When breathing trouble needs a doctor, not a bottle

Sudden severe shortness of breath. Chest pain or pressure. Blue or grey lips or fingertips. Being unable to finish a sentence. Coughing up blood.

Any of those means calling your local emergency number, not finishing this article. If you use a rescue inhaler and it is not working as it normally does, that counts too.

Breathlessness worse than it was a few months ago. A cough past three weeks. New wheezing. Waking at night short of breath. Exercise tolerance dropping without explanation. Repeated chest infections. Ankles swelling alongside breathlessness.

Several conditions presenting that way respond well when caught and badly when left — asthma, COPD, heart failure and sleep apnoea among them. The delay is the expensive part, not the appointment.

BreathiZen is a dietary supplement. It treats none of those, replaces no inhaler and no prescription, and is no reason to wait. We would rather lose the sale than have somebody read this page and put off a phone call.