Breathing Trouble While Lying Down: Difficulty In Breathing At Night

Breathing trouble is an uncomfortable feeling caused due to many respiratory problems or other systemic diseases.

When there is shortness of breath, you find it hard to take in the oxygen that your body requires. Sometimes mild trouble breathing can be due to stuffy nose, or after an exercise. It is a temporary phenomenon, there are other serious diseases which can cause troubled breathing and those should not be ignored.

Troubled breathing can be due to bronchitis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia and heart diseases. Anemia can also cause troubled breathing. Stress and anxiety can also be one of the reasons for your troubled breathing.

Trouble With Breathing At Night

  • Sleep apnea is one of the important problems faced by many who have troubled breathing. Sleep apnea is the condition where the patient stops breathing for a few seconds, during sleep person is unaware of his stoppage of breath, it is observed by some other person. Sleep apnea can cause improper oxygenation of the blood.  Other symptoms of sleep apnea include snoring, sleepiness during day, headache during day, etc.
    generally obese persons suffer from sleep apnea. Continuous positive airway pressure is the treatment of choice for sleep apnea. Here the pressurized air keeps the air passage open.
  • Asthma, emphysema, bronchitis are other diseases that can cause troubled breathing at night especially after you sleep or in the middle of the night.
  • Cardiac asthma: it is a condition related to the heart. The patient has to wake up in the middle of the night as he feels distressed and suffocating. There is wheezing noise similar to Asthma, but here there is the history of cardiac disease such as shortness of breath while walking and pain in the chest while walking and doing some mild exercise.

Difficulty In Breathing While Lying Down

  • Stuffy nose can cause breathing trouble especially when you lie down at night. This happens due to the post nasal discharge.
  • Pregnant women can feel trouble breathing at night; the reason can be because of the growing size of the uterus, building up the pressure in the abdomen and the diaphragm, having closer contact with the lungs. Some time high level of progesterone in pregnant women is blamed for trouble breathing.
  • A person having troubled breathing when lying down may feel better when the head is elevated. In asthma some patient feel better by sitting, no sooner they lie down their breathing becomes uncomfortable. Such patients keep lots of pillows under their head or keep their head in propped up position. Use of pillows and elevation of head.