How Menopause Can Leave You Breathless
How Does Menopause Can Leave You Breathless
As per a research study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, it is believed that menopause is more likely to cause restrictive, rather than obstructive breathing problems.
Restrictive breathing makes it difficult to fully expand the lungs upon inhaling, whereas obstructive breathing makes it difficult to exhale air from the lungs.
Your lungs are made up of mucus membranes.
Mucous membranes also line your vagina, mouth, nose, eyes and digestive tract.
During menopause, falling estrogen can affect the mucus production in these areas and dry them out.
The lungs if you can imagine, is like a big sponge that are full of little areas that expand and contract.
When you breathe, you need the muscle tissue to be able to expand and contract easily.
It also needs to be very mucous in order to help the transportation of oxygen from the lung surface into the bloodstream.
If these areas start to dry up then the capacity of the lungs to expand decreases.
Therefore, drying up of the mucous membranes of the lungs can actually affect the way that you breathe.
It will restrict your breathing, lead to breathlessness in your day-to-day activities.
Women in menopause, may find that they are diagnosed with asthma although it may be more to do with menopause.
Obviously, this is something you need to see your doctor about.
How Menopause Can Leave You Breathless
Going through menopause causes all sorts of stress.
When you are stressed, it affects your breathing and you tend to do more shallow breathing.
The problem with shallow breathing is that it can affect the body in different ways.
If you are doing a lot of shallow breathing, the shoulder muscles, and the neck muscles can start to get over-stressed resulting in neck pain and shoulder pain.
The nerves in this area get over-stimulated and irritated, causing headaches, light-headedness and dizziness.
One result of shallow breathing, especially if done continuously, is that you end up expelling too much carbon dioxide, leading to your blood becoming too alkaline.
High alkalinity in the bloodstream can cause anxiety and alkalinity can increase your nerves’ sensitivity, especially the peripheral nerves.
You might find that you are getting nerve pain in your fingers and your toes or you might be getting a bit of tingling down the arms.
Shallow breathing and alkalinity can affect blood flow to the muscles, causing muscle fatigue, muscle aches, muscle pain, muscle stiffness.
Poor breathing also affects your diaphragm
The diaphragm is a big muscle that sits under the lungs, which moves up and down as you breathe.
If you breathe properly, the movement of the diaphragm actually massages your digestive system, helping with digestion and elimination.
If you are only doing very shallow breathing, then you are not going to get this action on the digestive system.
This can lead to sluggishness, bloating, wind, and constipation.
What can you do to help your breathing?
Do some simple breathing exercises.
If you are having specific menopause symptoms at certain times of the day or in certain situations, take note of your breathing pattern.
Doing breathing exercises daily can help if you are getting anxiety or panic attacks.
It can help you calm down, and also help if you are having problems drifting off to sleep.
Menopause side effect: shortness of breath
According to a WebMD article, a new study suggests that a woman’s lung function seems to deteriorate during menopause.
Hormonal changes related to menopause may play a role in lung function decline since they affect systemic inflammation and cause the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis.
The research suggests that osteoporosis can compress the height of the chest vertebrae, restricting air intake.
Source: WebMD
