Why is iMessage taking so long to send pictures?

Just recently my iPhone 5 (AT&T) has started to take insanely long amounts of time to send pictures(and sometimes just texts) through iMessage. Whether on 4G LTE or on Wi-Fi (both with full bars) it takes ridiculously long, or just won't send. This only started less than a week ago but everything i tried has been unsuccessful. Turning iMessage off, turning cellular data off… I'm not sure what else to try. And a new billing cycle just began so i'm not out of data yet.

It does that for me too on my iPhone 5 but I have Verizon

Me too. Its so frustrating. It never did this before