Posts Tagged ‘breathing’

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Brittany Murphy’s death

Thursday, February 4th, 2010
 <Like this article? Visit our website www.asthmacare.us>

I wasn’t planning on a Blog article today, but couldn’t help it after seeing the news about Brittany Murphy’s cause of death. There is a young beautiful actress who had her whole life ahead of her and who suddenly died of pneumonia at the age of 32. A coroner’s official stated that prescription drugs also played a role.

The statistics says that the majority of flu deaths are actually due to quickly developed complications, like pneumonia. If your overall health is compromised because of a weakened immune system, you are more at risk.

What’s the best defense? I wrote in my earlier article “Viral respiratory infections. Are you protected?” that flu shots and anti viral medications are not always effective, and antibiotics are a double-edged sword. Every workshop I spend time with my students explaining how to deal with respiratory infections to minimize their impact on your health. The ultimate goal is, of course, to establish a healthy breathing pattern for life, the state where body naturally resists viral, bacterial and fungal infections.

In my practice I have seen people with different conditions. While going through the Butyeko therapy is somewhat individual experience, one thing is always true –

People with high Control Pause

• have significantly reduced number of viral respiratory infections (with CP close to 40 sec and over – virtually none)
• if they get a viral respiratory infection it is typically short lived and very mild
• they do not get complications like bronchitis, pneumonia, reactive airway disease etc

Flu and colds don’t have to ravage your body. Pneumonia and bronchitis are preventable, as well as Flu related deaths.

Significantly strengthened immune system is one of the most amazing benefits of the Butyeko Method.



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Practical tips on reducing toxins in your body (2)

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Part 2 – Food, drugs and supplements

 
photo0091   If you didn’t read one of my earlier articles Common Sense Nutrition, I talked about how to establish healthier relationships with food consumption.  Adopting those recommendations will be a good place to  start. Here, let’s talk more about how to reduce ingestion of toxins.
  • Reduce your meal portions and lose weight
    There is a triple benefit to this important point. First, simple math says that by eating twice less you’ll be absorbing twice less harmful dyes, preservatives, sweeteners etc… Second, toxin stored in the body accumulate mostly in fat tissue, therefore loosing overall body fat could reduce the toxins you store. Third, overweight and obese bodies typically have a host of health conditions associated with obesity and struggle to eliminate toxins efficiently.
  • Include more raw fruit and vegetables into your diet
    Besides being rich in nutrition and fiber, many herbs, fruits and vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables, assist the body’s detoxification.
    Fruit/Vegetable/Herbs to Other Food ratio should be at least 80% – 20%.
  • Choose locally grown seasonal produce or organic produce whenever you can.
    The regulation of what is “organic” might not be perfect, and we might still get some unwanted chemicals in that produce. But chances are there will be much less. Small local family farms typically don’t use as much harmful pesticides as mass-producing commercial growers.
  • Choose “cleaner” meats, poultry and diary
    Choose organic meats and poultry or look for labels such as “grass fed”, “cage free”, “raised without hormones and antibiotics” and so on.
  • Be wise with fish and seafood choices
    Farm raised fish and shrimp pose the same threat as anything else raised or grown by the mas- producing food industry. It is fed colorings (salmon) and chemicals to prevent disease in unnatural habitat etc… Wild-caught fish is a better option if you can be mindful of its level of mercury contamination (some fish accumulate more mercury than others).
  • Absolutely ban the most unnatural food on the planet – processed and packaged food, soda drinks etc…MSGs, aspartame, hydrogenated oils, food dyes, preservatives, over-the-limit sugar or even more harmful sweeteners, over-processed and stripped of all its nutrition white flour and dairy – that’s mostly what you get.
    If you shop in natural food stores, some canned and packaged food there might be made from better ingredients and with healthier methods of preservation, and can be suitable. To educate yourself by reading ingredient labels is a sure way to know.
  • Use supplements wisely
    Do basic research on vitamins and supplements and determine if you need any. Do not overload.
    If you shop for supplements, find the ones that contain no preservatives, anti-caking agents, artificial sweeteners, etc.
  • Drugs are potent toxins
    Adopt healthier lifestyles and try alternative approaches whenever possible to address your health issues. Revise your prescriptions list and talk to your doctor about the necessity of all the drugs you are taking (see my article Michael Jackson’s death. )

And, because we are carrying a toxic load already and there is no way to completely avoid acquiring it in the future, periodic detoxification is important.

What are the effective ways to detoxify?

• 3-4 weeks of detox diet a few times a year

Usually, detox diets don’t have rules on how much you can eat, but rather what you can’t. Diet is mostly limited by raw or very lightly cooked vegetables, fruit, herbs, some nuts and oils. Drinks are limited to herbal teas and purified water. Specific supplements might be taken to assist in detoxification.

• Intermittent fasting

Many variations of intermittent fasting exist. You can start with something as simple as skipping one meal a day (preferably lunch or dinner). Or, eat only raw fruit and vegetables once a week.
You can fast or juice-fast one day a week.
You can fast or juice-fast every other day for a week or two.

• Full fast

Full fasts are usually done for more than one day. Proper preparation and “going out of the fast” procedures are important. Juice and water fasts are very potent tools of detoxification. Throughout the history of humans, fasts were a natural way to regulate health.  A lot of literature could be found on juice and water fasts and their health benefits.  If you are trying to attempt one, I’d recommend that you consult with your doctor and read a good book first.

In addition to detox and fasts, activities producing excessive sweating, such as intense physical exercise or sauna, will assist in detoxification.
      

Here is a workable solution – if you never attempted fast or detox before, start with the gentler option suitable for your lifestyle and health condition and either stay with it or gradually work your way up.

*Caution:  If you have a serious health conditions, you should always check with your doctor if fasts are safe for you.
Diet of raw fruit and vegetables might not be suitable for people with some digestive conditions. In this case very light cooking, like steaming, might be a better option.

The next part of this article is coming shortly, and meanwhile we invite you to sign up for our free (only once-a-month) newsletter. Stay informed on the AsthmaCare blog articles, programs and other news.

