Asthma

Asthma is an allergy of the body to the various allergens present around us. It is the most troublesome of the respiratory disease. You suffer from frequent attacks of breathlessness and in between you are completely normal. It is one of the more common respiratory diseases and affects 2.5% of the population who suffer from bronchial asthma. 65% of the patients start showing the symptoms at an early young age. This disease is quite rampant in advanced, industrialized nations than in the primitive, tribal areas. The number of men affected by this disease is far higher than the women.

Asthma derives its name from an ancient Greek word meaning “panting or shortdrawn breath”. You appear to be gasping for breath. But in reality, you experience more difficulty exhaling rather than inhaling due to the presence of spasm of the smaller air passage in the lung. The effect that you see is blowing up the lungs due to the inability of the lungs to throw out the air before taking inhaling another breath.

Symptoms of Asthma :

• Spell of coughing indicating sudden attack of asthma
• Respiratory infection leading to gradual arrival of asthma
• Increase of heartbeats and respiratory rates accompanied by the restless feeling and tiredness denotes severe attack
• Coughing
• Tightness in the chest
• Profuse sweating
• Vomiting
• Abdominal pain due to severe coughing
• Wheezing sound due to the pushing of air through the narrowed bronchi
• Difficult nights, especially during sleep

In the older people, there might be recurring periods of distressing and nocturnal cough, suggesting the late onset of asthma. Wheezing is the most common noticeable symptom of this problem. When observed during the day, the lungs appear normal but if you take serial measurements of the expirations several times during the day and night when woken by the cough, will show a wide variations, that are the characteristic of asthma.

Causes of Asthma:

• Allergy to weather, food, drugs, perfumes and other irritants. Dust is the most common allergen. Cotton dust, wheat dust, paper dust, pollens, animal hair, fungi and insects are the various dust types that affect people. Wheat, eggs, milk, chocolates, beans, potato, pork and beef are the food allergens.
• Abnormal body chemistry that affect the enzymes in the body or a defect in the muscular action of the lungs.
• Combination of allergens and non-allergens like emotional tension, air pollution, hereditary factors and infections. When both the parents have suffer from asthma or hay fever the children in 75 to 80% of the cases, also showed the allergic reaction.

It is difficult to analyse the external cause for the asthma in the elderly but still try to do so. Find out if they have been exposed to animals, chemicals or organic dusts. Ensure that you do not take any medication that can cause or increase the airway obstruction.

Our modern medical system has not yet discovered the cure for this disease. Drugs and medicines have only a limited role in easing the problem. They are addictive and you need to increase your dose from time to time to get the same amount of relief. But these drugs make your asthma chronic and incurable. Allergy, the immediate cause of asthma itself indicates the lowered resistance and internal disharmony due to wrong eating and bad habits. This is the primary cause and the best cure is going back to nature.

Natural remedy for Asthma :

The best way to treat asthma is to stimulate the functions of the excretory organs with the right eating patterns to eliminate the toxicity present in the body, reconstruct it and practice yogasanas, yogic kriyas and pranayamas to allow proper assimilation of food and to strengthen the lungs, digestive system and circulatory organs.

Take an enema to clean the colon and prevent auto-intoxication. Applying mud-packs to the abdomen will relieve the fermentation caused by the undigested food and improve intestinal peristalsis. Relieve the congestion of the lungs and strengthen them by applying wet packs to the chest. Go for steam bath, hot foot bath, hot hip bath and sun bath to increase your perspiration. This helps in stimulating the skin and relieving the congested lungs.

Fast for a few days on lemon juice with honey. Then go on a fruit juice diet to nourish the system and eliminate the toxins. Start solid foods gradually. Your diet should consist of limited amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins which are acid-forming foods and liberal amount of alkaline foods of fresh fruits, green vegetables and germinated gram. Avoid foods that cause phlegm like rice, sugar, lentils and curds as well as fried and other foods which are difficult to digest.

Always eat less than your capacity. Eat slowly and chew the food properly. Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water a day but do not include any water with meals. Avoid spices, chillies, pickles, excess tea and coffee. You do not have appetite when the asthma attack is severe. Hence do not force yourself to eat. Keep on fasting till the attack subsides. But take a cup of warm water every 2 hours. An enema will help you greatly at this time.
Choosing your foods correctly may alleviate or prevent asthmatic attack by helping in control of underlying inflammation of air passages, dilating air passages, thinning of mucus in the lungs and preventing food allergy reactions that trigger asthma attacks.

Onion is one of the most effective remedy for asthma. Its strong anti-inflammatory activity is present in both the juice and its specific compounds. A chemical diphenylthiosulphinate present in onion has far higher anti-inflammatory property than the most popular anti-inflammatory drug prednisolone. The thiosulphinates in the onion are the major anti-inflammatory agents and have direct anti-asthmatic effects. The onions also contain another powerful anti-inflammatory compound called quercetin which can relieve allergies.

Get instant relief from asthma by eating hot pungent foods. Hot chilli pepper, spicy mustard, garlic and onion can make your breathing easier by opening up of air passage. They have a mucus moving activity that thins out the viscous mucus which would otherwise have plugged the small airways, thus hampering breathing. These fiery foods stimulate the nerve endings in the digestive tract, which in turn releases the watery fluids in the mouth, throat and the lungs. These secretions help in thinning the mucus, so that it is unable to block the airways and can be ejected, thus allowing you to breathe normally.

Honey is an invaluable remedy in asthma treatment. If you hold a jug of honey under your nose and inhale the air that comes in contact with the honey, you start breathing easier and deeper. You can enjoy this benefit for an hour or so. This is due to the mixture of higher alcohols and ethereal oils in the honey and the vapours emitted by them. These vapours are soothing to the asthma patients. But honey in general has provided relief to the asthma patients irrespective of whether the air flows over it is inhaled or whether it is eaten or taken with milk or water, it thins out accumulated mucus and helps in elimination from the respiratory passages. It tones up e pulmonary parenchyma and thus prevents the production of mucus.

You can get the benefit of garlic in treating this problem. Take garlic cloves boiled in 30 gms. of milk daily as a cure in the initial stage of asthma. Steaming ginger tea with minced garlic cloves will also control the problem and consume this tea in the morning and in the evening. Turmeric cures bronchial asthma effectively. Take a teaspoon of turmeric powder with a glass of milk 2 or 3 times a day on an empty stomach.

Massage mustard oil mixed with little camphor over the back of the chest. This will loosen up the phlegm and ease breathing. You can also inhale the steam of the boiling water mixed with caraway seeds, which will dilate the bronchial passage. Follow the other laws of nature. Air, sun and water are the great healing agents. Go on a regular fast once a week; take an enema occasionally, do breathing exercises, fresh air, dry climate, light exercises and correct posture to cure the disease.

Perform yogic kriyas like jalneti, vamanadhouti and asanas like ekpaduttasana, yogamudra, sarvangasana, padmasana, bhujangasana, dhanurasana, vakrasana, shalabhasana, paschimottanasana and shavasana. Pranayamas like kapalbhati, anuloma-viloma, ujjay and bhramari will alleviate your problem.

Avoid dusty places, exposure to cold, allergic foods, mental worries and tensions.