Shortness of Breath Overview

Shortness of breath, medically known as dyspnea, is often described as an intense tightening in the chest, difficulty breathing, breathlessness or a feeling of suffocation not being able to get enough air into the lungs. Very strenuous exercise, extreme temperatures, obesity and higher altitude all can cause shortness of breath in a healthy person. Outside of these examples, most of the times shortness of breath is likely a sign of a medical problem.

Shortness of Breath Causes

Most cases of shortness of breath are due to heart or lung conditions. The heart and lungs are involved in transporting oxygen to your tissues and removing carbon dioxide, and problems with either of these processes affect your breathing. Shortness of breath that comes on suddenly (called acute) has a limited number of causes, including:

In the case of shortness of breath that has lasted for weeks or longer (called chronic), the condition is most often due to:

A number of other health conditions also can make it hard to get enough air. These include:

Lung problems

Heart problems

Other problems

Shortness of Breath in COVID-19 

One of the signature symptoms of COVID-19 is shortness of breath. Other common symptoms are fever, cough and fatigue.

Most people who get COVID-19 will experience mild to moderate symptoms that can be treated at home. If you’re sick and suspect that you may have COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the following steps:

  • Stay home and separate yourself from all family members and pets as much as possible.
  • Cover your coughs and sneezes and wear a cloth mask if you must be around other people, but try to stay 6 feet away at minimum.
  • Stay in touch with your doctor and call ahead if you end up seeking medical attention.
  • Wash your hands often.
  • Avoid sharing household items with other people in the house.
  • Disinfect common surfaces often.

You should also be monitoring your symptoms while at home. You should seek emergency medical attention if you experience any of the following symptoms:

  • Trouble breathing
  • Heaviness or tightness in the chest
  • Bluish lips (cyanosis)
  • Confusion
  • Drowsiness and Dizziness

Shortness of Breath Risk Factors

Following are the risk factors for shortness of breath or other related conditions:

  • Muscles are weak, especially those involved in breathing, such as the diaphragm
  •  Asthma other chronic respiratory conditions such as COPD or Cystic Fibrosis
  • Hemoglobin levels are low
  • Smoking
  • Work or living space includes things that trigger asthma

Biospecimens

biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Moreover, human biospecimens are available including tumor tissue, serum, plasma and PBMC samples from most other therapeutic areas.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and likewise normal healthy donors for controls. Additionally, available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, researchers find the patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, as well as in other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human biofluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as  human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols; you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.