Asthma-Free Naturally: Everything you need to know about taking control of your asthma
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♦ Coughing
This may be either a repetitive dry cough or a cough with phlegm, often occurring during the night or early morning. Repetitive coughing can put a strain on the heart and drives sputum deeper into the lungs. Patients with this symptom may feel like they are on a conveyor belt: the more they cough, the more they feel the need to cough again.
♦ Chest tightness
Trapped air in the lungs generates a feeling that the chest is over inflated. This is often described as someone squeezing or sitting on one’s chest.
♦ Frequent yawning
When asthma symptoms are at their worst, sleep is interrupted by difficult periods of breathing which contributes to tiredness.
Non-asthmatics can, of course, observe these symptoms, but they will not appreciate the feelings of tension, panic, uncertainty and helplessness which accompany them, particularly when the asthmatic struggles to breathe. If you are not an asthmatic, imagine trying to breathe while a pillow is being pressed firmly over your face. That feeling you imagine is the feeling someone with asthma has during an attack. In your case, the imaginary pillow can be easily removed to allow you to breathe effortlessly; for an asthmatic, the remedy is not so simple.
Given the variety of symptoms and their severity, diagnosing a condition that has no commonly accepted definition is not an exact science. Many asthma symptoms are also the symptoms of other conditions, such as chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis, for example. Diagnosis has to take into account the chronic nature of asthma and the constriction of the airways due to inflammation by various cells and chemicals. Generally, diagnosis of asthma is based on the following factors.
♦ History of the patient
This includes establishing if the patient has experienced asthma symptoms while at rest, during exercise or after exposure to a known trigger.
♦ Lung function tests
The peak flow meter measures the maximum speed at which the patient can exhale air in one second. A person with asthma usually produces a lower reading, and, generally speaking, a more inconsistent range of results than a person who doesn’t suffer from the condition. Spirometry measures both the speed and volume of air which is exhaled with each breath, thereby providing additional airway obstruction information.
♦ Effect of reliever or steroidal medication
In part, diagnosis of asthma is based on the effects of medication, and whether or not it leads to a temporary reversal of symptoms. Other conditions which demonstrate common asthma-type symptoms, such as emphysema, include irreversible airway obstruction.
♦ Provocation test
The patient inhales a broncho-constricting agent, such as histamine or methacholine. The airways of people with asthma are far more responsive to inhalation of these substances; agents like these will provoke more extensive narrowing of air passages in people with asthma.
♦ Skin tests to determine allergies
A number of common allergens are selected, such as dust mites, pollen or animal dander. One at a time, the allergens are placed on the forearm, and the skin is then gently pierced to allow the substances to penetrate. After fifteen minutes, the skin surrounding this spot may develop a small rash. While this test is not always conclusive, the presence of a rash and the size of the weal indicate an allergy to a specific substance.
♦ Chest x-ray
X-ray is used to rule out other respiratory diseases in a person who has the symptoms of severe chronic asthma. X-ray charts show irreversible damage to the airways, and this aids the diagnoses of other respiratory disorders.
Your respiratory system
Before you commence breathing retraining, it is important for you to have a basic understanding of the roles played by the respiratory system and carbon dioxide in your body. Your respiratory system consists of the parts of your body used for the delivery of oxygen from the atmosphere to your cells and tissues, and for transporting the carbon dioxide produced in your tissues back into the atmosphere. If cells and tissues are to function properly – if you are to live – your body needs the atmosphere’s oxygen. Your nose, mouth, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs are all part of your respiratory system.
Part of your airways is your nose and mouth. Through them, air enters your body and flows down a flexible tube called the trachea. This tube eventually divides into two branches called bronchi: one branch enters the left lung and the other branch enters the right. Within your lungs, the bronchi further subdivide into an estimated twenty-five smaller branches called bronchioles. The bronchioles run into alveolar ducts and at the end are small air sacs called alveoli.
Look at it another way. Imagine an upside-down tree. The trachea is the trunk; at the top of the trunk are the two large branches of the bronchi. From each of these large branches grow the smaller branches of the bronchioles. At the end of each smaller branch are the ‘leaves’, the round balloon-shaped sacs called alveoli.
When you breathe in, air enters through your nose or mouth and flows into the trachea, the bronchi, bronchioles and eventually alveoli. The grape-like alveoli – after which they are named – are surrounded by tiny blood channels called capillaries. Oxygen enters the blood by passing through a very thin barrier between the capillaries and air sacs. It is then carried by what is called haemoglobin within
Our lungs
A close-up of Alveoli (air sacs)
the blood to tissues and cells. There are approximately three hundred million alveoli in the lungs, each of which is surrounded by tiny blood vessels.
