They left me there to die...

[Jay_NotApplicable]

Hi, I have been having trouble lately with breathing. Occasionally I'll have episodes of labored breathing that last for several hours. My body tenses up, and it becomes hard to breath. And when I get distracted and forget about breathing, I find that I start getting dizzy and tingly feelings, and then loud sounds fill my head. At that point I realize that I haven't taken a breath in a long time; maybe a minute. So when I have these episodes I need to constantly focus on breathing so to keep my brain getting oxygen.

I went to the ER about this, but because I have schizophrenia they didn't believe me. They think I'm making up a story in my head. Now I understand that it's pretty easy to dismiss my symptoms, blaming it on the schizophrenia. But I know my own mind and body better than anybody else. This is nothing like my schizophrenic episodes. This is entirely physical. Anyway, so they hooked me up to the machines that monitor my heart rhythm and whatever else. They then left me there for a couple hours, occasionally coming back to take my blood pressure.

I then felt another attack coming on, and it began to be extremely difficult to breath. I had to force my lungs to keep pumping. It took a lot of energy. I then ripped off the sensors that they stuck on me to monitor my heart rythm and what-not. Then because I did that the machine began beeping to indicate that my heart had just stopped beating. The machine kept beeping, but for twenty minutes nobody came back to help me. I had to just force myself to continue breathing until my muscles stopped being tense. I then told them I wanted to go home because they weren't doing anything for me. So they let me go.

So what am I supposed to do to get my body checked out to figure out what's wrong with me, when the doctors refuse to acknowledge my problem?

[missysdetails]

I've found ER's are mostly a placebo service making one think they are in the safest place possible. I can't say with your limited details but as shocking as it sounds, schizophrenia has been linked to allergies to some foods when the chemicals pass the blood/ brain barrier. Your heart issue may be related to a syndrome called POTS but again, I don't have enough details to know. You are going to beat yourself to death trying to find your answers with normal doctors. Most only push a pill and its all guesswork. If you want real answers, you need to go to a functional integrative doctor who seeks to find the root cause of an ailment. This takes time and to make it easy on you, most of people's ailments are food-related. What we eat isn't the same as what our parents ate. New chemicals, pesticides, emulsifiers, food additives, etc are in our foods. Processing changes the shape of food chemicals that were once healthy into being tolerable by many but toxic to others. If you try to tell that to your doctor, he or she is likely to fire you as a patient. They have a business to grow and with so many people finding cures by eliminating foods, their bottom dollar is hurt as return customers don't need doctors anymore. Check out doctors like Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr Peter Osborne. They will help you with online videos that actually bring results if you will agree to stop believing that healing happens from a pill. It doesn't. What you put in your mouth is code. That code tells the system how to behave just like a computer. Food is Code. We use it like it was meant for pleasure. Its meant to keep us alive.  Good Luck

[ed34]

Everyone can switch their breathing to manual mode, hence the reasons yoga and other meditation activities focus on it. In some people they can begin to panic and wonder if they are breathing at a fast enough rate. As soon as you are distracted and your mind turns to something else, breathing returns to automated mode. When you get into the manual breathing situation, don't worry because if you don't breathe for a while, your brain will override and force you to breathe. It's not possible to hold your breathe and suffocate yourself to death. If you by chance pass out, breathing will return instantly to normal. To ensure this doesn't happen, just totally relax and take a normal breath every 5 seconds. This is adequate and then try to put your thoughts onto something else.

[Jay_NotApplicable]

OK, thank you.

[Jerry_NJ]

Well I don't know that the doctors were not trying, you ripped off the test instruments..not them.  It if troubling, however, that when removed the test leads and an alarm went off there was not response, not even a nurse?

I find If I think "too" much about breathing I find I have to force myself to breath... this goes on for a while and somehow (don't know what) I start breathing normally/automatically again.  I do not have any episodes, however, of stopping breathing until it makes me dizzy, and not know it.  

My breathing problems is in these cases is more mental, I think.  

I also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, a very mild case, but I don't think this relates to your symptoms.

Do you detect any heart rhythm problems?  I suppose if you did it still wouldn't be the source of your breathing problem.  

You may want to try posting on the Respiratory Disorders Community.