Breathlessness and Niacin lowering breathing rate

[SteveT3]

I was a little breathless this morning at 3am. I don't have sleep apnea as far as I know. I had a big buffet of sushi yesterday afternoon and started wondering whether it was the amount of fish and omega 3 that made me sleepy after and whether congested digestion made me a little breathless. I had ran 6 miles as is my sunday norm so generally have good lung capacity, vo2max, fitness in general.

Then I though maybe its iodine in the seaweed that affected my thyroid and somehow lowered my existing subclinical hypo / hashimotos.

My garmin watch showed my respiration rate was 8bpm at 3am. That seemed low. Though I have deliberately lowered my breathing to 5 in an exercise of relaxation in the past I'm not entirely sure why it would be a problem now.

I just felt involuntarily breathless.

I looked at my average respiration for the last few weeks and its about 13. The garmin display can be deceptive. So looking at a day by day display it showed my lows, not just avg, at 6,5,5,6,5,4 over the last 3 weeks (even at 4 I don't remember feeling breathless during the day).

So I discovered thr culprit. It was niacin at 500mg I took on the 19th feb. Before that my lows were 10,9,11,10,12,10 etc.

I will update this post once my levels normalise but that's 3 weeks of lows from 1 high dose of niacin.

[Regenallotment Ambassador]

Hi Steve,

This is familiar, I can get like this with silent reflux laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), I had all sorts of investigations, cameras etc. The ENT said its linked to low in range T3 and I've altered diet/drinks and meal timings which have helped. Raising stomach acid with Betaine with Pepsin helps if you realise mid meal, but if its too late then propping up in bed on pillows seems to settle it.

Interesting what you say about Niacin, my GP asked me to stop B Complex and injecting B12 3 months ago and I haven't noticed a difference in my shortness of breath, its similar to before. Only occasional, definitely meal/drink related for me.