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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Practical tips on reducing toxins in your body (1)

Friday, September 11th, 2009

 <Like this article? Visit our website www.asthmacare.us>

Part 1 – Introduction
There is a sad truth we face every day – progress and industrial ingenuity caused a shower of foreign chemical substances to invade and occupy our bodies and our environment. And as a likely outcome of that 
…our overall health condition as a society has degenerated alarmingly and rapidly. Over the past one hundred years our cancer mortality rate has gone from 3 percent of all deaths to 20 percent of all deaths. Our incidents of diabetes went from 0.1 percent of the population to almost 20 percent. Heart disease went from being almost nonexistent to killing more than seven hundred thousand people a year. At the same time, health care costs have risen until the United States now spends twice as much on medicine and care per person per year than any other industrialized nation in the world. (Randall Fitzgerald, “The hundred-year lie”)

We can now realize what we did to our environment. We sympathize with animals suffering from climate change, feel bad about fish dying in polluted water and appalled by the frog population found with disturbing deformities. We complain to politicians and government; we form organizations and groups to protest harmful industrial dumps and demand a cleanup to prevent future damage and species extinction.

But, isn’t it ironic that we are not doing the same for ourselves and our contaminated beyond its ability to self-sanitize bodies? 

“An effect of this contamination is that we are now one of the most polluted species on the face of this planet,” contends Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an Oxford-educated physician in Britain who is one of the leading authorities on toxins in food. “Indeed, we are all so contaminated if we were cannibals our meat would be banned from human consumption” (Randall Fitzgerald, The hundred-year lie)

When we see animals born with deformities, acquiring diseases and dying, there is a little doubt in our minds that it is happening because their natural habitat was polluted, disturbed or destroyed. We use society’s unity, money and power to clean up and preserve that habitat.  When we see the very same thing happening to us, we use society’s unity, money and power to create ever more potent chemicals (aka drugs) to pollute our bodies and our environment even more…
Every now and then when we hear a disturbing media splash or read a revealing book about just how toxic we’ve become, the alarm sounds in our heads, but for most of us it is usually silenced soon by the thought that it is the long-established way of the modern society, and it is overwhelming and unrealistic to fight this. Everyday conveniences, bad habits, fast-paced competitive lifestyles, imperfect laws and regulations, social expectations – all that seems impossible to resist or change.

I could write a long article citing dozens of sources with screaming evidence supporting the argument that the way to better health starts with effective detoxification and subsequent reduction of everyday toxins (if you are looking for a good read on the subject, take a look at the book I cited here The hundred-year lie by Randall Fitzgerald.)

But, I decided it will be more useful to suggest some practical tips on where to start and how to make a real change without feeling overwhelmed. After all, any self-improvement program is only as good as it is realistically applicable. 

A place to start would be to address the main channel of pollution – digestive.

Food seemed to be a major culprit for this toxicity, because Japan, alone among the ten countries studied, experienced no increase in brain disease mortality, apparently as a result of the Japanese diet being healthier than Western diets. When Japanese citizens relocate to Western countries and consume processed foods, their disease rates exceed those of Japan as a whole. (Randall Fitzgerald, The hundred-year lie)
I couldn’t help but comment on the above citation from my recent personal experience. I received a package from Japan, in which, among other goods, there were a few boxes of traditional Japanese sweet treats. I’ve tasted about five boxes of different pastries. What was strikingly different from American desserts, is there was virtually no sugar, except for the natural sweetness of the fruit pastes inside. I could not read ingredients in Japanese, but was convinced there were no food dyes and very likely no food preservatives (each pastry/cookie in the box was individually sealed and the box contained a few small packets of desiccants and oxygen absorbers – good sign that fresheners were kept outside, not inside, my pastries…)  

Because there is a lot to cover in one article on this topic, in the following second part (coming shortly) I’ll suggest the ways to reduce toxins entering us through the digestive tract and to implement not so stressful detox strategies. Then we’ll talk about reducing chemical exposure from consumer products such as household cleaners, personal care items etc… I’ll also suggest how and where to shop for cleaner products on budget. And, finally, I’ll talk shortly about Dr Buteyko’s view of healthy/unhealthy dietary choices, detoxification, and how diet and toxins affect our breathing.

Stay tuned, and meanwhile sign up for our free (only once-a-month) newsletter. Stay informed on the AsthmaCare blog articles, programs and other news.



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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You’ve asked…

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

 <Like this article? Visit our website www.asthmacare.us>

What herbal remedies or supplements could you suggest for asthma? Is there a nutritional cure for asthma?

Buteyko teaching is a theory built on the role of hyperventilation in the development of many diseases. Therefore breathing retraining in order to reverse hyperventilation is the central point of teaching.  There is no doubt that nutrition plays an important role in overall health, and certain food choices and portion reduction will typically allow you to better control your breathing.  But the truth is, you could switch to the healthiest diet on Earth (although the juries are still out on what exactly is the best diet), and you’ll still have your asthma. On the other hand, you can eat a variety of food and reverse your hyperventilation, and you’ll achieve a long term asthma control. At AsthmaCare workshop we recommend a few supplements, certain foods and spices that might be of significant benefit due to their deficiency in modern diet and poor nutrient absorption typical for people with hyperventilation problems.  We also teach how different food choices, meal size and eating habits affect your breathing. But to our knowledge there is no stand alone proven nutritional or herbal program to alleviate asthma.

 Can my chest pain be connected to hyperventilation?

In the absence of other serious causes, chest pain is a very likely symptom of hyperventilation. However, because chest pain could be a sign of a very serious health condition, you should go to your doctor first for a thorough check-up in order to exclude heart or other related conditions.


My doctor says asthma is incurable. No matter what remedies or methods you try, you might temporarily reduce symptoms, but you’ll never be asthma free. Does Buteyko claim to cure asthma?

The Buteyko method has a different view of health and disease than a conventional medicine.  Conventional medicine has to define a “disease” and a “cure”.  According to Buteyko, though, asthma is not a “disease”, but a body’s mechanism of protection against over-breathing.  If over-breathing is stopped and the breathing   pattern returns to normal, the body will return to its healthy state.  As long as normal breathing   pattern is maintained, the body will remain healthy (in our case – asthma free). If, on the other hand, a person starts to chronically hyperventilate again, asthma can come back.  In reality, once you achieve and sustain a completely healthy breathing pattern, your subconscious breathing awareness is so high that it is unlikely you’ll ever go back to the state of hyperventilation.  Therefore your asthma stays in continuous remission, or is “cured”.

