Still can't breath

Hi all,

 

I'm just putting out some feelers because I'm coming up empty handed on the search to find out why I'm having shortness of breath. I came off of pretty low dose benzos last summer and haven't had one since. I don't think I ever really had breathing issues before. I ended up with a major cold/flu in late Jan which gave me tremendous shortness of breath at rest day one. I had that for 7-10 days, but it cleared up. I ended up with a nasty lingering cough for 6 weeks and finally got in to the doctor, who got me in to a pulmonary specialist. In mid february, the shortness of breath became much much worse right after I was put on inhaled steroids. I can no longer walk without having severe chest tightness. I also have weeks where I have shortness of breath at rest. It feels like I just don't get enough oxygen.

 

A friend I've been chatting too here reminded me that benzos might cause these symptoms. It's been almost a year since my last benzo so it seems kind of strange that it'd be causing such trouble for me now. But. Every heart and lung test I've had has been negative. Echo stress, several CT scans, holter, regular echo, every blood test imaginable, ENT throat tests, a couple pulmonary function tests, arterial blood gas, etc.

 

But I assure you I am not simply having anxiety, and I assure you that my symptoms are very real and very crippling. Of course, the whole world is ready to pin this on anxiety it seems and my confidence is so shot that I'm nearly ready to pop a few ativan just to see if it really would make these problems magically disappear. But I've worked so hard to stay off of them and I'm quite sure that whatever it is I am fighting, I can do it without benzos.

 

I still need to do a lot of searching here on ativan and benzo related shortness of breath. Again, mine occurs at rest. I feel this slight air starvation right now. I have windows where I don't feel this sensation for a week, but it has always returned. What has never gone away is the chest tightness during exercise or activity. The more I do, the tighter my chest gets until I feel like I can't breath at all any more. It is also sometimes triggered by a lot of talking, or by really strong emotions.

 

I don't really have any other major symptoms right now. My guts are a mess, but that's usually the case due to my GERD or whatever. My migraines, photophobia, and vertigo have been relatively well controlled lately as I've been on the topamax for quite a while now. I've half wondered if that itself could be causing problems.

 

Just not really sure where to go from here. Any information or advise would be most welcome. Thanks!

 

Talk to Arcey about the breathing. I have it too but he's been off benzos for a long time and he gets it for weeks at a time.

I guess it's a w/d symptom not many people have? I recently took myself off of the 75mg Topamax for the migraines and perhaps coincidentally I've had a slight improvement in my ability to walk. It was a 6+ week taper and I've been off completely for about 5 days now. I can walk much further than I used to be able to, but I'm only about 30% recovered.

 

Don't know if it was the Topamax or just time which is slowly improving things. Topamax is a great anti-anxiety drug and sleeping pill for me, so being off of it has really screwed my sleep up, and I wake up with loads of anxiety again. But this throws the whole doctor pushed idea that my breathing issue is probably just anxiety because they haven't run any test that shows anything wrong with my lungs. Have no anxiety, breathing sucks. Have more anxiety, breathing is actually a bit better.

 

But that leaves me with mystery illness which at least might be getting better very very slowly, or this is just another window.

I had that horrible breathing issue, on benzos, tapering and during withdrawal. I too was tested for asthma at one point, negative,  but  given inhalers which didn't help much at all.

I know it was benzo related and looking back now I realize it got worse when I took Ativan with the Restoril

For me I was not short of breath but just unable to take a deep satisfying breath, I would be constantly trying to force a yawn or stretch out my body to take in a deep breath, horrible sensation and hard to describe to others. And yes it is very real and crippling feeling, just horrible.

I am coming up on one year benzo free and this hasn't happened to me for over 6 months now.

Hope you find improvement soon

Ladygrace12

Hi Raen,

 

 

You said you have GERD,and it can cause your breathing problem. I also have something like this and that's why i started to take Klonopin .5 "as needed" and ended up taking it every 3 days since October 2012 till i finally got off in May. I started to have strange chest pains with shortness of breathe last summer,did every test on the earth and all was fine,the only one i couldn't do was esophagal manometry where they measure pressure in esophagus,just couldnt swallow the little tube

 

Do you have chest pains? Do you feel like air got trapped in your chest and eventually (can be few hours) you feel better aftwer you burp?

 

I had all these (still have now but 90% better) and was diagnosed with "Anxiety" tho i wasnt anxious,i didnt even know how is it to feel anxious TILL NOW  when i experienced benzo withdrawal.

 

Here is something interesting to read if you have this type of shortness or breathe:

 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/medicalprofs/noncardiac-chest-pain-pudd0212.html

 

There is another type of shortness of breathe i experianced only now which is 100% anxiety related,you get anxious and you start to feel tightness in your chest and a feeling "cant breathe" .Measure your pulse and it will be 100+ = typical anxiety.Once you are able to switch your mind on something else and RELAX it goes away.

Thanks for replying. My test for asthma is happening this afternoon. I had the methacholine challenge before but the nurse stopped the test during the middle because I started looking like crap. I was pouring with sweat, my pulse and BP shot up (not atypical for me during these breathing issues), and I was just feeling incredible malaise. My lung flow numbers were still normal. I felt strange tickling in my from the methacholine as well which isn't supposed to happen. But, ruling out asthma definitively would be nice. As with you, inhalers don't work and steroid inhalers really raise my BP.

