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Heart Health
Unmasking the varied causes of breathlessness and fatigue
- By Julie Corliss, Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing can help reveal unusual reasons for these common symptoms — and also shed light on long COVID.
One of the vexing things about certain common health complaints is the range of possible underlying causes. For example, feeling short of breath is perfectly normal after a burst of vigorous exercise. But for some people, even mild exertion can trigger a sensation of breathlessness, or what doctors call dyspnea. It’s often accompanied by symptoms such as fatigue and lightheadedness.
Most of the time, heart or lung issues are to blame. In many cases, routine tests — including a chest x-ray, echocardiogram (heart ultrasound), lung function tests, and blood tests — can uncover the underlying reason for a person’s breathlessness.
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