Where can I get a free information on Buteyko?

Good sources of information about the method and its history can be found on Peter Kolb’s website  and at Buteyko knols on Google.
If what you are looking for is a practical application of the method and you don’t have access to a Buteyko Practitioner, we recommend books and DVDs by Patrick McKeown. They are well written, hands-on and reasonably priced.
Visit our website often as we are trying to keep our content and free newsletter updated with the most current information. You are also welcome to ask AsthmaCare Practitioner a question. There is never a charge for our consultations.


What kind of asthma is best treated with Buteyko?

Any kind and severity of asthma can be treated equally well. It is likely that a person with severe (typically steroid-dependant) asthma will need a longer recovery time as oppose to a person with mild or exercise-induced-only asthma.

 


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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Michael Jackson’s death.

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Another call to check your prescription list.

Sadly, another huge celebrity’s death is suspected to be caused by prescription drug overdose.
Following the just recent sudden and tragic deaths of Heath Leger, Anna Nicole Smith and her son Daniel, the pop legend Michel Jackson passed away on June 26th.

We keep hearing about the combination of addictive medications he’d been using – anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, and painkillers, which likely contributed to his sudden death.

Continuing the theme of my past articles, I’d like to remind you that it is never too late to give your attitude toward health a new direction. 

There is no such thing as an absolutely safe drug. Long-term and multiple-interaction drug studies are never done properly because of cost effectiveness and too many factors involved.  And sadly, our society becomes increasingly overmedicated.

I believe a fundamental health care reform starts inside every one of us. We have to become educated and responsible consumers, not only of vacuums and cars, but of our most precious commodity – health.  There is how to start:

• Make a personal choice to invest your health care costs and your time into lifestyle modifications and disease prevention (www.asthmacare.us)

• Re-examine your prescription list with your doctor.  Question the necessity and dose safety of each drug. Ask about drug interactions, and the short-term and long-term side effects. Ask if your drug is habit forming.

• Educate yourself on healthier therapies and natural remedies (not all of them are safe or effective either).

• Teach your children proper attitude toward their health.  Talk to your teenage children about substance abuse. 
And most importantly, teach by example!



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Posted in Health and Lifestyle | 1 Comment »

Emotional aspects of Asthma

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Sometimes I want to stop thinking about my breathing; other times I am so grateful that I have this valuable knowledge and have the mind to appreciate its significance. There were so many times in life when I wanted to die by fading away in an all-consuming sleepy nothingness that would end the misery. Now, I want to live so I can fully claim victory over my feel-bad-and- hopeless demon. I want to live not only for myself but to be able to tell my story and help others like myself find a lasting, uncompromising, and enlivened peace. (From the post on Buteyko Forum)

As I am going through the Buteyko experience with my clients, I realize how much emotional state affects our health and healing. 

Throughout history, asthma was questioned as a “real disease,” with implications that it might be “all in your head.”  Why?

Before the 20th century, incidents of asthma were low and deaths from asthma were rare.  Most asthma cases were mild, and people with asthma lived as long as other healthy individuals. The nature of the disease is such that, when mild, it exhibits only temporary symptoms, but between the attacks a person seems perfectly healthy.  Even long term, asthma usually did not cause damage to the organs, and the condition seemed  to not deteriorate quickly.

The implications that an asthma attack could be quickly brought on by a stressful situation or thought, added up to a view of asthma as asomewhat superficial condition. For example, it was known that asthmatic children could easily throw a tantrum that would then trigger a subsequent asthma attack to “punish parents” or to ensure attention. A few years back I talked with a psychologist, and she told me that among them (pyscologists) childhood asthma sometimes is called  a “disease of neglected children.” 

Folk asthma remedies, such as breathing into a brown paper bag and using distraction and relaxation at the first signs of asthma attack, all implied that the acute state of shortness of breath could be somewhat controlled psychologically.

It all changed with the recent “epidemic” increase of asthma in developed countries. In addition to the increase in incidents of asthma, and despite the introduction of new potent asthma drugs, asthma cases became more severe and deadly.

Asthma is indeed real. And because our emotional and psychological state directly affects our breathing, perception of asthma as a stress-related condition is easily justified by the Buteyko teaching. 

Negative emotions increase our breathing and promote muscular tension, which in turn further increase our breathing. Moreover, throughout evolution, stress was meant to be relieved through vigorous physical activity, but modern sedentary lifestyle encourages none.  Stress and chronic hyperventilation can be brought on not only by a current or recent stressful event, but by many modern life conditions, unnatural to our evolutionary makeup, and also by past emotional traumas.

Gradual accumulation of muscular tension (which can take seconds, minutes, or hours), caused by insufficient physical activity, gradually causes hyperventilation.
What are the causes of increasing muscular tension when the person does not experience any apparent stress and is busy with a book, computer, house errands, or friendly people around? When, how, and why do we get more stressed? Are our minds supposed to get anxious without a cause?

Roots of the stress and muscular tension
Obviously, they come from our past, negative, personal experiences. Which ones? Probably those which were most traumatic. There are very few people on Earth now who have never suffered because of an injustice or verbal, physical, or psychological abuse. Such emotionally-heated events often take place in childhood.

Often a child was hurt by somebody, or sometimes a child was exposed to a traumatic experience with relatives or other people. These old events remain imprinted in the nervous system. They can produce three effects. First, they provide a matrix, or framework, or cliché that can be used later in order to relate, judge, evaluate, and choose other people as friends, or even in choosing a spouse, while ascribing old roles to themselves. Second, conscious thinking about old traumas can result in a re-experience of the same emotions:  anger, helplessness, guilt, resentment, alienation, and hostility. These toxic emotions can poison the well-being, breathing included, of the person years later. Often, the traumatic events may even be almost forgotten, but emotional and non-emotional clues and surrounding triggers of the past trauma (accompanying sounds, smells, shapes, mood, clothing, weather, and many more) can unexpectedly and unconsciously trigger past emotions. As a result, we again experience anger, helplessness, guilt, resentment, alienation, and hostility without realizing the roots of these emotions.  (Artour Rakhimov, Ph.D.,Normal Breathing: The key to vital health)


Going back to asthma, there was evidence that adult onset of asthma, especially in women, is connected to chronic stress. (Chronic Life Stress and Incident Asthma in Adult Women study by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI))

Fortunately, as Buteyko teaching points out, there is a reverse connection, too.

