The skinny : what might cause a person to not exhale enough?
Over the last while, I’ve come to the conclusion that something, I am not sure what, keeps me from exhaling all the way unless I deliberately make myself do it. As a result, CO2 builds up in my lungs, leading to shallow breathing, a feeling of slow suffocation, sometimes the urge to yawn A LOT, and so forth. In order to counter this, I have to occasionally deliberately empty my lungs as much as possible. This helps for a while.
What on earth could cause this?
Relevant medical info : I’m morbidly obese (and obesely morbid…). I have type II diabetes. I’m on five different medications, three for diabetes (metformin, avandia, and glyburide), one for depression/social anxety (Paxil), and one for cholesterol (good ol Lipitor.) I have sleep apnea.
I’m not looking for an Actual Medical Opinion on this, of course, just some sort of idea of how plausible this sounds and whether it’s the sort of thing I should bring up with my doctor, or if I am just talkin’ crazy.
IAMNAD. But the way I’ve always heard it is that humans start out (as babies) doing perfect deep-breaths (where your diaphragm extends downward) and during growing up, all the tensions and stress make us loose that ability and instead, we start shallow-breathing, where only a bit of the whole lungs is used.*
Anecdote: my mother told me how, when we babies were screaming our heads off, she touched our stomachs and they were fully relaxed - because we were still breathing right. An adult who is shouting in a tantrum will have a tight stomach, all clenched up.
The only people who do proper deep-breathing as adults are those who are athletes and thus need all their air and get in the habit of taking deep breaths again, and people who do meditation enough to get used to it.
WAG: since you say you’re obese, deep breathing may be more of a stress to you, and if you’re not used to it anymore, muscles will be used that are unused normally so it stresses.
My advice is to either start meditation proper, or simply try to remember to do deep-breathing every moment you can think off**. It will take some time to get your muscles used to it, and longer to make it an automatic habit, but it is healthier for your body and also helps to relax and lower stress levels.
If you have diabetes and are obese, doing sports additonally are also healthy (but I know that’s easier said than done!) You could try swimming or biking, where the weight doesn’t stress your joints.
** One of my doctors told me that people put post-it notes on their computers with “Blink!” written on it to remember to blink regularly - because most people forget it when they’re concentrating on the screen and then the eyes dry out. You could try a similar, simple, stupid reminder.
sorry I don’t have an answer to your question, but you reminded me of something similar that I do. A couple times a day I’ll take an involuntary, noisy sharp intake of breath. It startles me and kind of freaks me out in a wtf kind of way. I think I forget to breathe, dunno really. It almost reminds me of a hiccup as far as an involuntary muscle spasm involving lungs and breathing but doesn’t sound like a hiccup.
A subjective sensation that one is not getting enough air is called dyspnea–broadly speaking, a hunger for air, but in medicine we usually use it to refer to the subjective nature of the sensation versus a purely objective physical difficulty breathing.
It is almost impossible to evaluate it without a formal workup. Part of the problem is that the range of possibilities include potentially lethal things (subclinical pulmonary emboli that could become a larger event), chronic things (lung diseases; heart problems; sleep disorders) and totally benign things. And this is one of those rare complaints in medicine where a good history, although helpful, is not helpful enough. In particular arterial blood gases along with an assortment of cardiac and/or pulmonary tests are often required because so many underlying causes can present with the same vague sensation of just not getting quite enough air exchange.
The sensation you describe is remarkably common in people in whom we find no pathology of any kind–essentially a sensation that you aren’t getting enough air, but with completely normal physiology (as near as we can tell). We might do a complete workup and find completely normal oxygenation levels, pulmonary and cardiac function and normal carbon dioxide levels. Of course, without any workup–and especially in individuals with any risk factors for disorders (diabetes…obesity…medications…)–speculation as to cause would be foolish and dangerous.
For this particular symptom–dyspnea–only a qualified professional evaluation will help narrow down causes.
But - on behalf of the Dopers here and those who moderate and run the boards, I’ll point out that we have a policy of not asking for or providing actual medical advice, beyond a general level of explanation that we’ve arrived at (thanks to the Chief) this time. The SDMB, GQ division, is about information sharing - not medical diagnoses. Caution, caution, Will Robinson. If you have a medical concern, see a medical professional who can examine you directly. Just sayin’.
Relax, my friend. If you look earlier in the thread, I say that I am not looking for an actual medical opinion, just some sort of idea as to what might be going on.
I’m not a doctor, but I’ll throw my two cents in anyway.
A friend who had emphysema described just that sensation. He said asthma made it hard to breath in, and emphysema made it hard to breath out.
It could also be a circulation thing, when you start moving around and “wake up” the circulation in a stagnant area, you would get a rush of CO2 and feel out of breath.
Regardless, it’s definitely a “get to the doctor NOW” kind of a thing!
