Trouble Breathing Overview

Trouble breathing is a symptom of many conditions, including colds and flu, anxiety, asthma, COPD, emphysema, heart attacks, and more. Additionally, physical exertion and obstructions are also possible causes.

Consequently, people may experience physical difficulty inhaling or exhaling or, alternatively, feeling like they cannot get enough oxygen from each breath.

Trouble breathing can be mild or severe. Moreover, trouble breathing may be caused by physical exertion or choking, but in contrast, in other instances, the root of the problem may not be clear. Furthermore, a shortness of breath that comes on suddenly, progressively worsens, and has no clear cause is a medical emergency and requires professional assistance.

Causes of Trouble Breathing

There are several different reasons a person may feel short of breath. For instance, while many of these reasons may be short-lived or mild.  Moreover, a person should seek immediate medical assistance if they, or someone around them, has serious difficulty breathing. Furthermore, or if other symptoms such as dizziness, chest pain, and fever accompany shortness of breath.

Respiratory Infections

Moreover, people with a common cold, the flu, and other respiratory infections may have difficulty breathing. Specifically, these illnesses cause the following symptoms, which can make breathing more difficult:

  • Firstly, a sore throat
  • Secondly, excess mucus in the airways
  • Moreover, fluid buildup
  • Furthermore, inflammation in the lungs
  • In addition, sinusitis
  • Lastly, stuffy nose

Furthermore, the severity of respiratory infection symptoms can vary from mild to severe. Consequently, it is abnormal for a cold or flu to cause difficulty breathing; anyone experiencing this should seek immediate medical assistance.

Additionally, infections can affect different parts of the lungs. For example, bronchitis inflames the main lung airways (bronchi), while pneumonia causes inflammation and fluid or pus buildup in the lungs’ air sacs (alveoli).

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

COPD is a term that describes several lung disorders, including chronic asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Moreover, COPD symptoms may worsen at night or after exertion.

Moreover, COPD can cause a range of symptoms, such as:

Other Lung Disorders

Other lung conditions that may cause shortness of breath include:

Lung Cancer

Moreover, certain types of lung cancer and cancer treatments can cause shortness of breath.. Specifically, cancerous growths in the airways can restrict airflow, while tumor surgery, chemotherapy drugs, and radiation therapy can affect breathing in different ways.

For example, radiotherapy can cause inflammation in the lungs; therefore, cancer treatment puts people at a higher risk of anemia, pleural effusion, and other conditions that affect respiratory function.

Choking and Physical Obstruction

Choking occurs when an object lodges in a person’s throat. Specifically, the object could be a larger piece of food, a toy, or another non-edible item that a child may typically put in their mouth.

Furthermore, choking can be life threatening if the object remains in the person’s mouth and restricts breathing.

Obesity

 Additionally, people who are obese or overweight may experience periods during which they have difficulty breathing. This may occur after exertion, eating, or other activities.

Moreover, extra fat around the neck, chest, and abdomen can put pressure on the muscles surrounding the lungs, making deep breaths more difficult.

Physical Exertion

If weight or a lack of exercise is causing breathing difficulty, then starting an exercise regimen and following a healthful diet can significantly reduce or eliminate the problem.

Anxiety

In addition, anxiety can cause physical symptoms, including shortness of breath or breathing difficulties. Consequently, a person’s breath is likely to return to normal once their anxiety eases.

Other symptoms of anxiety include:

  • Fatigue
  • Feeling nervous or on edge
  • Increased  heart rate

Finally, other symptoms of anxiety include feeling nervous or on edge, raised heart rate, and fatigue.

Panic attacks

People may sometimes experience extreme anxiety or panic attacks that resemble a heart attack. In addition, other symptoms of a panic attack can include:

  • First, a raised or pounding heartbeat
  • In addition, sweating
  • Finally, a feeling of choking

Pregnancy

Moreover, pregnancy can also contribute to similar experiences.

As pregnancy progresses, the fetus becomes bigger and can start to push on surrounding organs and muscles. Specifically, these include the diaphragm, a muscle directly below the lungs that helps a person take deep breaths.