Chronic hyperventilation negatively affects our emotions, and reversing hyperventilation promotes a sense of calm and well being, and encourages more positive thoughts and emotions. It is not uncommon that people who practice Buteyko notice mental changes even before they notice physical ones. The changes include deeper awareness of body – mind – breathing connection, increased concentration and mental clarity, less mental fatigue, less agitation in response to minor negative experiences, decreased anxiety, an ability to quickly relieve muscle tension and keep the state of relaxation effortlessly. 

Below is a citation from one of my client’s Emails

Even amongst many personal trials and hardships right now, I am calm, happy, and at peace; many blessings continue to occur each day… I am stunned that the horrible tension has left my body…especially my shoulders and upper back…  I should be taking three or more bathes a day right now, at the least, trying to calm my extremely agitated mind and body…and I’ve not even thought of it! 

Is there any scientific rationale? – might you ask

For those who are not quite familiar with the Buteyko theory, we should point out that the Buteyko therapy is about reversing the disease through reversing a chronic hyperventilation. Chronic hyperventilation is causing an excessive loss of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in human lungs, but we need to preserve a certain amount of it because of its significant physiological value.

The normal work of our senses, conscious thinking, decision making, and all other mental activities require stable transmission of electrical signals between nervous cells. Such transmission is possible when CO2 content in nerve tissues is normal. Logic, sense, reason, wisdom, focus, memory, concentration and many other qualities are based on this stability of signal transmission. The signal is passed from one nervous cell to another only when the strength or voltage of the signal is higher than a certain threshold value so that accidental signals will not be amplified causing disruption in the work of the CNS(*central nervous system). This threshold value is very sensitive to the local CO2 content. When we hyperventilate and CO2 content is suboptimal, accidental weak signals can be amplified and transmitted further interfering with the real signals based on senses, memory, logic and other objective factors. Hence, CO2 has a calming effect on excessive excitability of brain areas responsible for conscious thinking (e.g., Krnjevic, 1965). Other researchers (Balestrino & Somjen, 1988; Huttunen et al, 1999) also concluded that increased CO2 pressure generally reduces cortical excitability, while hyperventilation “leads to spontaneous and asynchronous firing of cortical neurons” (Huttunen et. al., 1999).

Hence, breathing too much makes the human brain abnormally excited due to reduced CO2 concentrations. As a result, the brain gets literally out of control due to appearance of spontaneous and asynchronous (“self-generated”) thoughts. Balestrino and Somjen (1988) in their summary directly claimed that, “The brain, by regulating breathing, controls its own excitability”. These effects of CO2 on brain cells are of special importance in understanding anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, epilepsy and other psychological and neurological problems and disorders…Besides, this effect is important in order to understand the mechanism of the mind-body connection.(Artour Rakhimov, Ph.D.,Normal Breathing: The key to vital health)

Each of us is a universe of complex, sometimes irrational emotions.

I remember when, at one of my presentations, a man asked me a question that completely puzzled me. He said that his daughter has had mild to moderate asthma for many years, and he thinks that deep inside she doesn’t want to get better because it is something she grew emotionally attached to.  As I thought about it, it might be that for some people who’ve adapted to living with such a chronic condition for many years, a change, even a positive one, could be feared.  It might be that in some ways they feel their unique security is always having a proper excuse for something they are not up to, or guaranteed attention and compassion from other people. 

On the other end of spectrum are people whose limitations because of chronic physical illness cause a deterioration of their emotional state. One research indicates that children with asthma have twice the likeliness of having the signs of depression and anxiety as their counterparts.

Being a holistic therapy at its core, Buteyko theory does not distinguish between physical, mental and emotional health.  We strongly encourage you to take a closer look at what Buteyko is about, and besides physical health, what value of emotional health and healing might it bring into your life.



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Are you suffering from Chronic Hyperventilation Syndrome (CHVS)?

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

The Buteyko theory is essentially about recognizing and reversing Chronic Hyperventilation (chronic over-breathing).  Up to now, very few doctors have considered it a valid diagnosis, although overwhelming evidence has been collected both through scientific research and therapeutic practice. 
Let me cite just a few of the many articles confirming that CHV plays a significant role in the development of a number of chronic diseases, conditions and symptoms which are prevalent among modern population.

Among the most difficult and frustrating patients for physicians are those with multiple complaints involving many organ systems who, despite seeing numerous physicians, fail to obtain a satisfactory explanation or relief from their symptoms. They often have a “positive review of systems.” After numerous physicians have been seen and multiple diagnostic tests have been done, which have excluded organic disorders, such patients are often dismissed as having nothing wrong with them or having a severe neurosis, anxiety, depression, hypochondriasis or hysteria, despite the persistence of symptoms that may be disabling in their work and other aspects of everyday living. Unfortunately, this scenario continues to be a common occurrence and is the frequent setting in which the hyperventilation syndrome is recognized, months or years after its onset. Previous studies have shown that 5 percent to 10 percent of patients seeking care from primary care physicians have at least some complaints related to hyperventilation.

