Suppress the dis-ease is one option, e.g. take a pain killer. Control your body’s attempts to deal with the problem behind the dis-ease, e.g. use an anti inflammatory drug to calm down severe inflammatory reactions would be another way. Ignore it , it may go away, e.g this would be called expectant treatment this might make sense sometimes. Remove the offending part could be the only choice left sometimes e.g. tonsilectomy . Or just dig deeper than the dis-ease and try to find its origins, this could be a very effective and long lasting solution for the patient e.g. teach correct breathing , diet, exercise, relaxation and self -esteem, help develop a whole person. Who knows this last approach may become the medicine of the 21st century? If that were to happen all mainstream medicine would become complementary medicine and a large part of CAM would become mainstream medicine, now wouldn’t that be a revolutionary concept? There are osteopaths who see , like its founder, surgical intervention complementary to their work. If the person cannot help themselves, cannot be helped by naturopathic means then modern medicine may be the only solution left. In the last 50 years we have taught people to take less and less responsibility for their health and put that responsibility on the shoulders of the doctor or surgeon. We now find the burden too great practically and financially. The gentle revolution is beginning. The Buteyko Method has a prime place in this new individual health empowerment.
Posts Tagged ‘drugs’
How should we fix dis-ease?
Friday, July 16th, 2010Your doctor checked your blood pressure, your weight & your reflexes but why didn’t he check your breathing?
Friday, July 9th, 2010
BP yes, CP no!
That seems strange to me, does it to you?
That life’s most fundamental activity BREATHING, is not routinely checked by western doctors, unless of course you are complaining of breathing difficulties like asthma or bronchitis.
If there were just one measure allowed when checking the health of a person I would suggest THEIR BREATHING would be the best choice. Why?
Firstly it’s a quick, easy and cheap test. It takes less than a minute, is not invasive and does not require special expensive equipment. (See “Check Your Own Breathing” on this site).
Secondly, many wiser than myself have claimed dysfunctional breathing may be the cause of over a hundred modern diseases, so wouldn’t it make sense to at least diagnose it and then even address the problem?
Thirdly, although is breathing normally automatic and unconscious - like our heart, liver, kidneys activity - we can take conscious control of it and change our bad breathing habits for good normal ones.
Fourthly, this route to better health and wellbeing empowers the patient, reduces reliance on medical care and drugs and surely this is what the best health care is all about?
Two thousand years ago a wise man said: “The perfect man breathes as if he is not breathing.” - Lao-Tzu (circa 4th century BC)
High blood pressure, breathing & beetroot. What’s the link?
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010Cardiovascular disease kills over 110,000 people every year in the UK alone. More than 25% of the world’s adult population is hypertensive, and it has been estimated that this figure will increase to 30% by 2025. Dr Buteyko cured himself of life-threatening hypertension that did not respond to medical treatment by learning to breathe normally. This laid the foundation for his life’s research work and eventually to the respiratory & lifestyle training system that is now called the Buteyko Method. So where is the beetroot connection? A study published in the US Journal Hypertension showed that beetroot juice is as
Buteyko Method or Beetroot, the Hypertensive's Choice
effective as nitrate tablets in reducing blood pressure. Amrita Ahluwalia, author of the study and professor of vascular pharmacology at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry said they had now proved why. The research shows that the inorganic nitrate content in beetroot is changed into the gas nitric oxide when eaten. This gas keeps the blood vessels open and relaxed and keeps blood pressure down. Here is the connection; we produce nitric oxide when we breathe up to 50% of it is produced in our nasal passages only when we breathe through our noses. There is a strong correlation between hypertension and hyperventilation and the most common factor found in people with these conditions is that they mouth breathe. Hence less nitric oxide is produced. There are however many more physiological consequences of hyperventilation that also raise blood pressure ( spasm of smooth muscle, reduced oxygen delivery of blood, etc) that may be found in other articles. See this article for more details< http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10433877.stm> The conclusion is those with hypertension might be able to reduce their blood pressure by eating more beetroot or if they don’t like beetroot, they could learn how to breathe normally instead!