 

My breathing issues have three modes. First are acute attacks, where if talking too long or walking too much, I'd get severe extreme squeezing like an asthma attack, and it'd pass in about 30 minutes and then I'd have lingering cough and tons of mucus for the next 4 hours.  Second type happens when I'm just walking. The further I walk, the tighter my chest gets and the more difficult it feels to take a breath in. The third type comes and goes almost on weekly-biweekly cycle and that's shortness of breath at rest. I feel like I can breath fine, and spirometry shows good lung function. But it's like the breath isn't taking full effect. Like I'm not breathing oxygen or something. I just don't feel that air satisfaction.

 

I haven't had the first type, the acute attacks, in quite some time. Maybe two months now. The third type, at rest, seems to still be there at certain times of the day, especially laying flat in bed, but it's pretty mild most of the time. The chest squeezing while walking happens much less severely and I can walk quarter of a mile now. Even going 1/16th of a mile before would give me squeezing so bad that I'd have to stop moving.

 

When did your breathing problems start? Was it soon after you started tapering benzos? My issues started almost precisely 7 months after my last benzo dose, the worst of it hitting me 8 months after. Now 11 months in and things are just slightly better again.

Yeah, I do have severe GERD caused by a congenital hiatal hernia. I'm on the maximum medication dose the GI is willing to give me, 40mg nexium 2x daily and 300mg zantac before bed. The GI doesn't seem to think it's related even though I've had worsening stomach issues. The GI doctor simply blames the issue on me 'being out of shape'. I've been 40 pounds heavier and still able to walk around without ever being winded so that's a bunch of bull.

 

No one has offered to do the manometry test on me, though it sounds awful. I have had my throat close up once due to acid washing in to my voice box, but the doctors call that 'normal, classic gerd'. This happened about 6-8 weeks ago. I wouldn't be surprised if this was stomach related either. There's a lot of things it could be, but the doctors want to say 'anxiety' or 'deconditioned'.

 

My chest issues are mostly squeezing and tightness, like someone has wrapped a tight belt around my chest. I do get lots of chest muscle pains, not sure if they're related. I also get a lot of pain below my sternum from the acid reflux, but I can sort of tell that it's stomach related. When my symptoms were at their worse, I had plenty of lung pain. Each breath ached, and I couldn't tolerate cold air at all from all the pain. Burping doesn't help, though sometimes my at-rest symptoms seem to be worse after eating.

 

I've had anxiety for over 15 years and I've never had breathing issues, even when I had the worse anxiety. I guess it's possible for symptoms to change. But the one thing that bothers me about the breathing is that it's been quite predictable and repeatable. If it was just anxiety, over the course of 4 months, shouldn't there have been at least SOME break? But every time I shower or go to the bathroom or walk in to work, chest tightness and difficulty breathing. Even when I'm calm as can be.

 

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a read. I've heard there are medications you can take which can actually reduce esophageal spasming when it occurs. No one has ever mentioned this to me. I wonder if I'd have any relief by just trying one of those meds.

I was in the same boat,i was getting horrible chest pains+shortness of breathe,which were starting AFTER FOOD! No doc could help me,no one knew what was it, i was taking Klonopin +Pain pill for just a short relief. It was time i was getting also COUGH,and also AFTER FOOD.My GI goc hated to see me again again and again. It all started to get better (and i am not sure what exactly helped) after i started these: "13 powerfull Enzymes" with every(!) meal,started Amitriptilyne 5 mg and got off Klonopin (the benzo),took a vocation,stopped using PPI (like Nexium) switched to as needed, and instead started to use Antacid gel after every meal and before bed,used it for about a month. Also i started to drink Chamomile tea every morning before breakfast ( and do it  also now).Got much better.As soon as i got benzo free my chest pains+shortness of breathe got worse for about a week and then STOPPED.Currently i have maybe 10% of it occasionally which is nothing compared to what i was going through.

That's odd that it occurred seven months after you stopped. Weird. I still have breathing problems. It feels just like you explained, like how people describe asthma. It's really weird that this can go on for so long after discontinuing. It would be really nice to have an explanation for why this happens. It's been two months for me and it's still ongoing.  Makes me wonder what else is being affected. 

 

It doesn't bother me all that much as odd as that might sound.  It does worry me though. I blew out candles recently and not only could I not do it I was told there was a wheezing sound. Ha.

 

Also it's similar to how you describe where after awhile it feels like my lungs are aching. I really hope it  resolves itself soon.

Well I just passed the methacholine test so I officially do not have asthma. Which is not a complete surprise as it was the original diagnosis and I was put on all the drugs, none of which ever helped.

 

Yeah, 7 months seems like a strange time to start as well. But nothing makes sense about what's been going on. I don't blame the doctors for thinking anxiety, because it's what I might think. But what caused the 2 months of coughing? Or why would my BP and pulse shoot up after the shortest of walks?

 

I guess if no one else had the breathing side effect so long after their last benzo that it's quite likely not benzo related in my case either. But anyway, I was just wondering.

Oh I wasn't saying it was too weird to be a possibility. I just meant the breathing issue mystery is weird. It does sound similar to what a lot of people including me experience.