Fortunately, most of the time your healthcare provider will have a good idea about what is causing your dyspnea after talking to you about your medical history, and performing a careful physical examination. Usually, with one or two additional tests to confirm the diagnosis, your healthcare provider will be able to recommend treatment to make the dyspnea go away.
What Does Dyspnea Feel Like?
Dyspnea is a feeling of breathlessness, of not getting enough air.
It can be accompanied by chest tightness, a suffocating feeling, or a feeling of panic. Depending on its cause, dyspnea may occur just occasionally, in discrete episodes. These episodes may recur in a predictable pattern, or they may occur completely randomly. On the other hand dyspnea can become continuous, often while gradually worsening. While some forms of dyspnea have an obvious cause you can identify yourself (such as running to catch a bus), unexplained dyspnea should always be evaluated by a healthcare provider.
What Kinds of Medical Conditions Can Cause Dyspnea?
As you can imagine, the major causes of dyspnea have to do with either lung or heart disorders. However, a number of medical conditions not directly related to the cardiopulmonary systems can also produce dyspnea.
Lung and airway disorders
Disorders involving the lungs themselves, including emphysema, lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, or sarcoidosis . Disorders of the airways including asthma and bronchitis . Infections involving the lungs or airways including bacterial pneumonia, histoplasmosis or tuberculosis . Disorders of the blood vessels in the lungs including pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary embolus. Other lung or chest conditions including restrictive lung disease or pneumothorax.
Heart disorders
Almost any cardiac disorder can produce shortness of breath (including coronary artery disease, heart valve disease, arrhythmias or pericardial disease), but dyspnea is most common in heart failure.
Anxiety disorders
Panic attacks often characterized by a feeling of breathlessness.
Deconditioning
Being very “out of shape,” due to illness or sedentary lifestyle, can produce dyspnea with even minor exertion.
Other medical conditions
Other medical conditions that can cause dyspnea include anemia (low red blood cell count), dysautonomia, and thyroid disorders.
What Are Some Important Clues To the Cause Of Dyspnea?
There are several important clues your healthcare provider should look for in trying to determine the cause of your dyspnea. These include:
Are you a current or past smoker? (suggests lung disease or heart disease. ) Do you have a sedentary lifestyle, elevated cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, or other cardiac risk factors? (suggests heart disease. ) Do you have a history of exposure to toxins that can produce lung disease? Do you have a weakened immune system, or recent exposure to infectious agents? (suggests pneumonia or other infectious pulmonary disease. ) Have you had recent surgery, prolonged bed rest, or a long airplane trip? (suggests pulmonary embolus. ) Have you had a recent illness with a prolonged period of inactivity? (suggests deconditioning. ) Do you have symptoms of other medical conditions that can produce dyspnea (such as thyroid disease, or dysautonomia)? Does the pattern of your dyspnea suggest a particular cause? (For instance,orthopnea or paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea may suggest heart failure. ) Is your dyspnea persistent, or steadily worsening? (The pattern of progressively worsening dyspnea is suggestive of pneumonia or other lung disease, or heart failure. ) Does your dyspnea come and go, in fairly discrete episodes? (This pattern can be suggestive of asthma, emphysema, recurrent pulmonary embolus, or coronary artery disease. )
What Testing May Be Necessary
If your healthcare provider suspects lung disease, it is likely that they will want a chest X-ray and pulmonary function tests to help confirm the diagnosis. If a pulmonary embolus is suspected, it is likely you will need a lung scan (an imaging test that looks for blockages in the arteries of the lung), a D-dimer test (a blood test that looks for signs of a recent blood clot), and an ultrasound test of your legs (to look for a blood clot). If heart disease is thought to be the cause, your healthcare provider is likely to begin with an echocardiogram to assess the function of your heart. Blood tests will be helpful if your dyspnea is thought to be related to anemia, thyroid disease, or infection.
A Word From Verywell
Unexplained or unexpected dyspnea can be caused by a number important and potentially dangerous medical conditions, so if you are experiencing this symptom you should be evaluated as soon as possible by a healthcare provider. In most cases, after doing a thorough initial medical evaluation (medical history and physical examination), a careful healthcare provider will have a pretty good idea as to what is causing the problem. Further testing can then be specifically directed toward confirming the suspected diagnosis.
Identifying the correct cause of shortness of breath is important enough that, if you believe your healthcare provider has rushed through their evaluation of your dyspnea, or otherwise seems unable to pin down the likely cause, you should strongly consider seeing another healthcare provider.
