ASTHMA – Treatment without meds

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways and lungs. Its impact can be profound because it can interrupt sleep, limit physical activity, and disrupt family routines.

Cases of asthma are rising so fast it is now widely viewed as an epidemic. Asthma affects about 7% of the adult population, and up to 25% of children in big cities like Harlem, NY. , Asthma is on the rise among every age group all across the county.

Worldwide, the asthma incidence has increased by 45% since the 1970s. The increase is seen mainly in countries which are industrialized. This suggests that some factor in the lifestyle of industrialized nations is causative – although it is difficult to design ethical placebo-controlled double blind studies to prove exactly what might be the primary cause.

Asthma’s symptoms may range from mild shortness of breath to life-threatening airway obstruction. Most commonly, people wheeze when they exhale and experience an increased rate of respiration. Sometimes the wheezing can actually be heard by another person as a whistling sound when the asthmatic breathes out. Sometimes people have ronchi, rattling sounds caused by mucus in the larger airways.

What Type of Asthma Do You Have?

• Aspirin-induced asthma: some people are extremely sensitive to aspirin and other salicylates, even those contained naturally in fruits and vegetables. These people may even wheeze when they take other Cox-2 inhibitors like ibuprofen.

• Childhood asthma: generally brought on by food allergy, sometimes by infection. Twin studies show that about 60% of identical twins both have asthma. This suggests that there is a genetic susceptibility, but that there must also be some other environmental exposure which triggers the disease

• Adult-onset asthma: may be associated with a recurrence of childhood asthma. Adults may also develop asthma without any prior symptoms in childhood. Frequently they have food or environmental chemical allergies which can be diagnosed and treated.

• Allergy-induced asthma: allergies may express themselves in the nose (as “allergic rhinitis” (chronically runny stuffy nose), or “allergic sinusitis” (chronic plugging of the sinuses associated with pain in the face and around the eyes). Allergies may present as itchy red eyes (“allergic conjunctivitis”) or skin rash (“atopic dermatitis” or “eczema”). Allergies may also present with wheezing and airway obstruction, and now they are called “asthma”. http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/allergies.html

What Causes Asthma ?

The well-known Cecil Textbook of Medicine states that asthma is a “clinical syndrome of unknown etiology”, meaning that allopathic medicine does not know what causes asthma. Approximately 60% of asthmatics have asthmatic parents, meaning that asthma has both genetic and environmental causes. There may be a predisposition, but there also needs to be some environmental insult to trigger the asthma.

Asthma is seen in association with allergies to foods or chemicals, pollens and molds, cigarette smoke. It is seen in people who have allergies to chemicals in their workplace environments, particularly to molds or to formaldehyde used in new carpets and glues.

Asthma is seen more frequently in households of smokers, and is found especially in children and grandchildren of smokers, if the smoking continued during pregnancy.

Treatment Options

Allopathic medicine treats asthma with pharmaceutical medication. The drugs are discussed on many websites, and may include:
· Bronchodilators like albuterol, to cause the airways to get larger and relieve shortness of breath. Patients of a specific genotype (the arginine 16 allele of the β2 adrenergic receptor) have an abnormally accelerated accommodation reaction to these medications, requiring more and more to get the same response. These people should be treated with other forms of medications for the long term, although they may use the bronchodilators in the short term without danger.
· Steroids – given by inhalation – to decrease the inflammation in the airways, thereby reducing both the secretion of mucus and the amount of blood traveling in the capillaries around the small airways. Steroids are a preventative or prophylactic treatment, rather than a symptomatic treatment.
· Steroids – given by mouth – have an effect over the entire system. They may be very effective for a time, to control the symptoms of asthma, but over time they may result in ulcers, osteoporosis, diabetes, increased susceptibility to infection, and loss of the body’s own adaptive mechanisms to increased stress.
· Long-acting bronchodilators like salmeterol (Severent®) act like the albuterol type bronchodilators, only not as rapidly.
· Atropine-like agents (ipratropium bromide) are appropriate for those with the above-mentioned arginine 16 allele of the β2 adrenergic receptor, although the bromide salt in itself is unhealthy for physiologic function of the body.
· Leukotriene inhibitors like Singulair® inhibit the manufacture of leukotrienes, agents which respond to allergen attack in the body. These agents may cause liver damage, and will inhibit the inflammatory response all over the body, not just in the lungs.
· Theophylline is an older medication which is seldom used because it has a narrow margin of safety before toxic symptoms occur – nausea, vomiting, heart rhythm abnormalities