TABLE 2.–Signs and Symptoms of Hyperventilation Syndrome
GENERAL Weakness, fatigue, sleep disturbances, blurred vision
PSYCHIATRIC Anxiety, depression, phobias, feeling far away, sensations of unreality
NEUROLOGIC Paresthesias (*sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness) in extremities or periorally (*around the mouth), lightheadedness, dizziness, disorientation, impaired thinking, seizures, syncope, headaches
CARDIOLOGIC Palpitations, chest pain
RESPIRATORY Dyspnea (*difficult or labored breathing) often without provocation characterized as being unable to take a satisfying deep inspiration, exaggerated thoracic breathing, sighing, yawning
GASTROINTESTINAL Dry mouth, bloating, belching, flatulence
MUSCULAR Cramping, spasm, musculoskeletal chest wall pain (chest wall syndrome) 
(Hyperventilation Syndrome: A Diagnosis Begging for Recognition GREGORY J. MAGARIAN, MD; DEBORAH A. MIDDAUGH, MD, and DOUGLAS H. LINZ, MD, Portland )

Chest pain is frequently a prominent symptom of the hyperventilation syndrome (HVS) and must be distinguished from angina pectoris due to coronary atherosclerotic heart disease (CAHD)… The failure to make this clinical differential diagnosis, which often leads to unnecessary coronary angiography, should not be as frequent as generally experienced. (Hyperventilation syndrome: a frequent cause of chest pain. C E Wheatley)

This review discusses the evidence for dysregulated breathing playing a role in three clinical syndromes: panic disorder, functional cardiac disorder, and chronic pain. Recent technological advances allowing the ambulatory assessment of endtidal partial pressure of CO2 (PCO2) and respiratory patterns have opened up new avenues for investigation and treatment of these disorders. The latest evidence from laboratories indicates that subtle disturbances of breathing, such as tidal volume instability and sighing, contribute to the chronic hypocapnia often found in panic patients. Hypocapnia is also common in functional cardiac and chronic pain disorders, and studies indicate that it mediates some of their symptomatology. Consistent with the role of respiratory dysregulation in these disorders, initial evidence indicates efficacy of respiration-focused treatment.  (Respiratory Dysregulation in Anxiety, Functional Cardiac, and Pain Disorders Frank H. Wilhelm  Stanford University Richard Gevirtz California School of Professional Psychology—San Diego Walton T. Roth Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System) 

Although Buteyko medical trials in the Western world have been conducted mostly for groups of asthma patients, it is time to recognize that the problem of CHV is much more widespread.   Most importantly, we have a technique available right now to correct CHV without drug interventions, expensive therapies or invasive procedures.  As with most chronic health problems, it is easier to catch CHVS early, before years of unrecognized hyperventilation impose extensive damage upon one’s health.
  
I urge doctors and nurses to do their own inquiry into the overwhelming evidence of the validity of the CHVS diagnosis and to recognize the extent of the problem for the sake of their patients.
There are some positive signs.  The same student of mine whom I have mentioned in the previous article “Classification of the Diseases and Correct Diagnosis,” told me that after years of going from doctor to doctor without clear diagnoses, her neurologist finally suggested she suffers from CHVS.   Additionally, while I was finishing this article, I found out about a new exciting development – Coventry University, UK,  just launched a program to train nurses to teach Buteyko technique to their patients.  (http://www.nursingtimes.net/nurses-to-be-trained-to-teach-buteyko-breathing-technique-to-asthmatics/5000294.article)

Request a consultation today to find out if an existing medical condition that you or your child are experiencing might be related to Chronic Hyperventilation. 



——————————————————————————————————
Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Posted in Buteyko Method | 21 Comments »

Classification of the diseases and correct diagnosis

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I couldn’t help but notice that there are a lot of health forum questions formulated around symptoms that don’t quite fit a single disease. 

We are naturally frightened when something wrong is going on in our bodies. Which symptoms imply a serious condition?  Are seemingly unrelated symptoms related?   What triggers them?
For example occasional shortness of breath and feeling of “skipped heartbeat”.   Is this asthma? heart troubles? stress?
Or a persistent cough with no infection present.  Asthma and allergies were ruled out, then what?
Or a postnasal drip with no sinus infection found. Just a weird allergy?
Or “asthma like” symptoms only with physical exertion.  It is not asthma, right?
Or chest pains and heart palpitations.  Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with the heart.
Or occasional numbness and tingling of the hands?
Or unexplained anxiety and mood swings in otherwise healthy individuals.  Is this stress? hormones?
Or fatigue and poor concentration.  Isn’t everybody supposed to get it with age?
These symptoms might go away and come back. Or persist for years without being taken seriously by a doctor.
It prompted me to think of how modern medicine came to existing classification of the diseases.  I looked into the history of medicine.  That’s where the branching of medical science started:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, technology and a reconfiguration of disease concepts changed medical attitudes to anatomy. The diagnostic techniques of percussion and auscultation made it possible to detect structural changes inside the chest. Names and concepts of diseases changed from being subjective symptoms, such as hemoptysis and shortness of breath, to associated anatomical lesions, such as pulmonary effusion, pulmonary consolidation, and emphysema. …Throughout history, physiology has attempted to identify and classify the fundamental properties of life. Functions of living beings are divided into smaller tasks, each a physiological process in itself.    …. We may be witnessing a decline in the generic all-purpose physiology as subspecialties emerge, such as respirology, endocrinology, and neuro physiology.  (History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction‎ by Jacalyn Duffin)

While vast amount of physiology, biology and technology knowledge kept accumulating, medical training separated doctors into fields related either to a certain organ system -  e.g. endocrinologists, pulmonologists, OBGYN, or certain skills – e.g. surgeons, orthodontists.  The obvious benefit was that each doctor possessed greater knowledge of pathologies associated with a certain organ system, or greater skill, and therefore was able to better treat the condition.
But more often than not, pathological processes in our body are manifested through more than one organ system.  With such an isolated approach, it is often to the patient’s disadvantage that he is forced to go from one specialist to another only to discover that the disconnect between medical subspecialties left him without a proper diagnosis. 
 
It reminds me of the Indian “The Blind Men and the Elephant” tale, where blind men were asked to touch different parts of the elephant’s body and describe it.  Depending on the part they were presented with, each man had a different version of the animal. But, of course, no one really understood what an elephant was.

Another interesting question that the history of medicine has answered for me was about modern medical science studying the disease without necessarily looking for the reasons it originated.  

