not ms hug related. Why does it hurt to inhale?

[billiejeane]

I get this from time 2 time,but now it is freaking me out. I know the breathing problems with the hug,this is different. I almost feel like I have asthma? But Im sure I don't. My windpipe aches when I take a deep breath and my lung capacity is weak? And it is not age related. In the past it would last 2 days. Now it is ongoing. Is it allergies? Is it ms related? Do I have some exotic disease? I even made an appt. for a mold guy to come over and test the air quality in my apartment. Has anyone had this? Wtf is it? I am scared.

[Maple25]

Julie,

Are you on Copaxone by any chance? I had trouble exhaling (drawing deeper breaths as well) and the doc said it could be a C side effect. Got some anti anxiety meds and was off of C for two weeks and it went away. Just a thought.

Maple

[chalknpens]

Copaxone and breathing?

Wow. Food for thought. I've never read anything that links Copaxone with weak or labored breathing. But in retrospect:

I've been on Copaxone for four years. I've also been eating lighter for the same four years. And the fatigue and occasional labored breathing after climbing stairs I'd always just attributed to MS.

I was in the hospital overnight a year ago, following a syncopal episode/fainting following an injection. It was my first hospitalization other than childbirth over 20 years ago. They kept me on oxygen overnight.

I went home the next day, removing the oxygen cannula just before leaving. It was summer, and I turned the AC up full blast in the truck on the way home.

At home, I had what I could only call a panic attack, sure that I wasn't breathing right. I was afraid, kept pulling my knees up to my chest, asking my husband to turn the fan toward me (it was) and I wonder, now, if I was just missing the steady oxygen flow of the cannula in the hospital, and returning to my "new normal" of shallow breathing. I took an ativan, and in an hour I was calm and glad to be home.

My fatigue and labored breathing on stairways continues. It was never an issue in the years before Copaxone, even though I weight 50 pounds more I did then. When I was diagnosed, with "innumerable" lesions on the brain and spine, my neurologist then said I'd had MS for years, maybe decades, undiagnosed. I have minor, benign symptoms: imbalance, numb fingers, and pain in my right ribs. Doctors have said pain in ribs is not MS related.

And reading your posts, I wonder now if it is related to the Copaxone, and I've just normalized it as part of MS.

My (new) neurologist and I are scheduled to talk and reconsider the injections in a few months. I'll bring this up with her.

[Sissy]

I do not take Copaxone, but I have been having breathing problems for several years before I was DXd. I have had the MS hug. It lasted 3-4 mo. No dx then but my PC doc said it was from diabetes and there was nothing he could do. So he sent me home to die.

Went to pain clinic the next week , got a thorasic block and was healed two hrs later. that was 7 yrs ago!! I still have problems. Like I can't carry anything in front of me and breath.

My heart is fine. My diabetes is stable. If I get very uncomfortable. I take a lorazepam and it help in just a little while. But in the meantime it is pretty taxing. But at least now I know it is the MS not the Diabetes...

[1936siol]

Breathing

It is several years I've had a breathing problem. I have been told it is because the nerves are demylinated and the muscles are very weak. I do think this will be permenant because the scar tissue is already there. I do not have pain however it is quiet unconfortable.

Lois

[Sissy]

WOW ! Thank you 1936siol for making that so easy to understand!! I have been trying to find out how to explain this stuff to my family!

You are right, it is very uncomfortable!! I tried to carry a baby the other day and I started getting a tightness and could not breath easily..This happens a lot! I have had my checked out and there was no problems in that area!!! YEA 8~}