 

Hello, I hope this is in the right place. I am sorry, I am new to Reddit in my desperate search for something to help me with a problem.

I am 39. So about 3 months ago, I began having **24/7 breathlessness** (at rest too, all the time) one night out of nowhere, with no other symptoms other than feeling like my chest is congested with mucus, but not much comes up. To me, it **feels like I can inhale fine, but the difficulty is that I feel like my exhale isn't long enough**, like I run out of air to exhale before it has been long enough, if that makes sense. To make a long story short, I have been told this may be about 7 different things by 7 diff doctors. My doctor says this is NOT COPD and that COPD does "not present this way". I **smoked cigarettes for about ten to 15 years up until about 5 years ago and vaped from about 5 years ago until December 2021 when I quit cold turkey**. Up until a few months ago, I was quite active, going for walks/jogs every day of at least 2km with no problems. I went from active and productive to an absolutely useless, fatigued, breathless vegetable overnight. I was first told it was **asthma**, but the Ventolin and the Flovent don't help. I was told it could be **COPD** by another doctor, but as I said, my doctor is convinced it's not that. Another doctor thought it may be **reflux**, and she gave me **Pantaloc**, to double dose for a week and then once a day. It didn't help at all. I have had two chest x rays, but which were clear. I had a CT scan that said **everything was unremarkable except for a "mildly prominent right hilar lymph node measuring 9mm. Otherwise, no significant lymph enlargement size criteria.** Of course, once again, my doctor says not to worry about this, I had pulmonary function tests a few days ago, and I do not have a final report yet, all I could see was this on the screen

**FVC 3.62**

**FEV1 2.97**

**FEV1/FVC 83**

**FEF25-75% 3.17**

**PEF 7.01**

My doctor tells me that this is anxiety and has put me on Escitalopram, which I started 4 days ago. I quit taking the Ativan that I was given by another doctor after taking it for a month, by tapering from 1mg, to 05, to 0.25 to none about a week ago. I have been trying to follow some Buteyko breathing stuff on Youtube and reading books on breathing.

Has anyone else been through something like this?

I appreciate any responses :) Thank you!

Sarah &lt;3