Hi bunwhisper,
well, please accept my sympathetic
feelings regarding your actual condition.
Having coughed up blood would of course
mean that seeing a real live doctor is
mandatory.
I know from experience that coughing up
buckets of mucus is a symptom of
bronchitis. I've found (a) european ivy
preparations (b) bhastrika (bellows
breathing from yoga) to gently push up the
mucus and of course (c) any sort of
physical exercise, helpful. Drinking
masses of water, as usually recommended,
did not seem to help much.
I did faithfully rely on asthma drugs (no
steroids) for years, but then in a
dramatic worsening of my condition
(commuting by car) was surprised to find
that a sort of pursed lips breathing could
curb any attack and left me far better the
morning after than with drug usage. Plb
means that you have to prolong about ten
breaths in an attack, which takes some
doing, see the excellent descriptions of
your admirable prof. Deane hillsman of
ucla
(http://www.Ohiou.Edu/isarp/conf_00/papr_1
9.Htm and also
http://www.Ohiou
.Edu/isarp/conf_02/papr_4.Htm).
Since then i've tried out some alternative
methods (including "buteyko", which seems
to be nonsense) and discussed a lot to
come to the conclusion that orthodox
asthma treatment in many cases does not
make sense. If you debrief yourself with
Dr. Peper's modern psychological
explanation of the asthma mechanism
(http://www.I-breathe.Com/thb12/incentiv.H
tm) you may, like I did, come to the
conclusion that the idea of asthma being
an "organic" disease like diabetes with
tissue damage as the basic cause, is
probably wrong. Or asthma can be treated
as if this were wrong. I. E. Asthma is
a functional disorder like a bad body
posture able to be corrected by remedial
exercises. Specifically, if someone's
condition is such that an "asthma
diagnosis" is merited, it can probably be
dealt with using breathing techniques
including absolutely correct, authentic
diaphragmatic breathing. With a little
diligence and brainpower drugs are not
needed. But of course, woe betide people
whose lifeststyle really prohibits this.
Presently I believe that a lot of good
could be done if asthma drugs of the
"preventer" and "reliever" type were
banned. Owing to the heavy psychological
pressure patients are subject to either by
actual attacks or threats following a
diagnosis that they may die an
excruciating death at any time, they
embark on life-long medication. Optimism
about the future development of drugs and
about minimizing side effects seems
excessive.
Before modern medication was started,
doctors wrote in their books that though
the disease was very unpleasant, death in
an attack was extremely rare. But who
without further evidence is going to
entertain the idea that "the cure is worse
than the complaint"? Since there was far
less asthma in those days, the overall
situation was far better. Regards and
wishing you a speedy recovery, richard
friedel
