Throat congestion, chest tightness, shortness of breath

Many people often experience throat congestion and feel chest tightness and shortness of breath. In fact, this situation does not rule out functional chest tightness. It can also be caused by illness, which causes damage to the body's organs, so the respiratory function is obstructed. When the chest feels stuffy, it will cause symptoms of shortness of breath and feeling of blockage. This is quite harmful and requires special care.

1. Functional chest tightness (i.e. chest tightness without organic disease): Staying in a room with closed doors and windows and poor air circulation for a long time, or encountering some unpleasant things, or even having quarrels or disputes with others, or being in a climate with low air pressure, often causes feelings of chest tightness and fatigue. After a short rest, opening windows for ventilation or going outside to breathe fresh air, relaxing your mind and regulating your emotions, you will soon return to normal. This type of chest tightness can be said to be functional chest tightness, and there is no need to worry or seek treatment.

2. Pathological chest tightness (i.e. chest tightness caused by organic lesions): Chest tightness can not only be physiological, but can also be caused by diseases in certain organs in the body, i.e. pathological chest tightness. like:

1. Respiratory obstruction: tumors in the trachea and bronchus, tracheal stenosis, and external pressure on the trachea (thyroid enlargement, tumors in the mediastinum);

2. Lung diseases: emphysema, bronchitis, asthma, atelectasis, pulmonary infarction, pneumothorax;

3. Heart disease: certain congenital heart diseases, rheumatic heart valve disease, coronary heart disease, heart tumors;

4. Diaphragmatic diseases: diaphragmatic swelling and diaphragmatic paralysis;

5. Disturbance of fluid metabolism and acid-base balance, etc.

Pathological chest tightness can occur suddenly or slowly. Most of the sudden occurrences are due to acute traumatic or spontaneous pneumothorax, acute asthma, acute foreign body in the trachea, acute heart attack, acute pulmonary infarction, etc. Chronic chest tightness is a condition in which symptoms gradually worsen as the disease progresses. Chest tightness in children is mostly caused by congenital heart disease or mediastinal tumors; chest tightness in young people is mostly caused by spontaneous pneumothorax, mediastinal tumors, or rheumatic heart valvular disease; chest tightness in the elderly is mostly caused by emphysema, coronary heart disease, etc.