Hi all,
So sorry I have not been up to frequenting the boards for a while. Have been feeling really badly for the last few months or so. My newest issue is related to my breathing. It isn't exactly that I am struggling to breathe; it is more like I have trouble getting a deep, cleansing breath. I reach for the breath and it just is not there. I have been doing several breathing exercises which help, but this breathing discomfort has now been with me to varying degrees for over 2 weeks. It is not the first time I have had this, but it usually last a day or so and goes away. It is also a rare occurrence. Once a pulmonologist told me it was a form of seasonal allergy and would get better. It did, but seems worst this time. Primary said she has done workups on people with similar complaints and found nothing, but was open to being as aggressive as I wished. At its worst I also get pains between my shoulder blades, so I also got checked out by my cardiologist- everything fine and she does not believe it to be cardiac related. Mostly, I am getting the stress/anxiety speech. I haven't been stressed lately and certainly wasn't when this began over 2 weeks ago. Just woke up one morning and there it was. Yawning helps and when I breathe through my nose I don't experience the problem as much. My breathing just seems to be out of rhythm. I also noticed the last few days that I seem to have reflux and I am getting what I would describe as a slight spasm in my throat, which I think is related to the reflux. Regardless, I am also entirely too conscience of my breathing and this automatic function is just not seeming so automatic. I have an oncologist follow-up next week and will of course address this latest issue with him.
A little background- diagnosed 10 years ago and have been on 400mg of Gleevec ever since. The last few months I have been experiencing a symphony of Gleevec's greatest side effects = muscle and bone pain, reflux, skins issues and rashes, etc. Not a good time. Oncologist has been very supportive and encouraging that we will figure it out.
I truly value the quality of the information and support on this site, and so before I go through a plethora of tests that may well tell me nothing I thought I would see if anyone has any incite or has experienced the same. Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.