The second dualistic theme is about method of inquiry: the relationship between teleology and empiricism. The word “teleology”, often defined as “the doctrine of first [or final] causes”, refers to knowledge of purpose. “Empiricism” refers to knowledge obtained through “pure” observation without theoretical bias. Both methods deal with cause and effect. But teleology implies a confident belief in the possibility of uncovering the ultimate reason for a certain function. Empirical methods, on the other hand, are supposedly confined only to observed events and their immediate (and equally observable) causes. Teleology was more influential in ancient physiology than it is today. … Virtually every problem in physiology could be reformulated with the question “Why?” But the search for purpose is no longer the overtly stated aim of scientific experiments. Rather, the scientific method now purports to explore “how” and confines experiments to observation of events in natural or manipulated environments. (History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction‎ by Jacalyn Duffin)

Medical practice has essentially become a process of:

  1. identifying the most prominent symptoms in a patient  
  2. based on existing library of disease patterns deciding which tests are necessary, if any
  3. “fitting” the symptoms and test results into one of many thousands disease classifications
  4. following treatment guidelines

Although this system is well organized and based on accumulated knowledge and experience, there is always a possibility that your symptoms combined with test results won’t exactly fit.  One of my students told me her story of many years going from doctor to doctor without any definite diagnosis. She said “I would feel how frustrated eventually my doctors would become with me.  It felt almost like they were telling me – go home, redefine your symptoms so they fit our guidelines, then come back”.

Or symptoms might fit only to certain proximity, and there is a good chance of misdiagnosis.  My GP once told me a statistic that around 20% of the patients leave the doctor’s office undiagnosed.  

So, what if a diagnosis is not so obvious? Regretfully, increasingly more doctors follow the “Thou shall not leave my office without a prescription” commandment. Either unnecessary drugs are prescribed or placebos are given instead.

A survey was recently conducted about U.S. doctors prescribing drugs in hope of the placebo effect. 

The authors report that among the 679 physicians (57%) who responded to the survey half of them said they prescribed “placebo treatments” on a regular basis. Most physicians (62%) believed the practice to be ethically acceptable and were happy to recommend or prescribe placebo treatments.
The most commonly used placebo treatments prescribed in the past year were over the counter painkillers (41%) or vitamins (38%). Some of the physicians reported using antibiotics (13%) and sedatives (13%) as placebos, only 3% reported using sugar pills.
Interestingly, among those who prescribe placebo treatments, most doctors (68%) said they typically describe the placebo treatments to patients as “a potentially beneficial medicine or treatment not typically used for their condition”, only rarely did they admit to explicitly describing them to patients as “placebos”.

Even more disturbing trend is that strong medications like antidepressants are becoming widely prescribed in cases of unclear diagnosis, especially if symptoms related to hyperventilation are present, such as anxiety, poor concentration, heart palpitations, fatigue after slight exertion etc.  And while patients are sent from one medical office to another, their “experimental” prescription drug list keeps growing.

When people ask me about the Buteyko method, I always hesitate to tell them, that K.P. Buteyko listed over one hundred diseases for which his method is effective.  I am afraid it will momentarily send their skepticism into overdrive.  But that’s only because we are convinced that each disease is distinctively different, and therefore requires distinctively different treatment.  According to Buteyko theory, however, all those conditions (classified as “diseases” by modern medical science), and many seemingly unrelated symptoms (some listed in the beginning of this article), are just pathological consequences of dysfunctional breathing.  And once you have the cause and the underlying reason spelled out, subsequent treatment has a real opportunity to be successful.  Next time you wonder about your symptoms, consider reading my next article “Are you suffering from CHVS?” 



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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My Asthma Story

Monday, February 16th, 2009

It was an ordinary winter flu season in 2002 that started a rather extraordinary chain of events in my life.  Up until that time I had been a relatively healthy middle-aged female, who had never had any respiratory troubles.  One week in March I caught the flu, which resulted in bronchitis and left me coughing for weeks.

When it occurred to me that my cough was not going away, I scheduled an appointment with my GP (doctor A).  X-Rays didn’t show pneumonia, so I was sent home with the diagnosis of bronchitis along with a strong antibiotic, which from the nurse’s words “kills everything in its way”.  As common nowadays, antibiotic had been prescribed “just in case there is an infection”. After taking the antibiotic as prescribed, I was feeling progressively worse.  I felt weaker, developed pleurisy (inflammation of double membrane (pleura) that lines the chest cavity and surrounds the lung) and pain on the right side of my back, where even lifting my arm was painful.  I had continuous cough attacks, which turned from annoying to downright scary.  Eventually wheezing and breathlessness developed.

During my second visit to the clinic, an X-Ray showed something that looked like traces of pneumonia.  Doctor A suggested another “just in case” antibiotic.  I declined.

I could not ignore my wheezing and breathlessness anymore, so I scheduled an appointment with a pulmonary specialist (Doctor B).  Doctor B asked me a few questions, and said I probably had developed asthma.  I was in total disbelief.  The words “not curable, lifelong condition” was going through my head over and over again.  How could this happen?  I had been perfectly fine just a few months ago!  Doctor B didn’t have time to listen to my denial and upset.  He tried to cheer me up, saying I am lucky to have asthma out of all other lung diseases, as it is the most manageable one.  Needless to say, I didn’t feel lucky at all.  He sent me home with a rescue inhaler and instructed me to use it as needed in order to feel better. 

I did not.  Weeks passed with the same gut wrenching cough and breathlessness.  Since the “rescue” inhaler didn’t do much, I still had hopes this was not asthma, and with the proper diagnosis and treatment this mystery disease might be cured.  I thought “I just have to find the right doctor”.  After some research I found Doctor C.  Doctor C ordered a respiratory test and CT scan, listened to my terribly wheezy lungs and eventually came up with an even grimmer diagnosis – moderate to severe asthma with probable localized area of bronchiectasis (disease that causes localized, irreversible dilation of part of the bronchial tree).  I was prescribed an Advair (combination long acting reliever/preventer) inhaler.  A physical therapist also instructed me on how to use a device called a Flutter Valve.  By breathing hard into the mouthpiece, this device was supposed to help “effectively remove mucus”.

Disappointed in conventional medicine, I tried to explore CAM choices.  Homeopathic treatment came to mind first.  I scheduled an appointment with a homeopathy specialist (Doctor D), who told me in all honestly that the homeopathic approach is not a quick and easy process to finding the right medicine.  I understood it is a “try and see” approach.  He explained that medication(s) should match the parameters of my disease history, symptoms, etc., but with his knowledge and experience, chances are he’d find it and it would all be worth it.  Despite the costs (not covered by medical insurance) and time involved, I began a yearlong treatment.  A requirement of homeopathy is that while on the homeopathic treatment, one cannot use medications that suppress the immune system (like steroids).  Because of this I’d have to replace Advair (combination bronchodilator/steroid) with Serevent (bronchodilator only). 