Consequently, if the uterus pushes against the diaphragm, this can make it more difficult for the person to take deep breaths.

Anemia

Furthermore, anemia is another condition that can affect breathing.

Anemia occurs when the body produces less healthy red blood cells than it requires—leading to a lack of oxygen-rich blood circulating. As a result, this can lead to shortness of breath in addition to fatigue and weakness.

Asthma

Similarly, asthma is a chronic disease that inflames the airways leading to the lungs.

As with other chronic conditions, a person’s asthma will flare from time to time, usually as a result of exposure to a trigger. In particular, triggers can vary between people but include exercise, smoke, or allergens.

Anaphylaxis

Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction. In fact, it is a life threatening condition that requires immediate medical attention. Moreover, anaphylaxis progresses quickly; however, it has some early warning signs and symptoms, such as tightness in the throat, difficulty breathing, and hives.

Heart attack

Similarly, difficulty breathing is one of the common warning signs of a heart attack. Therefore, anyone experiencing this symptom should pay attention to any other symptoms that occur.

For instance, if a person experiences the following symptoms, they should get medical attention immediately:

  • Cold sweats
  • Discomfort in the back, jaw, neck, stomach, or one or both arms
  • Lightheadedness
  • Nausea
  • Pulmonary embolism
  • Cardiac tamponade
  • Pleural effusion
  • trouble breathing
  • Pneumothorax
  • Chest discomfort
  • Pericarditis

Diagnosis

There are many possible causes of breathing difficulties. Therefore, people should see their doctor whenever they have trouble breathing for unknown reasons.

At an appointment, the doctor will ask about the other symptoms that a person is experiencing. In some cases, this may be enough for the doctor to determine the cause. However, in other cases, a doctor may want to run tests to help diagnose the problem. These tests may include:

  • Allergy tests
  • Chest X-rays
  • Arterial blood gas analysis
  • CT scans
  • Lung tests
  • Spirometry and methacholine challenge tests
  • Ultrasound scans

Treatment

The cause of the breathing difficulty will determine the treatment. For instance, some common treatments could include:

  • First, administering an epinephrine auto injector (EpiPen) for anaphylaxis
  • Second, eating smaller meals for acid reflux and COPD
  • Moreover, medications
  • Furthermore, moving an object in the throat, in cases of choking
  • In addition, using medications
  • Lastly, using inhalers for asthma and other upper respiratory conditions using antacids for acid reflux

Moreover, in some cases, people can improve their breathing by using specific breathing exercises to increase their lung capacity.

Prevention

Now, moving on to prevention, many potential ways exist to prevent the development of breathing difficulties. Specifically, some steps to consider include:

  • Firstly, avoiding smoking and breathing in secondhand smoke
  • Secondly, taking smaller bites of food and avoiding placing loose objects in the mouth
  • Moreover, eating smaller meals
  • Furthermore, taking allergy medications and avoiding known allergens
  • In addition, eating healthful meals and exercising regularly
  • Finally, taking prescribed medications for chronic conditions and avoiding triggers

Summary

There are several different causes of breathing difficulty. Therefore, anyone with concerns about this symptom should see their doctor. Additionally, some causes are chronic, such as COPD, while others are temporary, for example, the common cold.

Moreover, if symptoms are severe, the person will need immediate medical attention. Consequently, a person can typically avoid having difficulty breathing by avoiding triggers and living a healthful lifestyle that includes eating well and exercising regularly.

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.

Human biospecimens are available including cancer (tumor) tissue, cancer serum, cancer plasma, cancer peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). and human tissue samples from most other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and from normal healthy donors for controls, 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:

  • Peripheral whole-blood
  • Amniotic fluid
  • Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL)
  • Sputum
  • Pleural effusion
  • Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
  • Serum (sera)
  • Plasma
  • Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)
  • Saliva
  • Buffy coat
  • Urine
  • Stool samples
  • Aqueous humor
  • Vitreous humor
  • Kidney stones (renal calculi)
  • Other bodily fluids from most diseases including cancer.

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.