I ended up at A&E all last night with my asthma. The ambulance had to give me a nebuliser because I had a bilateral wheeze on both sides.The hospital did bloods and chest x ray and said that my chest is clear, no sign of infection and that it is musco-skeletal but yet I was still breathless.
Now I'm home as got back at 7am and was asleep til 4pm. And since then I have been unable to keep my chest calm where I keep wheezing and have had to take my inhaler 5 times. My covid tests at hospital come back clear and just done one that is clear.
So at the moment I don't know what to think and it's left me scared as still getting breathless and wheezy and still getting pain in my chest and starting to feel dizzy at times.
Written by
Hpaddict
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
Over breathing (breathing too fast) and issues with breathing patterns can cause asthma-like symptoms, so including tightness, breathlessness and some kinds of wheezing. It also causes dizziness due to breathing out too much CO2.
I don't know if this is the case for you but it's quite possible because it can be part of or follow acute episodes such as you had the other day. The body can't breathe properly (for whatever original cause) so it kind of makes its own ways to breathe which then continue and aren't correct so cause the symptoms. Also the fact that steroids and your ventolin didn't seem to help would fit with that.
Such issues can be managed by doing breathing exercises. Some are good when done regularly for longer-term day-to-day issues and some are good done when symptomatic like you are at the moment.
The British Lung Foundation has some ideas here (the breathing rectangle is very good when you're symptomatic)
blf.org.uk/support-for-you/...
But google dysfunctional breathing exercises as that should give other ideas - it's good to have a range as some people prefer some exercises to others. But anything that helps you breathe more slowly and calmly (you don't need to take in too much air, often the exercises are about taking in less air as we don't need to take huge amounts in all the time) will help.
It does depend though because the pain experienced could well be muscular, for hpaddict and for many others, so it's not necessarily being dismissive. It depends on the context I think.
well if the pain was brought about from not being able to breathe due to a prior asthma attack, then I do not see much insight when they say it is muscle-skeletal.
But that would be true. Or could be true. It is very common and normal to have muscle pain after an asthma attack because the chest muscles have been overworked. So in that sense it is musculoskeletal.
Of course if they were blindly saying everything is muscle pain and ignoring the root cause at the same time, then that would be dismissive. But it's also entirely possible that someone may have muscle pain that wasn't caused by asthma issues, even if they've had symptoms that are like asthma - because not every breathing symptom is asthma.
It's difficult because definitely sometimes doctors can be dismissive, but doctors saying "we don't think this is caused by your asthma at the moment" may actually be true. Likewise doctors saying we don't think you have asthma after all (assuming they investigate thoroughly) is ok. Them not agreeing may not be what we want to hear or may go against something we've heard before but there's no point holding on to a diagnosis when it's not right as the treatment wouldn't work.
As I say though, it is difficult because yes there are times when doctors are wrong or dismissive - but I suppose my point is it's not always black and white.
It can be cyclical, starting with a chest infection, which triggers inflammation and so you get asthma symptoms. Then in order to compensate for narrowed airways, breathing patterns change and this means our chest (ribs and muscles) have to work harder over several days. And so we get pain because the chest has worked extra hard and the muscles will spasm and muscle fibre will tear, rib cartridge will also be sore from the extra exertion, none of which helps with breathing. And so we are back to the beginning with breathing problems but now it's being exacerbated by weary chest/ribs/muscles. So it's a complex issue that can be relieved by rescue meds, antibiotics for any infection, breathing exercises to calm any exaggerated breathing patterns. Massage can help too, to give the chest/back muscles some relief. Pain relief if necessary.
And if you have a cough then that too will impact on the chest wall. It has to work really hard over days during an asthma flare and discomfort can also come from the infected part of the lungs. If we have phlegm because of the infection then the huffing technique will help bring up and expel phlegm rather than just coughing. There are good videos made by physiotherapists on YouTube that explain the huffing technique.
The Buteyko breathing technique can be used when we first start to feel an asthma flare in order to prevent over breathing. But it's difficult once an attack has taken hold. Again there are videos on YouTube explaining the technique.
I've been fortunate to be referred to a respiratory physiotherapist and breathing exercises are as helpful as my asthma meds. The exercises I learned helped even when I was facing a different medical emergency.
Obvious question - have you got your PCR test result back? I have twice had false positive results to Lateral Flow tests in hospital (myself and my daughter) and know people who’ve had false negatives. If needed, you could do another PCR test.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Asthma attack and chest infection 
Recurrent chest infections 
4 courses of steroids for chest infection
getting over a chest infection, still breathless and activity 
Asthma Flare Up/ Chest Infection 
