of esophagitis are heartburn, indigestion, cough & chest pain among others.  

A less known about symptom of esophagitis is the sensation of shortness of breath, which usually occurs without the other, more common symptoms.  

When the esophagus is inflamed by refluxed acid, these nerve endings can then fool the brain into feeling short of breath. This then causes the individual to take deep breaths in order to satisfy the feeling of being short of breath; HOWEVER - the more the individual takes deep breaths, the worse the individual feels and so it spirals into anxiety and in my case, severe depression including suicidal thoughts! All day every day, thinking about getting a satisfying breath is totally draining, as I am sure you well understand.

Here is the totally awesome news for you though! 

Treatment is totally easy and quick! 

Treatment includes treating the cause of the esophagitis, which in most cases is refluxed acid - allowing the esophagus (and nerves in the esophagus) to heal and then the sensation of needing to take a breath ceases!

The mediation that I used was a common PPI called omeprazole. I also took oral Gaviscon as a multi attack to get fast results - I didnt care at this point, I just wanted to sensation to end!

From the day that I took the first omeprazole tablet of 40mg to about day 4 or 5 - I was 85% back to normal; I couldn't believe it!

After an agonizing 10 weeks at this point, I first started to feel like - "Hold on a minute, I can get a full breath again all of a sudden."

I was in disbelief I guess, and to be honest I was still thinking about my breathing but each time I tried to take a deep breath, I was able to! I was rejoiced! This is an understatement, I was so happy at this point that my former cheerful self started to come back again.

After 2 weeks on simple antacid medication, my life was completely 150% back to normal.

I don't know how, I don't really know why as I am not a Doctor - all I know is that it is an awful condition, I went from Doctor to Specialist to Doctor and finally - after nearly 3 months of living on the couch, I was completely free of my shortness of breath.

Please - don't let some Doctor prescribe you anxiety medication or tell you that you are depressed before investigating silent acid reflux. 

There is little risk taking antacid medication over a short term period to your health (I am not suggesting you go and bang up heroin for example!), but long enough to see if it works for you, and then if it does - you will also get yourself back to normal and free of air hunger!

The next step for me is to have an investigation done as to the root cause of my excessive acid reflux and get it sorted but for now, just being able to take a deep breath is incredibly satisfying and I wish the same for you too! 

If this was helpful or you have some feedback, please drop me a comment below or send me an email.

Craig.