19 Sep 2025: Breathing feels naturally ‘automatic,’ so the involuntary action doesn’t draw much attention, until something disrupts and your breathing falls out of rhythm. How you breathe can also signal underlying problems in major organs like the lungs or heart. While the rate of breathing may vary based on activity level, it’s essential not to dismiss any unusual change or abnormal rhythm as just routine.
Dr Kunal Sood, an anesthesiology and interventional pain medicine physician, in an Instagram August 18 post shared four breathing problems people should start paying attention to. According to him, different problems may hint at specific issues. Let’s look at what these issues are and the potential root causes.
1. Wheezing
Wheezing is first on the doctor’s list of unusual breathing. Wheezing is a change in breathing sound. According to Dr Sood, it’s a “high-pitched, musical sound signals narrowed airways.” This is most commonly a result of asthma or allergies, as the anesthesiologist noted. Further, there’s also a correlation between allergy and asthma. Dr Sood alerted that allergic rhinitis (an inflamed and blocked nose) nearly quadruples asthma risk. This indicates that you can’t take allergies lightly, as they may be a sign of asthma. A routine checkup helps.
For better management of wheezing problems, he suggested, “Treating nasal inflammation can improve lower-airway control.”
2. Shortness of breath
Dr Sood red-flagged shortness of breath with daily activities. Often, one would associate shortness of breath after heavy cardio, like running intensely or climbing stairs. But if for daily activities, you find yourself winded up while doing everyday tasks, then it requires medical attention.
Highlighting the potential reasons, he explained, “Frequently tied to heart or lung disease. In heart failure, stiff or weak ventricles raise filling pressures, causing congestion. In COPD, asthma, or interstitial lung disease, airflow limitation, hyperinflation, or diffusion impairment makes exertion difficult.”
Dr Sood further suggested BNP, spirometry, and echocardiography as the tests to identify the cause and better diagnosis.
3. Sudden chest pain
One of the most outrightly alarming signs is chest pain. While this does not downplay the seriousness of other breathing issues, this particular symptom points to a situation of emergency.
Talking about the severity and the complications, Dr Sood noted, “A hallmark of collapsed lung (pneumothorax). Air leaks into the pleural space, collapsing part of the lung and causing sharp pleuritic pain plus acute dyspnea.”
For diagnosis, he said the condition can be confirmed with imaging or ultrasound, and if the prognosis turns out to be a tension pneumoaxiom, then ‘urgent decompression’ is needed.
4. Chronic cough and barrel chest
Coughing is usually dismissed, blamed on seasonal changes or minor colds. But when coughing becomes persistent, then it is alarming because, as per Dr Sood, it can suggest “COPD with long-standing hyperinflation.”
Along with coughing, he also brought to attention an even more visible change: an alteration in the physical shape of the chest. This is called barrel chest, which is abnormally round. Describing why this happens, Dr Sood revealed, “Air trapping pushes the chest wall outward, altering thoracic dimensions.”
Other than Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), there’s also another trigger. Dr Sood named it the chronic bronchitis phenotype, which causes chronic cough and sputum production.
Whether your sign is slightly less conspicuous, like shortness of breath with activity that you may attribute to exhaustion, or prominent and noticeable, like a change in chest shape or breathing sounds, it’s essential to pay attention to every breathing-related change, whether small or big, as the causes are tied to the heart and lungs. Both are major organs you can’t afford to take any risk with. Detecting any abnormalities early helps to seek medical attention promptly to avoid complications.
Summary: An anesthesiologist identified four key breathing issues—such as shortness, wheezing, irregular rhythm, and labored respiration—that may indicate serious health problems, urging prompt medical evaluation.