Breathing sound, rattling in the lungs
Hello,
I have been undergoing treatment for a problem for several weeks now, which is increasingly affecting me and making it nearly impossible for me to lead a normal life. The fear is so great. It is truly a fear of death...
About 5 months ago, I first noticed a "gurgling" sensation behind my sternum when taking deep breaths, but I ignored it for a few weeks. This was accompanied by an audible noise when breathing deeply with my mouth open. When I went to the doctor, he couldn't hear anything and said everything was fine. But it kept coming back, over and over again. I visited another doctor, again with no findings. I was prescribed an asthma spray, which improved my condition for three days, but then it returned. Another doctor's visit, again with no findings upon examination. I requested a referral for a chest x-ray, which was done, but only in one plane and with no findings. The breathing sound was still there, but ONLY when breathing very deeply and not always. Sometimes there would be nothing for days, and then it would start again. I also had a strange sensation, like a rattling in my left lung, but very rarely at first. Stress seemed to exacerbate the feeling. A lung function test was performed, which showed over 100% capacity. My blood work only showed elevated eosinophils. The doctor diagnosed me with asthma, even though I had it in my younger years (up to around age 15) and it should have resolved by now. I was prescribed a corticosteroid spray, which improved my symptoms and I was almost symptom-free for 4 days. But today, the loud "squeaking" sound upon inhalation with an open mouth has returned, along with the gurgling in my left lung always in the same spot (directly below the end of the sternum on the left side), sometimes for several minutes/hours and then not at all, and then again with almost every other breath. However, it still only occurs with very deep breaths. Shortness of breath or coughing is still almost non-existent. In the mornings, I have a lot of mucus in my nose/throat (yellowish, brownish only in the morning, clear during the day, sometimes very hard stringy white mucus that comes up not through coughing but through clearing my throat).
I have a panic fear of having lung cancer like my grandpa, as I have read that unilateral inspiratory stridor could be a sign of bronchial carcinoma. The doctors are dismissing me and not helping anymore, deeming a CT scan or bronchoscopy unnecessary and too much of a burden. Every time I go to the doctor, the breathing sound is not audible, it's frustrating. Would a breathing sound be constantly present with a malignant disease? To what extent could the psyche play a role? I suffer from chronic hyperventilation syndrome, which
