Shortness of breath with coronavirus: how to understand, how it manifests itself, what to do

Characteristic symptoms

Shortness of breath with coronavirus: how to understand ? It is difficult for the patient to take a deep breath. He makes at least twenty respiratory movements, which is typical for the moderate severity of the disease. As for the severe degree, it is characterized by more than thirty respiratory movements per minute.

At the same time, severe inflammatory processes occur in the lungs: a person’s body temperature rises, but in some situations, shortness of breath with coronavirus without fever , a dry cough is bothersome. But in some cases there may be no symptoms. Then the cough is caused by fear and panic.

If pneumonia is present, during auscultation the doctor hears whistling and wheezing in the bronchi. This is often typical for patients with concomitant bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis and in the presence of secondary lung damage. Subsequently, if treatment is not timely, edema of the pulmonary tissue may develop - this is a life-threatening condition.

4.Treatment

Therapy is always aimed at eliminating the underlying disease, or, if its course is chronic, at relieving the main symptoms and achieving high-quality remission. Dyspnea at rest practically never occurs as a single and isolated symptom; Given the sufficient specificity of the associated symptom complexes, the root cause can usually be determined quickly, after which adequate specialized treatment is prescribed.

It is important, however, to repeat: shortness of breath at rest is one of the alarming symptoms, and most often it is a sign (sometimes the first) of a very serious pathology that requires immediate examination and intervention. Therefore, the appearance of this type of respiratory disorder should be a reason for an urgent visit to the doctor.

What are the characteristics of breathing complications after suffering from covid-19?

Symptoms of shortness of breath with coronavirus:

feeling of tightness in the chest,
rapid breathing,
superficial breathing movements,
It's difficult to take a deep breath.

coronavirus shortness of breath symptoms
The presence of shortness of breath in healthy people does not always indicate pathology. It can normally occur in athletes and runners. It can also occur in ordinary people during physical activity. But after suffering from covid-19, shortness of breath occurs even at rest, the body is starved of oxygen, which disrupts its vital functions.

1.General information

Shortness of breath (dyspnea) is a deviation of the frequency, depth and/or rhythm of breathing from similar indicators of a healthy person of the same sex and age under the same conditions. Despite some cumbersomeness of this definition, it seems quite complete and accurate. The term “shortness of breath” seems intuitive, which often leads to misunderstandings between the doctor and the patient, who put different meanings into this word.

There are several classifications of shortness of breath:

inspiratory (on inspiration), expiratory (on exhalation) and mixed (difficulties in both phases of the respiratory act);
tachypnea (rapid shallow breathing) and bradypnea (slow breathing);
physiological shortness of breath (transient, reversible intensification of breathing as an adequate adaptive response of the body to stress, injury or objectively low oxygen content in the inhaled air, which requires additional oxygenation) and pathological shortness of breath (caused by airway obstructions, bad habits, cardiovascular failure, obesity, diseases lungs, hematopoietic system, etc.).

This material is devoted to a type of dyspnea called dyspnea at rest (sometimes also called dyspnea at rest). In contrast to the antonymous “shortness of breath on exertion,” which is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the normal physiological response of the respiratory system, resting dyspnea is a much more unfavorable clinical and prognostic sign.

A must read! Help with hospitalization and treatment!

What types of shortness of breath are there after coronavirus?

Doctors distinguish two types of shortness of breath after coronavirus , which occur in patients in this group:

Emerging gradually. A person feels difficulty during inhalation and exhalation not only during exercise, but also at rest. Worsening occurs at night, and signs of suffocation may occur. When you raise your arms up, the patient's condition is better.
Sudden shortness of breath. It occurs against a background of complete well-being and is accompanied by headache and sweating. It is impossible to take a full breath, the fear of death arises.

Both options require emergency medical attention. Because at any moment the patient’s condition may worsen and breathing will become impossible. Now you know what shortness of breath is like with coronavirus .

Stopping intermittent breathing

Doctors at the Yusupov Hospital treat breathing disorders due to VSD with sedatives, physical exercise, and psychotraining. During training sessions, psychologists try to teach the patient how to properly cope with a stressful situation. If the patient is simply very worried, take sedative medications - valerian, novo-passit, motherwort. If the patient has ever suffered a panic attack or has previously been diagnosed with neurosis, neurologists use tranquilizers, antipsychotics, and nootropic drugs. In severe cases, cyclic antidepressants are prescribed.

To relieve an attack of suffocation during VSD, the patient should be seated and calmed down. The patient needs rest. It is necessary to unfasten the compressive elements of clothing and ventilate the room. If this does not help, the patient needs a motherwort or valerian tablet. If there is information about a panic attack or neurosis, you must immediately give the medicine previously prescribed by a psychiatrist.