A Message to Your Doctor
Thursday, May 27th, 2010Chronic hidden hyperventilation (CHHV) is almost the norm in the West, the new pandemic! Dr L C Lum of Papworth & Addenbrooks Hospitals Cambridge described the effects of CHHV as protean.
CHHV has been associated with the A to Z of most modern diseases from asthma to Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome.
CHHV leads to major physiological changes throughout the body that have been thoroughly researched and documented.
It takes about 30 seconds to identify CHHV in any patient (See “Check Your Own Breathing” on this site or watch video: Check your own breathing. )
Once identified the doctor could easily give his patient some simple basic tips for improving their breathing or refer to a practice nurse to help the patient.
By addressing CHHV many associated health problems will be helped and the need for drug therapy may be reduced with a financial saving, reduced risk of adverse side effects and a increased quality of life. References available on request.
If asthma is ruining your life, the Buteyko Method will help you get your life back.
Thursday, May 20th, 2010The Buteyko Method could help you return to living a full normal life again. It teaches you how to improve your breathing in five training sessions. This will help you take better control of your asthma, safely reduce your need for drugs and improve the quality of your life. The method is endorsed by the British Thoracic Society and proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials.
Iatrogenic Disease
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Millions of asthma patients across the world have their original suffering from asthma aggravated and increased by the insidious development of iatrogenic diseases.
[iatrogenic \ahy-a-truh-JEN-ik\, adjective:
A malady induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures. Iatrogenic stems from the Greek iatros, physician.]
Long term use of many asthma drugs may be responsible for any of the following conditions:
Adrenal suppression: Symptoms: weight loss, vomiting, irritability, depression, dehydration, hypotension, diarrhea, muscle fatigue, or joint pain. Bronchospasm: Tightening of the airways akin to an asthma attack. Candidiasis: A fungal growth that can affect gut, mouth and urinary tract. Cataracts : Blurred vision due to clouding of the lenses of the eyes. Glaucoma: Increased intra ocular pressure that can lead to blindness. Growth retardation: Mainly a concern for parents of growing children. Osteoporosis: Loss of bone density with possible collapse of bones. Palpitations: Noticable heart beats giving anxiety & distress. Tachycardia: Rapid heart beats, with chest pain & rapid breathing.
* These are all officially published reported adverse effects of the use of common asthma drugs.
A recently published New York Times article HERE highlighted this terrible dilemma of a patient having to choose between either repeated hospital emergency admissions from asthma attacks without asthma medication or progressively going blind with asthma medication . Happily this patient learned how to reduce his asthma medication safely and escape this terrifying dilemma. The solution? The Buteyko Method.
There is good evidence that the treatment of asthma with modern drugs may manage the symptoms but actually worsens the patient’s condition. Reliever medication increases hyperventilation (an underlying problem for all asthma sufferers) and preventer corticosteroids suppress the immune system increasing the risk of chest infections and colds (common triggers for many asthma patients).
Does it not therefore make good clinical sense to help the asthma patient take more active control of their condition in order to reduce the need for medication? This is the simple plea of many Buteyko Practitioners to the medical profession.
Scientific Research supports The Buteyko Method
Saturday, April 17th, 2010“My chest consultant is very pleased with the difference the Buteyko Breathing Method has made with my asthma, I have been free of any real asthma attacks since the course.” Mrs J D Hants
“I’ve been astonished & also very pleased with the excellent result: there is no disruption of their life at all by their disease, normal activities, not waking at night,not needing to use any reliever medication. It’s just great….75% control is about as good as anyone has got in any study of asthma.
The neat thing about it is that it has no side effects.It’s very safe.
The Buteyko technique certainly has been shown to be an important adjunct to treatment.” Dr Bob Cowie, the respiratory consultant conducting the Calgary Trial of The Buteyko Method
Recently endorsed by The British Thoracic Society because of the quality of research trials.
There may be many people who would like to see the scientific evidence supporting the Buteyko Method. Much of this has been brought together on the BIBH website and may be accessed HERE
Is Asthma Incurable? The Great Asthma Debate starts here.
