The cause of Kussmaul breathing is respiratory compensation for a metabolic acidosis, most commonly occurring in diabetics in diabetic ketoacidosis. Blood gases on a patient with Kussmaul breathing will show a low pCO2 because of a forced increased respiratory rate (blowing off the carbon dioxide). The patient feels an urge to breathe deeply, and it appears almost involuntary.
The effect can be reproduced, to a degree, by rapidly breathing in the air from a recently finished plastic soft-drink bottle (which is rich in carbon dioxide).
Biot's respiration,   breathing characterized by irregular periods of apnea alternating with periods in which four or five breaths of identical depth are taken; seen in patients with increased intracranial pressure.
Cheyne-Stokes respiration,   breathing characterized by rhythmic waxing and waning of the rate and depth of respiration, with regularly recurring periods of apnea; seen especially in coma resulting from affection of the nervous centers.
paradoxical respiration, respiration in which all or part of a lung is deflated during inspiration and inflated during expiration, as with flail chest or paralysis of the diaphragm.
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