Clinical features of prolonged hyperventilation
Anxious patients with acute psychogenic hyperventilation usually complain of lightheadedness, dyspnea, circumoral and acral paresthesias, and the presence of visual phosphenes.
Visual blurring, tremor, muscle cramps, carpopedal spasm, and chest pain are found with prolonged hyperventilation.
In addition to psychogenic etiologies, prolonged hyperventilation may be the result of drug effects, metabolic acidosis, CNS damage or edema, or response to heat stroke or overexercise.