Thursday, April 15th, 2010There is a general view that once diagnosed with asthma you are an asthmatic for life! Well, the argument goes that it is in your genetic makeup and most asthmatics will agree that it seems to run in the family. Modern medicine accepts this as a fact and aims to help the sufferer to manage their condition as well as possible. Management is primarily with drugs that may include relievers, short acting ones and long acting ones, preventers that might be steroids inhaled, taken by mouth or by injection, leukotiene receptor antagonists, antihistamines, cough suppressants, mucolytics, antimuscarinic bronchodilators, etc etc.
There is another body of opinion however that takes a different view of asthma. This view is based on the observation that many people diagnosed with asthma may “grow out of it” or cease to suffer from it for no apparent reason, that recent research (1) has indicated that up to 40% of people diagnosed with asthma do not have this condition and should not be on the medication prescribed, that the very disease concept “asthma” is not a clearly defined condition and for this reason should be abandoned as a diagnostic condition (2) and last but definitely, not least, a lifetime’s intensive research by Dr K P Buteyko led him to the conclusion that the array of signs and symptoms often associated with the condition called asthma were primarily the result of chronic hidden hyperventilation amongst those genetically predisposed to these reactions from dysfunctional breathing.(3). Finally it is clear that current treatment of asthma is not succeeding in bringing this epidemic condition under control, there has been a 70% increase over recent years and there are no signs of this growth stopping.(4)
The few clinical trials that have been conducted to test the link between hyperventilation and asthma symptoms all show positive results, every asthmatic is observed to over-breathe by a factor of two or three times normal, when they learn to reduce their breathing their symptoms diminish and need for medication reduces. Clearly there is substance in these findings and more trials need to be done to convince the medical establishment of this important relationship. The problem is that the vast majority of clinical trials are financed directly or indirectly by the major drug companies and it would appear to be commercial suicide for them to spend their research funds to demonstrate their products were not always necessary as these drugs represent approximately 20% of their earnings and growing.
Asthma Cures that Kill?
Friday, January 29th, 2010The claim that 80% of asthma-related deaths are due to the regular use of bronchodilators is a serious charge made by Cornell, Stanford researchers lead by Shelley and Edwin Salpeter. The research team states that the prime culprits are long-acting bronchodilators, such as Serevent and Oxis (Oxese). And even when combined with the steroids Flixotide (Flovent) or Pulmicort to form Seretide (Advair) or Symbicort, these drugs are still thought to be potentially dangerous.
So much so that in North America the Food Drug Adminstration (FDA) has listed them with a “black box warning”, which is the strongest warning that can be applied without banning the drug altogether. Because of this strong warning, in the USA it is rare to find people using more than one puff of these medications more than once a day. In Australia and New Zealand however, this is certainly not the case as people are regularly prescribed two puffs twice a day as if our asthmatic people are somehow different to their US counterparts.
It is not that long ago that people were dying in large numbers from asthma that was attributed to the over-use of bronchodilators in New Zealand. Let’s hope that this does not happen again. If you are prescribed a long-acting bronchodilator, with or without an inhaled steroid, perhaps you could ask your doctor how this is going to improve your health in the future.
We are frequently told by users of these medications that while they no longer have as many asthma symptoms, they are less able to physically perform as well as they used to. This means that walks they used to find easy are now more difficult, or they seem to have more fatigue today than they had two years ago. In many instances these people are now experiencing something that seldom was seen in conjunction with asthma: they are experiencing sleep apnoea.
Grateful acknowledgment to ButeykoWorks for this extract from their winter newsletter .
Asthma claims over 1,200 deaths per year, mostly avoidable.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010It is known that asthma can kill where its management is poor. The modern drug therapy offers a degree of management but with the potential risk of long term adverse reactions. When the underlying cause according to the findings of Dr Konstantin Buteyko, namely chronic hidden hyperventilation is addressed , the control and management is greatly improved and the need for medicine dramatically reduced. Furthermore the asthma sufferer is better able to monitor the risk of serious asthma attacks easily on a day to day basis and is also able to take corrective action when the risks increase, thereby reducing the frequency of emergency medical interventions or hospitalization. The Buteyko Method has been clinically trialled and offers an invaluable aid to management of this debilitating, life threatening condition that accounts for serious impaired quality of life and millions of sickness days lost at work.