asthma attack? panic attack?

[midnightwriter]

As I was reading to DD (8) at night, she sat up, and said she had trouble emtying her lungs, and that there was a whistle sound in her throat. I could hear the wheezing from my side of the bed. We got her outside, to the colder air, and it felt better, but the difficulties returned when she got back inside.

She does have a history of asthma. When she was two she was diagnosed with viral, cough asthma, but it was very mild, and eventually the specialist suggested we stop using flovent and see how it goes, and she was fine. She had no symptoms for the last 5.5  years. It was considered that she "outgrew" it, with it possibly coming later in life. So DH took her to the ER right away, as we were worried it could get suddenly worse.

 By the time they got there, the wheezing was gone and her breathing was normal. The episode lasted maybe 10 minutes at most, and wasn't very severe. She was active, and her lips were normal color. She was assessed by 4 doctors, and they don't know what it was and why it happened. They say that if it were an asthma attack it would not have ended by itself and so fast. They also don't think it had an enviromental trigger in our house, for the same reason.

One doctor suggested a panic attack. But would there be wheezing with a panick attack?

I also noticed that I similarly have difficulty emptying my lungs lately, but there's no wheezing, and it doesn't happen all the time. It feels more like I need to yawn, but it has never happened before, and it is rather weird.

Anyone has any thoughts on this? Thakns!

[Marnica]

Panic attacks do not include an audible wheeze - shortness of breath yes, but a wheeze is quite different.

I experience the sensation of not being able to empty my lungs once in a while. It never is accompanied by a wheeze however.

[lexapurple]

I do have asthma and I had panic attacks as well. They feel completely different to me. Panic attacks that I experienced felt like I just ran too fast and could not catch my breath, there were no constricted feeling in my lungs, just could not breath in normal rithm. Asthma feels like my lungs are stuffed with something and I can not breath out plus the whizzing and cough. I had very prolonged asthma episodes that took days on medication to clear up and I also had short mild ones that lasted maybe an hour or so from start to finish with about 15-20 min really hard to breath and whizzing part. I would disagree with the doctor that it could not possibly had been an asthma attack. What kind of testing did they do? Did they just listen to her chest or did they make her breath through a peak flow meter? Peak flow meter would show if her lungs are not working at full capasity even when she doesn't have other symptoms. I lived with it for 20year and I know the feeling of the attack just starting (just discomfort in the lungs, no breathing trouble yet) and I have seen kids who had mild to moderate attacks but were not alerted by them until they got much worse. I also had been told by non specialist doctor that I do not have asthma because i did not walk in into his office whizzing. I was not whizzing because I was on medication and came to him because I still had constricted feeling in my lungs despite taking maximum daily dose. He did not have peak flow meter and only based his diagnosis on lack of whizzing at the time of the visit.