Chest pressure/tightness/air hunger after short activity

[ChrisD]

I already made a post about this recently in regards to these symptoms I’ve been experiencing occurring after an invasive oxygen therapy (https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...ng-after-oxygen-treatment.76246/#post-2209395) but I wanted to ask a more general question about whether people experience these symptoms anyway after exertion or short bursts of activity?

At the moment, even after short tasks around the house I am experiencing a heavy feeling in my chest with air hunger, shallow breathing and a slight tightness. It’s sort of worst when I go up the stairs to bed and my heart rate goes up, then it takes ages for my chest to untighten and breathing to normalise. Some nights it has been awful and almost put my chest into spasm and has been very uncomfortable.

All my tests come up normal including blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pulse analysis by doctor.
So I wonder what the cause of this might be for myself and others, whether it is to do with redox reactions/respiratory balance or a bacterial/viral thing or general oxidative stress?

Does anyone else get this in any way and have you managed to remedy it? (I have been trying to use Aspirin, Thiamine, Curcumin, Vitamin C etc.)

 

[Thinktank]

It sounds like (allergic) asthma what you're describing but i can be wrong. I have asthma (induced by exercise, cold and allergies) and experience the exact same symptoms.

For me symbicort (corticosteroid+beta agonist) work to relief the tightening of chest experience and shallow breathing.

As in supplements i also use boswellia to open up my lungs / lower inflammation. It works very well for me.

 

[Gingergrrl]

I had these symptoms from a combination of POTS (tachycardia & very low BP) plus pulmonary restriction (muscle weakness of my lungs & diaphragm) due to autoimmunity.

Later, I also developed breathing issues due to allergic reactions from MCAS but that was a very different feeling and was triggered by food vs. orthostatic/positional changes, exertion, or trying to inhale a deep breath.

 

[kangaSue]

As strange as it may sound, another cause of these symptoms can be compression of the celiac artery, in a condition called Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS).

Unlike most accounts of classic cases of this in the medical literature though, MALS can have very mild symptoms at first, might be diagnosed as "just IBS", and may take 10 or 20 years before you develop any significant symptoms from it, hence it often gets dismissed as a condition of any great significance when it is seen to be an incidental finding.

MALS also causes POTS in a significant percent of cases (about 20%), probably from the vagus nerve also being compressed in the celiac plexus by the MAL.

 

[nandixon]

All my tests come up normal including blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pulse analysis by doctor.
So I wonder what the cause of this might be for myself and others, whether it is to do with redox reactions/respiratory balance or a bacterial/viral thing or general oxidative stress?

If it continues you might want to see a cardiologist and have an echocardiogram done. None of those tests nor a GP checking your heart with a stethoscope would be able to rule out a cardiomyopathy, for example.