A Breathing Technique Offers Help for People With Asthma

NY Times ^ | November 3, 2009 | JANE E. BRODY

[neverdem]

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment.

Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria for three reasons:

¶The treatment, a breathing technique discovered half a century ago, is harmless if practiced as directed with a well-trained therapist.

¶It has the potential to improve the health and quality of life of many people with asthma, while saving health care dollars.

¶I’ve seen it work miraculously well for a friend, David Wiebe, who had little choice but to stop using the steroid medications that were keeping him alive.

Mr. Wiebe, 58, of Woodstock, N.Y., is a well-known maker of violins and cellos with a 48-year history of severe asthma that was treated with bronchodilators and steroids for two decades. Ten years ago, Mr. Wiebe noticed gradually worsening vision problems, eventually diagnosed as a form of macular degeneration caused by the steroids. Two leading retina specialists told him to stop using the drugs if he wanted to preserve his sight.

He did, and endured several terrifying trips to the emergency room when asthma attacks raged out of...

--snip--

Treatment From the ’50s

Then, last spring, someone told him about the Buteyko method, a shallow-breathing technique developed in 1952 by a Russian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko. Mr. Wiebe watched a video demonstration on YouTube and mimicked the instructions shown...

[texas booster]

Marking for later.

[CottShop]

Yep it sure is- Wish I’d have had it as a child instead of that crappy spin inhaler/pill crusher- that stuff just didn’t work well at all- went into my early 30’s with the regular rescue inhalers- those were better than spin inhaler, but still had to keep ihtting it throughout the day- with htis advair, I only have to use it once in morning and at night- good stuff for sure

[Dr. Scarpetta]

BTTT

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Mark for future reference - thanks for posting!

[texas booster]

Fresh BTTT for asthma.