By this time I was getting used to the idea of living with a chronic condition and being more or less sick all the time.  I had many ups and downs.  Homeopathic treatment didn’t seem to help much, but Doctor D repeated to me that eventually we would find the right formula and I felt encouraged and cheered by this.

Because I had stopped using the steroid inhaler, I was again coughing all the time.  And now sudden attacks of  breathlessness would creep up on me more often.  Just a few puffs of the “reliever” would make me shaky, dizzy and make my heart jump out of my chest.  Still, I felt like another asthma attack was inevitable.

One day my reliever just didn’t seem to work anymore.  No matter what I did, the feeling of suffocation increased, and I ended up in the ER completely breathless and as pale as corpse.  I remember when I was leaving the house to go to the ER, my mother looked at me in tears as if I would not be returning.   After a few tests and a nebulizer treatment an ER Doctor (Doctor E) finally saw me.  She told me my asthma was out of control, that I needed to go on oral prednisone treatment, and that I would need to go back to my lung specialist to establish an asthma control plan.  As much as I despised the idea of having a steroid treatment, I was not in a position to choose.  My asthma had literally become a matter of life and death.

I must admit that the course of steroids brought me back from the dead.  In just a week the color had returned to my face and I was able to breathe and walk again.  My cough seemed less strained and slowly but surely my strength was built up again.  It seemed almost like a cure, except it was not.  I returned to Doctor C and to inhaled steroids.

I was now back on steroids and so after one year of no improvements with the homeopathic treatments, decided there was no point continuing and stopped seeing Doctor D.

Yet my mind was always set on searching for something that might be a non-drug cure or at least a significant relief.  I just couldn’t put up with the idea that I had suddenly turned into in invalid.  In my whole life I have never had allergies or any respiratory troubles.  How did that happen to me?  I wanted answers.

One day as I was searching the web I came across the Buteyko method.  At that time the information on this method was scarce and sounded amateurish and contradictory.  The first time I saw it I completely ignored it.  But it settled somewhere in the back of my mind.

Meanwhile, through another batch of web searches, I found a Chinese herbal store.  This company sounded more credible than some others I was considering. It didn’t take long for me to talk myself into trying their asthma treatment.  I bought a number of bottles and took their content religiously to the last pill with not even a little change in my condition.  My hopes plunged again as there was now one less option.

During this time a friend of my family approached me with a recommendation of a wonderful doctor (Doctor F), whose authority in the asthma field was unquestionable. He taught students at a most prestigious medical school, wrote books on asthma, and was very thorough with his diagnosis and sensible with drug administration.  So I was off to see Doctor F.

I have to admit, Doctor F seemed genuinely interested in my case and ordered twice as many tests than the other doctors.  I believe he did this in order to give me a more precise diagnosis.   But the outcome was still the same – moderate to severe asthma  with the same recommended drug regimen.  To his credit, I must say, as soon as Advair received a “black box warning”, he replaced my prescription with Flovent (a steroid only inhaler).  Considering my diagnosis of localized bronchiectasis, he also referred  me to a pulmonologist (Doctor G).  Doctor G said nothing new, suggested that there is a procedure used to examine the airways called a bronchoscopy but it is invasive, risky, and he didn’t think I needed it.

A few months later my close friend approached me with the news that a famous Chinese acupuncturist (Doctor H), who has a PhD in Chinese Medicine (she used to live and study in China), had recently opened her practice right here in our city.  I thought, if I was ever going to try acupuncture, I couldn’t find a better resume than Doctor H had.  So I went.  Two months of treatment did nothing and I quit.

I hated steroid inhalers.  No matter how well I rinsed my mouth, I couldn’t get rid of that sore scratchy feeling it left.  Only the lowest dose would not bring that feeling, but the lowest dose wasn’t enough to control my asthma.  And even with higher dose I was still having continuous symptoms.  My cough had become a big part of me.  I was exhausted physically, mentally and feeling more hopeless by the minute.  I would have EIA and often feel tired and pushed to the limit even though I was going to Yoga and workout classes regularly. My quality of life was miserable and I was sick of being sick.  Just the mere thought that I had become so drug reliant would drive me to a depressed mood.  I thought, if it ever happened that I would be in a situation where my inhalers were not available, I could easily die.

Having unsuccessfully tried pretty much everything that was ever recommended for asthma, I kept coming back to the Buteyko Method. As more information became available, I tried to piece it together and apply it.  To my astonishment, one day I was able to stop an asthma attack without the rescue inhaler.  That’s when I thought that there must be something entirely different about this therapy.  I still wasn’t convinced this was my long-term solution.  I thought of it more as a number of breathing “tricks” to temporarily relax the airways and that the attack would come back later.  Nevertheless, I began to consider taking a course in the Buteyko Method.
It wasn’t easy finding a Buteyko Practitioner.  The practitioners that sounded the most credible were all abroad.  I found a couple in the US but still significantly far away from where I live.  As disappointed as I was in every alternative technique I had tried, I still wasn’t convinced the Buteyko Method would be worth the time and money I would have to invest in it.  I wanted to know more.

It wasn’t easy finding good literature on the Buteyko Method.  The search for a good book brought me to Patrick McKeown’s Asthma Free Naturally, which had excellent reviews on Amazon.com.  So, I made one of the best $16.95 investments I had ever made and purchased the book.

This book literally changed my life.  Reading it felt like I finally had found all the answers I was searching for, and nobody, including wonderful Doctors A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H could ever give me.  Every word in that book made so much sense to me.

I practiced the exercises and followed the recommendations. I began to experience unbelievable results.  I was off my medications and was having significantly less symptoms.  My first reaction was naturally a jolt of happiness.  After so many lost hopes, my five-year story and struggle was finally reaching a happy end.  My second reaction was extreme disappointment.  If I had found this therapy initially I wouldn’t have had to watch my health deteriorate, experience continuous symptoms and be subjected to a harsh medication regimen.  I began to wonder why this method was not more widely known?!

