Anyone understand Pulmonary Function Test?

[italianlifter]

Recently for the past 6 months I have been having shortness of breath constantly throughout the whole day until I fall asleep and I could never understand why this started happening to me. One day half way through the day I just started to breathe and then started having to keep constantly take deep breaths to get a "satisfactory" breathe and half the time it does not even work. At first I did not think anything of it so I just kept ignoring it until about a week and a half later I decided to go to the hospital. While in the hospital the Doctor performed a chest x-ray on me which he said came out negative and then did a blood test on me which later came out normal as well. He didn't diagnose me with anything but wanted me to stay in the hospital. Since I had work in the morning I decided not to stay even after the those tests were negative. So I proceeded to try and ignore it but eventually would not go away again so I went to schedule an appointment with a Pulmonary Doctor. The doctor at first did not diagnose me with anything expect just to give me some medications. The medication he prescribed was prednisone which honestly did not do anything to make the symptoms better and also an inhaler which did no affect as well.

So I asked the doctor to perform a pulmonary function test on me even though he did not see the reason for it but since its my body I wanted to see if there was some underlying cause of my consist breathing issue. Ill post the results below

FEV1: 4.33 Liters

FEV1 %: 98%

FVC: 4.94 Liters

FEV1/FVC: 88%

TLC: 6.18 Liters

TLC %: 88%

RV: 0.92 Liters

RV/TLC: 15%

DLCO/VA: 6.25 Liters

When the doctor performed this test my stats were as follows

Age: 22

Height: 5'10

Weight: 164lbs

Sex: Male

Now Im 23 years old and not sure if my PFT could have been decrease a lot by now. I was wondering if anyone who knows how to read PFT can explain my results to me since my doctor did not explain to me. I should also probably mention that I'm not a smoker and my parents are not smokers but I have been around second hand smoke throughout my life due to other family members and cousins. Im also around it now since I am a firefighter currently and also dealing with all these exhaust fumes coming from the engines. Just recently for the past month my nose has been getting really stuffy and I been getting what sounds like wheezing coming through the nose but not the mouth. I have had a very very very minor cough for the past week. Just been having minor pains throughout the ribs and my stomach always feels bloated like my diaphragm is not working right. Its very weird to explain. No lung diseases run in my family but heart disease does. I honestly hope I am not developing early COPD. I did have a Alpha 1 test which came back negative as well. I do have a video of the nose sound but not sure how to upload that. If anyone can give any suggestions of what they would do or what they think please don't shy and Im sorry if this was a bad website to post this. Just wasn't sure where else to go before thinking about seeing a doctor again since apparently they just shrug me off as nothing. I also take fitness very seriously and do workout a lot and I am able to complete my workouts but some days I get more out of breath then others but it doesn't prevent me from finishing the workouts. Thanks to anyone who read all this and responds.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

HI!

I am so sorry you are having difficulties but as per the Terms of Service we cannot off medical advice

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