I've been binding for a few months now. More regularly/daily since I began uni in september. but I rarely bind for more than 8hrs a day. I recently also bought a larger binder as I thought the medium was a bit small for me. But it still causes me quite a bit of pain. not agony kind of pain, more like I feel bruised. and i feel like my chest feels like it's being crushed, often when i've taken the binder off (does that make sense?). This morning I woke up feeling pretty unwell and not sure if it's down to that, but I've been struggling with shortness of breath, and if I start doing anything I get rapid breathing and feel like I can't breathe. Does this sound like it could be caused from binding? I have also thought it might be caused by a virus, or anxiety, or migraines which I've been getting regularly recently. Anyone else had a similar experience??
Yeah I have the same bruising and 'crushing' feeling that you do. The shortness of breath in the morning is different though. I wouldn't have put that down to binding. The only time I feel shortness of breath is when I've run whilst binding and it then takes a couple hours for me to catch my breath again. It sounds more like anxiety or a virus, are your sinuses blocked? I'm sure that binding would worsen any symptoms you do have though, if you can take a day resting up and not binding.
Don't bind again until you feel normal. Once you do, you can try again, and if you feel that way again I'd recommend getting a different binder or cutting down on your hours binding even more--some people have a lower tolerance than others. What type of binder do you have?
Yeah, don't do it again until you feel normal. It gets to me just binding for drag for 3-4 hours. Learning to be a "belly breather" helps. That when you let your abdomen rather than your chest expand when you inhale, lets you get a bit more air that way but, be careful not to overeat while bound if you do that. A full stomach shortens your breaths a good bit.
