BREATHLESSNESS – INTRODUCTION

Feeling short of breath basically means that you are not getting enough oxygen into your blood. This could be because there is something wrong with the lung tissue itself—cancer in the lung, clots on the lung, pneumonia, radiation reaction, lung damage caused by bleomycin, or fluid building up in the lung because your heart is not working efficiently. Breathless-ness can also be due to the lung being squashed by fluid building up outside it in what we call the pleural cavity (the membrane-lined space between the lung and the chest wall). Partial blockage of some of the bronchial tubes can also make you feel short of breath. The blockage could be caused by cancer pressing on them or spasm (as happens with asthma). Breathlessness can also be a symptom of anaemia. When you are anaemic, your blood does not carry as much oxygen as normal, so you automatically breathe faster to try to get more oxygen into the blood. And, of course, nervous tension can result in a feeling of breathlessness, or aggravate breathlessness of any other cause.

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