How to assess lung function after coronavirus?

A breath test should be performed. You can do it yourself at home:

take a deep breath through your nose,
hold your breath for ten seconds,
exhale slowly.

In the absence of any discomfort, cough or sore throat, the lungs are healthy. If your health worsens and these symptoms occur, you should immediately seek medical help. You can find a video on the forum on how to properly do a lung assessment.

Health care

Before hospitalization the following is performed:

breathing control. To ensure ventilation of the lungs, the oral cavity is cleared of vomit, and the tongue is fixed with a holder. It is possible to use an airway; in case of coma, intubation is necessary;
gastric lavage. If the patient is unconscious, it is performed through a probe;
maintenance therapy. Intravenous administration of glucose solution, vitamins, insulin or other drugs - the set is determined by the patient’s condition;
symptomatic treatment. Relieving pain, restoring normal breathing, lowering blood pressure, etc.;
if the body temperature is low, the person freezes - warming up (with heating pads).

After providing primary care for acute ethanol poisoning, doctors at the NarcoDoc clinic recommend hospitalization in a hospital. In the clinic, they continue to monitor the patient’s condition, treat him, and relieve possible complications of intoxication.

Contact our specialists for treatment of alcoholism followed by rehabilitation, call: +7

Self-diagnosis problems

Difficulty breathing, for example, during nasal congestion and when the functioning of the lungs is impaired, are completely different things. It is impossible to figure out the cause of shortness of breath on your own.

treatment of shortness of breath due to coronavirus

You should seek medical help from your family doctor or pulmonologist. You should not self-medicate.

Why does a child stop breathing during sleep?

If your child periodically stops breathing during the night, it is important to see a sleep specialist, pediatrician, or otolaryngologist.

The cause of apnea in a child is most often adenoids or chronic tonsillitis, which manifests itself as enlarged tonsils. In such situations, surgery is most often indicated for young patients.

In other cases, the cause of respiratory arrest in children is allergic rhinitis and other problems with nasal breathing. Obesity and abnormal development of the jaws can provoke respiratory arrest in a child.

Treatment of shortness of breath after suffering from covid-19

Shortness of breath after coronavirus, what to do ? If you have difficulty taking a deep breath, after additional diagnostics, doctors prescribe:

drug therapy,
oxygen therapy,
inhalations,
physiotherapy,
breathing exercises.

Later in the article we will talk in more detail about each treatment method.

Medicines for shortness of breath

Many people are interested in the question: how to treat shortness of breath with coronavirus ? To relieve symptoms, doctors prescribe drugs from the following groups:

bronchodilators,
expectorants,
antiviral drugs,
immunomodulators,
antibacterial drugs.

The doctor selects the drug and its dosage individually depending on the severity of the symptoms, the clinical picture and the presence of concomitant pathology in the individual patient.

Oxygen therapy (oxygenation)

It is an oxygen inhalation, which is used in case of shortness of breath without coronavirus . Oxygen is introduced into a person's respiratory tract using a special tube.

Oxygenation is used only in patients with severe forms of pathology, with extensive lung damage. If all medical recommendations are followed, the risk of such complications is minimal.

Inhalation therapy

It is used using a Nebulizer, which allows you to administer drugs in the form of microparticles dissolved in the air into the patient’s respiratory tract. A good effect can be achieved by using:

phlegm thinners,
sea water,
saline solutions,
antiseptics,
bronchodilators,
expectorants.

This method should be used only as prescribed by a doctor so as not to harm the functioning of the lungs.

Physiotherapy

In order to accelerate the resorption of pathological foci and relieve inflammation after suffering from covid-19, the following should be carried out:

chest massage,
electrophoresis,
SMT,
UHF therapy.

Please note that you should complete the full course of procedures to achieve a good treatment result.

Breathing exercises

It is worth doing the exercise both during the disease itself and after it has been cured and a negative test has been received. These exercises will strengthen your chest muscles and increase blood flow to your lungs.

Can I improve my lung function on my own?

Can! There are quite simple methods for this:

It is necessary to consume fresh vegetables and fruits as much as possible. Tomatoes, blueberries, nuts, onions and citrus fruits are especially beneficial for the lungs. Fatty foods, spices and smoked foods should be avoided.
You shouldn't smoke. Tobacco smoke provokes the occurrence of inflammatory diseases, while the resistance of the lungs to viral and bacterial pathologies weakens. The relationship between tobacco smoke and the occurrence of cancer has also been proven. To speed up the process of recovery of lung tissue, you should abstain from smoking.
Cardio exercise (this can be jogging at a moderate speed, walking at speed, jumping rope). They should be performed if you feel well. They help strengthen the heart muscle, normalize blood circulation, increase the respiratory volume of the lungs and build endurance. Training should be done outdoors. Increase the load gradually. If you feel the slightest deterioration in health, the training should be interrupted.
Eliminate negative environmental factors and smoke. After suffering from covid-19 with accompanying symptoms ( shortness of breath, coronavirus pneumonia ) in the early period after the disease, you should not be in polluted conditions. If there are harmful professional conditions, it is better to take a vacation. Spend more time outdoors, ideally visit a sanatorium or health resort in a pine forest or on the seashore.

