Re: Short of breath?

When I was little girl at summer camp, I used to laugh really hard, so hard that I started gasping for breath, and couldn't seem to stop gasping for a while. My camp councilors at the softball field as I was doing this asked "Are you hyperventilating?!"
As I was gasping for air, I said, "I don't know, I don't know what that word means."
So they asked me again, as if asking me again would cause me to know what a word meant. So I repeated myself, as I was still gasping for air, thinking why don't they just leave me alone? When they asked a third time, I decided they were idiots, since they could neither tell me that I was hyperventilating nor understand that I didn't know. So, to get them to leave me alone, I yelled "yes!" at them, wondering if I was lying, but just wanting them to let me solve the problem, which I knew how to do -- it just took a little time and patience, because this way of laughing was common for me.
In the intervening years, I kind of decided that maybe I was hyperventilating, though I never really knew for sure. But what I can tell you is that the problem that I was having today (before I drank some iodine), and which I frequently have when fasting, was a much less exciting symptom than you seem to be describing, and nothing like my gasping episodes as a child. In the childhood experience, my gasping for breath was a somewhat involuntary response. I could force myself to breath more deeply if I really focused, but mostly it was out of my control, and I had to just let it run its course, throwing in a deep breath as often as I could. My fasting breathing problems are different in character. I feel a lack of air, and must make a conscious decision to take a deep breath. Except when I think maybe I have a heart problem or lung damage, it isn't really scary at all.
"No, no!," I think, "fasting cures problems, it doesn't cause them." Even when I wonder if I am killing myself, and am going to die, I don't really have the kind of fear you seem to be describing, it's more like, "they'll never think fasting is a good thing if I die because of it." It's almost like the though of dying while fasting embarrasses me. And I really don't want to die, there is no marrying or taking in marriage in heaven, and I haven't gotten married yet, so dying would prevent me from having several experiences that I really look forward to, but heaven is a nice place other than that, so I don't really fear it. I would be annoyed if I discovered I was going to die, and actually believed it. I am more likely to think the doctor doesn't know what he is talking about, and if I can just find some good alternate health advice, I'll be fine. Tweet