Medication

Bronchodilators, short term relief, long term trouble:

Some 80 years ago, physicians started to prescribe adrenaline and ephedrine to asthma patients, as a method to open up the tightened airways. Today even more potent drugs were developed, and all work by relaxing the muscles lining the airways.
It is the most wanted thing when you have an asthma attack. What it is not that obvious is that the dosage must be constantly adjusted by either more frequent application or increased dosage per gram.
The long term trouble is that the bronchodilator allows you to continue to breathe incorrectly once the muscles are relaxed, therefore adding up to the already depleted CO2 buffer. The result is a slow and unnoticeable degradation that has constant progression.

It is a lot like giving to an alcoholic an antidote for loss of balance, so that s(he) can continue drinking. Even though I do not imply that you have been drinking I want you to focus on the similarity.

Receiving a dose of bronchodilator, either will allow you to eat more, which will lead to more overbreathing, or allow you to breathe incorrectly through mouth and loose the precious CO2.

Keep your medication, but work with your doctor:

In the breathing retraining, an important aspect is to phase out your medication, and only under professional medical supervision. We can show you the way, make you understand the mechanism that lead to asthma, but the medication was prescribed by your doctor, and therefore s(he) must remove it, not yourself.
All that you can do to trigger the removal of medication is to present an example of a person who doe not require medication simply because of absence of symptoms.

This is how you can do this: by following the proven method for breathing that will correct your asthma symptoms, therefore making medication unnecessary. Your doctor will agree with you only if you present proof that you have no more symptoms.
Neither the bronchodilators nor the steroids do anything to cure asthma, because none of them addresses the cause of asthma. As a symptom reliever both can work wonders, especially if you can overlook the side effects. I personally could not stand the heart palpitation induced by the steroid, and as a result you see this page today.
Both leave you powerless from addressing the causes of asthma, and therefore offering full release and perfect health.
Bronchodilators: by the commercial names Salbutamol, Proventil, Ventolin, Epinephrine, Primatene, Ipratropium, Atrovent), Metaproterenol, Alupent, Metaprel, and Terbutaline, Brethine, SereVent® (or Salmeterol), Oxeze® (or Formoterol) and Foradil(TM) (or Formoterol. From this category, your doctor gave you this medication to use on “as needed basis” therefore you can change it at will. You do not have to take it if you have no attack. In fact if you take it, it will allow you to breathe incorrectly, and the need for this drug will increase slowly but gradually.
Steroids: Cortisone, Flovent, Prednisone. This type of medication needs long term to be effective and it works by supplying the natural steroids that the body of an asthma sufferer cannot produce.
Even though the breathing retraining will restore the body’s capability to produce its own natural steroids, the medication was prescribed to you by your doctor based on the severity of you symptoms. Therefore only your doctor will know what to do to gradually phase out the medication.
Only if you find no understanding of your positive change, then try to get a second opinion by another professional. This way you can do this gradual dose reduction while you “build muscle” with breathing retraining.
In this way we replace artificial steroids with natural ones, and the change will not be a sudden one to create shock, but rather a smooth transition to health.

Asthma worsened recently:

In the history of asthma, this past 100 years has witnessed a few percentages increase in the incidence of asthma cases. Same goes for the death toll.
An interesting phenomenon was observed in a few countries such as New Zealand, Australia, England and Canada, every time after a new bronchodilator drug was introduced, and every time the percentage rose, never to go down again.
The mortality rate increased, due to emergency cases. It seemed that every time a new drug was introduced a new wave of patients will die due to an acute attack of asthma.
This phenomenon is explained by Dr. Buteyko like this: by using bronchodilators, the hyperventilation (which is a primary cause of asthma) will have an easier way to proliferate. The bronchodilator through relief, will promote the patient to continue on the incorrect hyperventilating pattern of breathing. This pattern in the long run will create ravages, and always will be masked by the bronchodilator, hence making the symptoms more and more virulent. Ultimately some will pay with the life.

Statistics Canada official data on asthma

Why do I start my presentation with a table from Statistics Canada? The answer is simply because in the Cause-Effect principle the Cause precedes the Effect. So, if it is so, we can use historical data to trace our problem to its inception. Then use other methods to see what went on in the period of time since we see this trend happening.

Persons with asthma by age and sex

Source from Statistics Canada: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/health49a.htm?sdi=asthma

It is obvious that in the period 1994-2001 the number of asthma sufferers is almost 2% higher, from 6.5% to 8.4% of the country’ population. That is a serious increase of 30% in 7 years.
If the rate of increase is 30% in 7 years, we can extrapolate if the progression would be a linear one, every 20 years we would notice a doubling in the number of asthma sufferers. By year 2015 we could have 13% of the population or one in 8 Canadians.

If we do a little more math, considering that we will do nothing to correct this “outbreak” and the rate of increase will be unchanged, in my lifetime I can see the entire population of Canada carrying a puffer in the pocket.

A similar trend is observed in diabetes, and the reason I put this second table up is to see that there is a common ground between these two conditions.