What is short of breath?

I ask people all day long "Are you short of breath?"  Yet every once in a while someone asks, "What's that?"

Most of your chronic lungers know what it is.  Yet we RTs give breathing treatments to people all day long that you know are not short of breath, and never have been.  They have no lung disease and never have.  These are your folks who might ask:  What is shortness of breath?

Shortness of breath (SOB):  It's a subjective measure.  It's how your breathing feels to you.  Do you feel winded?  Do you feel you can't get air in?  Do you feel dypneic.

Dyspneic:  A feeling that you can't catch your breath.  It's the medical description of shortness of breath.  Prior to modern times dyspnea was defined as breathing with a conscious effort. 

I've been an asthmatic and RT for so long I guess I just assume people know what it is.  Yet, understandably so, some people have no reason to know the definition.

Short of breath should have been described on day #1 of this blog.  Yet here I am well into year #4 of doing this, and here is your definition.

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