To put this huge number in context, think of Wimbledon and imagine a tennis court. The area of contact between your alveoli and blood capillaries is equivalent to the size of a tennis court; as you can imagine, this massive area provides scope for an efficient transfer of oxygen from the air to your blood. Carbon dioxide is produced as an end product of the process of breaking down the fats and carbohydrates that you eat, and this gas is brought by your venous blood vessels to your lungs where the excess is exhaled. Crucially, part of your body’s quotient of carbon dioxide is retained when you exhale, and correct breathing results in the required amount of carbon dioxide being retained in your lungs.
There are two main aspects to the way you breathe. Your rate is the number of breaths you take in one minute and your volume is the amount of air drawn into your lungs. Although the two are separate, one generally influences the other.
The volume of air we inhale and exhale is measured in litres, and measurements are usually taken over one minute. In conventional medicine, the accepted number of breaths a healthy person takes in one minute is ten to twelve, with each breath drawing in a volume of 500 millilitres. In a full minute, this provides the body with a total volume of five to six litres. If a person is breathing at a higher rate of twenty breaths, for example, then the volume will also be higher, and vice-versa. To visualise this amount of air, imagine how much air would be contained in a two-litre soft drink bottle.
Where to now?
So, now you know how the respiratory system works, and you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with asthma. Where to now? A lifetime of drug therapy? Or a proven, natural, physiology-based way of reversing what can be a debilitating condition?
A new beginning is emerging in the treatment of asthma, aimed at getting to the root cause of the problem. By addressing the cause rather than the symptoms that are the effect, sufferers finally have the ability to be able to take control of their own condition, naturally and permanently. This new beginning is based on the life’s work of Russian scientist, Professor Konstantin Buteyko. Before we can begin to look at how you can change your own life, we must take a brief look at his.
Over four decades, Professor Buteyko completed pioneering work on illnesses which develop as a result of breathing a volume of air greater than the body requires. His work provided mankind with probably the greatest discovery to date in the field of medicine.
As a medical student, Konstantin observed hundreds of sick patients, and realised that their breathing was closely related to the extent of their illness. The greater the volume of air which a patient inhaled, the greater their sickness, he discovered. This relationship was so precise that he was able to predict accurately the exact time when ill patients would pass away.
Through his research, he devised a breathing programme for his patients based on reducing the amount of air that passed through their lungs. When each patient applied reduced breathing, all their bodily functions including pulse, volume of breathing per minute and blood pressure were monitored. The resulting data enabled him to refine and improve his method. Buteyko’s theory is based on the life force of any organism: breathing.
Like many other revolutionary findings, it can often take many years before a discovery is acknowledged and incorporated into everyday practice. Take Professor Lister, for example. He discovered that many illnesses such as sepsis could be passed by the contaminated hands of a doctor to a patient. Lister tested his hypothesis by disinfecting his hands before each operation and this resulted in a decrease in the death rate of his patients. It took many years for this discovery to be accepted by the medical community; it was only really accepted when patients’ relatives started demanding that doctors disinfect their hands before operating.
Although research conducted in Russia in 1962 proved unequivocally the soundness of Buteyko’s method, it was not until 1983 that the Committee on Inventions and Discoveries formally acknowledged his work. This recognition was backdated to January 29th, 1962. That backdating alone begs the question: if Konstantin Buteyko’s discovery had been acknowledged earlier, how many more ill people would have been helped?
The first trials held in the Western world were at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane in 1995. After three months, the Buteyko group had seventy per cent less symptoms, ninety per cent less need for reliever medication and forty-nine per cent less need for steroids. Furthermore, those who corrected their breathing the most reduced their symptoms and need for medication the most. An article published in Australian Doctor on April 7th, 1995 was headed ‘Doctors gasp at Buteyko success’.
A second trial was conducted at Gisborne Hospital, New Zealand in 2003 and published in the New Zealand Medical Journal. After six months, the Buteyko group showed an 85 per cent reduced need for reliever medication and 50 per cent reduced need for inhaled steroid.
In the forty-odd years since Buteyko’s discovery, it has improved the health and saved the lives of many thousands of people. Now that his enlightening revelation is becoming better known in the Western world, it will improve the health and save the lives of many more. You could be one of them.
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