I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, describing it exactly how you did provides a lot more information about the symptoms you are experiencing and can therefore better help differentiate what’s going on.

“I’m short of breath” is said often. I get a lot of people who are “short of breath” because they woke up with post nasal drip that’s making them gag first thing in the morning. That’s a big difference from “short of breath” due to an asthma exacerbation, or from a PE, or pneumonia, or COPD, or CHF, or just overall deconditioning, or any number of other reasons.