I decided that more people needed to know about the Buteyko Method.  That’s when I’ve contacted Mr. McKeown and started to plan my practitioner training in Ireland.  During this trip I had the amazing experience of seeing first-hand the undeniable benefits that the Buteyko Method has brought to so many people.  It was a rewarding experience to see children when the color returned to their faces and their persistent coughs subsided within just one week of the initial workshop.  By working directly with a Practitioner, rather than learning from a book, I was able to better understand some of the challenging aspects of the exercise practice and sometimes tricky dynamic of full recovery.

For just under two years I have been completely drug free. 

My breathing is now calm and quiet.

The cough that constantly plagued me is gone.  The weightless feeling in my chest I missed for so many years has now returned. 

Weather extremes don’t bother me anymore.

I exercise about five times a week.  My workout routine includes jogging, aerobics, Vinyasa Yoga and weight training.  I am able to exercise effortlessly and enjoy it much more.

During my asthma days my resting pulse would fall between 80 and 90.  Today my resting pulse is between 52 and 58.

My bone density, compromised by prolonged steroid treatment, has increased and is returning back to normal.

Although I’ve never been overweight and in need of dieting, I’ve lost weight on the therapy, coming to probably what is my ideal BMI.

 I used to have two to four viral respiratory infections a year.  For the past two years I’ve had none.

I sleep less but have more energy.

And the list of positive changes goes on and on…

In summary, I feel like I have a new and better body to live in…a body filled with undying love and gratitude to Professor K.P. Buteyko and his followers everywhere.



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Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Exercise Induced Asthma (EIA). Shouldn’t athletic youth be the healthiest?

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Recently I’ve come across this startling headline:

A U.S. study discovered signs of exercise-induced asthma in more than one-third of college athletes assessed for breathing problems.
Researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center screened 107 Ohio State varsity athletes for exercise-induced asthma. Forty-two, or 39 percent, of the athletes tested positive, and 36 of those 42 athletes had no prior history of asthma, the study reported in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.  (Exercise-induced asthma common in college)

EIA statistics among children and young adults is getting increasingly troublesome. PE teachers at school are taught regularly how to deal with Exercise Induced Asthma in children. 

Minnesota Department of Health guide called Asthma: Practical Tips For P.E. & H.E. Teachers states the following facts

According to National Health Interview Survey 2001

● Approximately 2.5 students in a class of 30 are likely to have asthma (Asthma in Children Fact Sheet, American Lung Association, June 17 2003)
● Is the most common chronic disease causing absence from school (Asthma Prevalence, Health Care Use, and Mortality, 2000 –01, National Center for Health Statistic)
● 1 in 13 school children have asthma
● 6.3 million children under 18 have asthma
● 5 Minnesota students died of asthma in 2002
● 33% of all identified school related asthma deaths (1990 2003) occurred during a school sporting event or during PE class (Minnesota Center for Health Statistics Centers for Disease Control, 2004)

According to a Minneapolis Public School survey 2002

● 76% of respondents observed and/or assisted student/s with asthma problems in the past year
● 51.5% of respondents reported being uncomfortable assisting with asthma episodes
● 91% of P.E. teachers have seen students 9carry and use inhalers before P.E. class
● 68% observed students going to the health office before P.E. class
● 100% observed inhaler use during P.E.
● 24% observed students using someone else’s inhaler
● 77% observed students going to the health office or using their inhaler after P.E. class for asthma symptoms

What is EIA?

Exercise induced asthma (or EIA) causes breathing difficulty usually 5-20 minutes after starting intense physical activity or shortly after stopping.  It is more common among children than adults. Ninety precent of diagnosed asthmatics have EIA.
EIA occurs more easily in cold, dry environments than in those that are warmer and more humid.

Sports activities that are less likely to trigger EIA:

  • Swimming (however, some people get worsening of their asthma from swimming pools’ chlorine fumes)
  • Walking
  • Leisure biking
  • Hiking
  • Free downhill skiing

    • Team sports that require short bursts of energy , including:

  • Baseball
  • Football
  • Wrestling
  • Golfing
  • Gymnastics
  • Short-distance track and field events

    • Sports that require continuous activity or are cold weather activities are more likely to trigger EIA:

  • Soccer
  • Basketball
  • Long-distance running
  • Cross-country skiing
  • Hockey

    • Many children do not tell their parents when they experience symptoms, but rather complain of not being able to perform as well as their classmates.  Some even express a dislike for sports.  Still others think it is normal to get short of breath during exercise.  Exercise Induced Asthma, therefore, may lead to problems with peers and teachers and low self-esteem.  Eventually, reluctance to participate in athletics will have a negative effect on their overall health.

    So should people with EIA avoid exercise?
    Absolutely not.     In fact, exercise is even more important for asthmatics than for other people. When applying Buteyko Method, as students progress, exercise becomes an essential part of their recovery.

    EIA can be overcome.
    While traditionally doctors have been puzzled about EIA and think this was a different form of asthma, Buteyko theory offers a rational explanation.  In the very beginning and shortly after the end of the exercise, loss of Carbon Dioxide due to hyperventilation exceeds its accumulation due to physical activity.
    The AsthmaCare Program teaches patients how to overcome Exercise Induced Asthma and improve their sports performance.  Following recommendations, anybody will be able to advance their fitness level and avoid breathlessness, fatigue, wheezing and coughing. Even healthy athletes who want to excel in an endurance activity with strenuous demands are going to benefit immensely from normalization of breathing.

    So, what about our question, “Shouldn’t athletic youth be the healthiest?”  Yes, they should.  Furthermore, if the foundation of correct breathing is taught within families and at schools, they will be.
    To rephrase Lao Tzu’s quote:
    Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
    I would say:
    Give a child an inhaler and you stop his asthma for a day.  Teach him how to breathe correctly, and you’ll stop his asthma for a lifetime.



    ——————————————————————————————————
    Buteyko Clinic USA offers unique breathing rehabilitation programs that result in long term drug free control over asthma, allergies, COPD, rhinitis, chronic cough, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, panic, chronic hyperventilation syndrome and other chronic conditions. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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