Anyone who listens to the doctor’s recommendations, takes medications on time, eats right, engages in dosed physical activity and walks in the fresh air will quickly get rid of the consequences of covid-19. Be attentive to your health and seek specialized medical help when the first symptoms of illness appear.

Take a deep breath: learning to breathe correctly with a Moscow psychologist

Human breathing is an everyday and imperceptible process that we usually don’t think about. But as soon as you are deprived of oxygen for a minute, all other problems fade into the background. Often during anxiety, people experience a feeling of difficulty breathing, the inability to breathe deeply, or a sudden or increasing feeling of lack of air. Konstantin Zherdev , a specialist at the Moscow Psychological Assistance Service, told us how to cope with this illness

There are several types of shortness of breath:

True shortness of breath is associated with diseases (usually chronic) in organs and systems.
Functional shortness of breath indicates physical stress; a person experiences it, for example, when running. It goes away after the end of the load or as the body adapts to such work. This ability to adapt is sometimes called "second wind."
Psychogenic shortness of breath is associated with the experience of acute or chronic psycho-emotional stress: anxiety, depression, neurosis, stress and even intense joy. Episodes associated with joyful difficulty breathing are well known to us: “the breath stole from the goiter from joy.”

“Often, hidden anxiety manifests itself through difficulty breathing, nighttime and daytime episodes of suffocation, which go away on their own. True, at the moments of these experiences they are seriously frightening. Such experiences were clearly illustrated by G. Fusli in a series of paintings, which he called “Nightmare”. As a rule, shortness of breath during anxiety goes away when attention is switched from it to something extraneous. Warm drinks, conversations, and simply getting out of an alarming situation have a positive effect on breathing,” notes the psychologist.

Breathe out your anxiety

Frequent shallow breathing, which often accompanies anxiety, leads to an increase in oxygen levels in the blood and a decrease in carbon dioxide. This shift in balance is accompanied by various unpleasant manifestations: dizziness, a feeling of suffocation, cold extremities, a feeling of impending loss of consciousness, and increasing tinnitus. Often such complaints are the reason for seeking help from doctors.

Of course, in order to rule out various types of diseases, you need to seek advice from medical specialists and undergo an examination. But it often happens that no diseases are detected. In this case, you should pay attention to your psychological state.

“To overcome these moments, it will be useful to reduce excess muscle tone, as well as normalize respiratory cycles. That is, allow the body to independently manage important processes, in other words, do not interfere. Using the power of breathing to create a comfortable psychological environment is the right way. Thinking that the body won’t cope without us and will forget to breathe is wrong,” advises Konstantin.

Moderate sports and physical activity, reducing caffeine and alcohol consumption, and limiting negative information load will also be useful.

Workshop from a psychologist

During an acute state of anxiety, the whole consciousness “screams” that there is not enough air and you want to inhale as deeply and often as possible - to get air into your chest.

Try to do the following: relax the muscles of the shoulders, neck, abdomen, relax the chest muscles, facial muscles, base of the tongue. At the same time, exhale calmly and slowly. Help yourself with your stomach by pulling your abdominal muscles inward as you exhale. Make room inside yourself for a short but full breath. Relax your stomach and take a calm breath (1-2 seconds) and exhale long again (4-6 seconds). Sometimes it is recommended to take a short pause between each cycle: inhale - pause for 2-4 seconds, exhale - pause, etc. If it is difficult for you to hold a pause, then at the beginning you can not include it in the exercise. Repeat this cycle of inhalation and exhalation 6 times. Practice breathing like this in a calm state. Do not hurry.

There is no need to try to exhale all the way and there is no need to take a sharp breath.
This leads to irritation by the air flow of the upper respiratory tract and causes a feeling of additional tension in the throat, and can also provoke coughing and tickling. The entire exercise is performed in a comfortable mode. The task is to breathe calmly and without jerking. Breathing cycles can be accompanied mentally with the phrase: “My breathing is smooth and calm.” We say the first part of the phrase - “My breath” while inhaling, the second part - “even and calm” - we say as we exhale. You can sign up for free classes on self-regulation and training in breathing techniques at the Moscow Service for Psychological Assistance to the Population
www.msph.ru. Source

Press service of the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow