All tests are normal

Hello! Long story short I had covid in November of 2022. Shortly after I developed chronic air hunger and dizziness (more like a lightheaded feeling). The shortness of breath feels like a mild inflammation around the ribcage. It comes and goes.
Now, I’m familiar with a lot of this stuff, and my dizziness was cured by therapy. I’ve had every test under the sun done and I’m 100% healthy. The last remaining symptom is the shortness of breath that comes and goes. My doctor thinks it too is a mind body issue, with perhaps some very manageable allergic asthma type symptoms (but not enough to cause my chronic shortness of breath presentation). A major clue is that if I’m distracted at work, or on vacation, the symptoms nearly vanish.
My question is this: Has anyone else experienced chronic, low level air hunger as part of this? If so, what helped? I definitely have just learned to power through and live my life. Again, I cured my dizziness through neural-circuitry exposure therapy. I’m a huge believer in this angle of healing and just bought a Sarno book. Thanks! J

 

I'm going to quote dear @Duggit here, who quoted Dr. Sarno:

“Tension is a word that is widely used and means different things to different people; in my work and in this book, the disorder is called Tension Myositis Syndrome. The word tension is used here to refer to emotions that are generated in the unconscious mind and that, to a large extent, remain there. These feelings are the result of a complicated interaction between different parts of our minds and between the mind and the outside world. Many of them are either unpleasant, painful or embarrassing, in some way unacceptable to us and/or society, and so we repress them. . . . To sum up, the word tension will be used here to refer to repressed, unacceptable emotions."

Rib cage tension is extremely common (part of fight/flight/freeze reaction), according to my PT and an overlooked beginning of many symptoms. We normally just ignore these mild tension symptoms because we aren't in touch with our bodies. You have some insight already, which is great!
Anger, frustration, anxiety and stress can cause us to unwittingly change breathing patterns because of the way we are holding our bodies in an attempt to literally hold in or squelch all these emotions (Sarno's # is a deep rage, as you will read). These are unconscious emotions. Neural-circuitry methods are wonderful for helping people resolve immediate problems, but they do not address the CAUSE of the tension in the first place - which is often an accumulation of childhood rage, mixed with personality traits and how coping mechanisms develop, which often serve us as children but no longer serve us as adults. This creates a lot of unrecognized internal stress.

I mix neural-circuitry methods with the emotional work that Dr. Sarno suggests in his books. I also used this website's free program, the Structured Educational Program (at tmswiki.org, scroll down) to learn the skills he taught, and practice them day by day. You also get exposed to some nervous system regulation in this program too. It's helpful in learning ways to augment all the other skills you already have. Luckily, doubt isn't really part of your equation, so you are in a wonderful place.

There are many ways you can work with your learned physical tension patterns: light breath work - something that helps you lean into sensations and challenge any fears, teaching your brain safety and that there is nothing to fear, combinations of this breathing you learned with movement - Qui Gong is an excellent combination of the two. Both also teach patience and calmness to the sensations of anxiety.

 

Amazing thank you! It’s funny you mention all this because my dizziness went away after crying every day for a few weeks while grieving the loss of a friend last year. AND, my rib tightness/shortness of breath goes away when expressing anger. I do believe I have some suppressed anger from some things that have gone on in my life.