Alternative, Complementary, Functional, and Homeopathic Medicine have effective treatments for acute asthma, which are seldom mentioned in the allopathic literature.
· Acupuncture – tiny needles are inserted into specific places on the body in order to change the flow of energy within the channel where the needle is placed. Specific locations will stop an acute asthma attack within a few minutes. Other locations are geared more at restoring proper lung function for the long term.
· Intravenous magnesium – because magnesium is a vasodilator and muscle relaxant, it can help to restore blood supply to muscles surrounding the bronchioles, or tiny air passage, and allow those muscles to relax and recover their proper function, thus relieving wheezing.
· Homeopathic remedies – certain remedies are specific to relieving wheezing. Different remedies are chosen, depending on whether the wheezing is accompanied by fever, yellow sputum, left-sided or right-sided chest pain, etc.
· Immunotherapy – testing with antigens to determine reactivity (just like standard allergy testing, only using preservative-free antigens in multiple dilutions), and then treating with progressively increasing strengths of antigen to help the body develop a tolerance to the substance.

Prevention of Asthma

We look at the root cause of the increased inflammatory response seen in asthmatics, and eliminate the cause, thereby eliminating the resulting symptoms, the syndrome of asthma.
· Allergies to foods can be diagnosed by intradermal testing (standard allergy testing), and treated in two ways: first, by elimination of the offending food; and second, using antigen to neutralize the reaction, if the food cannot always be eliminated.
· Allergies to chemicals, pollens, or molds can be diagnosed and treated in the same way.
· Diagnosis of other toxicities which may be present in the body – for example heavy metals like aluminum, lead, arsenic or mercury – is important, if allergy treatment does not solve the problem. Heavy metals also set up a chronic inflammatory state which will be predisposed to reactive airway disease.
· Abnormal bacteria in the intestinal tract – as is frequently seen in children with multiple ear infections and multiple courses of antibiotics – is another cause of a chronic inflammatory state.
· A diet rich in carbohydrates (sugars, grains) and food additives (preservatives, flavor-enhancers, flavor-dispersing agents, conditioning agents, etc) or food colorings may also be highly inflammatory, and can be a major contributing factor to persistent hyper-reactivity of the airways.
· Viruses like RSV can cause a chronic hyper-reactive state of the small airways of the lungs. These viruses may leave a signature in the body which can predispose the victim to reacting to any similar virus with similar symptoms. These signatures can be treated bioenergetically, using homeopathic remedies or other methods of manipulating the body’s information systems, to allow healing of the respiratory system.

Decrease the total toxic load – so that the body is not trying to fight on multiple fronts. Toxins may include food additives, chemicals, airborne pollutants, household cleaning products, cosmetics – anything that we can eat, breathe or touch. They may also include the toxic body burden to which we have been exposed in the past, now stored in our fatty tissues (including brain) or in our bones – things like lead, mercury, organic solvents, insecticides, other pesticides.
Options at Your Disposal to Get at the Root of the Problem

· Chelation clears out heavy metals.
· Sophisticated allergy testing identifies foods, chemicals, molds, etc., that trigger an inflammatory response.
· Intravenous “Meyers Cocktail” and other nutrients can add magnesium and erase nutritional shortfalls.
· FirstLine Therapy shows you how to incorporate an anti-inflammatory diet in your household.
· Acupuncture can stop an acute asthma attack within a few minutes. Ongoing use helps restore proper lung function for the long term.
· And homeopathic remedies provide relief without the side effects of drugs.

Matha M. Grout, MD, MD(H)
Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine
9328 E. Raintree Drive, Scottsdale, AZ  85260

tel:  480.240.2600
fax:  480.240.2601

www.ArizonaAdvancedMedicine.com

Tagged as: acupuncture, allergy testing, asthma, homeopathic medicine, inflammation