Chronic Hyperventilation Syndrome
You know how some medical issues suck? Back and knee injuries are hard, stopping you from doing a lot of basic everyday things. Asthma sounds pretty awful too.
A few years back, I picked up a new anxiety issue. For some reason, I hyperventilate. It’s not a panic attack, not even an anxiety attack. There’s no ‘attack’ at all, just a tendency to breathe too fast until I push my blood oxygen too high.
Human bodies being what they are, too much oxygen means too little carbon dioxide (hypocapnia) and you suddenly feel like you are suffocating for some reason. You gasp, you sigh, you yawn and that just makes it worse. You know that feeling of relief you get from a good yawn; imagine not getting that, imagine feeling increasingly panicked.
The ‘fix’ is to carefully control my breathing. At its worst, I was down to 2 breaths per minute for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. It helps, but any kind of stress and I can find myself light-headed, with tingling in my fingers and sweating.
Imagine feeling like you can’t get enough air and having to force yourself to breathe less for ten or fifteen minutes. You struggle against your body’s instincts, your heart beating faster as you try not to panic, and focus on the second hand of a clock or watch while you wait for it to subside just enough that you can continue without feeling like you might die.
Good times...