Shortness of Breath Symptoms

Shortness of breath has many causes affecting either the breathing passages and lungs or the heart or blood vessels. However, the causes fall into simple categories that we have listed for you below. Shortness of breath is also referred to as dyspnea. Doctors will further classify dyspnea as either occurring at rest or being associated with activity or exercise. They will also want to know if the dyspnea occurs gradually or all of a sudden. Each of these symptoms help to detect the precise cause of the shortness of breath.

An average 150 pound (70 kilogram) adult will breath at an average rate of 14 breaths per minute at rest. Excessively rapid breathing is referred to as hyperventilation.

Panic Attacks symptoms

A panic attack is a sudden rush of uncomfortable physical symptoms coupled with thoughts of impending doom or the feeling that you are dying. Sometimes you can have chest pain, difficulty breathing, elevated heart rate and blood pressure, unreasoning fear, trembling or shaking, choking feeling, feeling unreal or detached from your surroundings, sweating, feeling dizzy, lightheaded.

These kind of symptoms are unpredictable.

Panic attacks are classified into three basic types: spontaneous, situationally bound and situationally predisposed. The worst thing is that in many cases, panic attacks strike out of the blue, without any warning. Most panic attacks end within 20 to 30 minutes, and they rarely last more than an hour.

If you suffer recurrently from panic attacks this means you have a Panic Disorder and this comes from the Anxiety Disorders category as classified by the National Institute of Mental Health.