I recently had a client come in who had been diagnosed with asthma 5 years prior, in his early 50’s. He recalled the story to me: it started with difficulty breathing, consistent coughing, and a feeling like he couldn’t take a full breath. All of this and the subsequent anxiety kept him from sleeping at night. It got to the point at which he began to live with an inhaler, for good measure, and would need to use it almost daily. He had no history of smoking or drinking. After a couple years of consistently using the inhaler, his kidney levels began to elevate; we believed this to be in conjunction with the use of the steroids in the inhaler. He noticed that over the past year, his asthma and his kidney symptoms were worsening and he was having to use the inhaler more often.
He came in with a good amount of blood work, which was very helpful. After going through his history, running an exam, and testing his individual muscles, I found the muscles related to lungs, kidney, and liver were all inhibited. Inhibited muscles can tell a lot more than just where a pain is coming from; they can tell us about vitamin or nutrient deficiencies, past traumas or injuries, and often hold evidence of emotional stressors.Â
In this client’s case, these muscles were weakened and needs strengthening with nutrients and vitamins. We ran labs to test his vitamin D, iron, and ferritin levels to check my theory. The numbers showed a deficiency in these levels; I then sent him home with a good vitamin D supplement, a full mineral whole food supplement, and Camu Camu powder. Camu is a tropical berry that has one of the highest Vitamin C concentrations in the world, and digesting in its pure form instead of a distilled pharmaceutical is much more effective. We used Camu in this case to protect against any possible allergen contamination. Within only a couple days, he noticed difficulty breathing greatly decreasing. Within 2 weeks the symptoms were almost gone. His sleep has returned to normal, hasn’t needed the inhaler, and is able to do physical activities again.Â
Often in my practice, I find that the best way to fix the problem is not to tackle it head on, but to find other ways to circumnavigate the puzzle. Asthma is typically diagnosed in childhood, so when it appears later in life, we know there is something more at play. Sometimes asthma develops because of exposure to an allergen or a series of strenuous exercises, but sometimes there are more pathways to explore. Really, there are only a few lab numbers that I need to validate, so treatment can be quite simple moving forward. If untreated though, chronic asthma can yield much larger, long-term issues.Â
There are many approaches to the issue, and each individual will need a specific process to match their individual body chemistry. These processes can include the I used one above, or:
–introducing minerals to improve the lungs capacity to filter incoming contaminates
–increasing vitamin D to support better mineral absorption in the gut,Â
–encouraging a whole food-based vitamin C source to help in the repair process and prevent irritation by allergen
When you seek out respiratory care at our clinic, you might notice that the improvements come relatively quickly. However, we will need to be vigilant about monitoring any changes, re-assessing levels periodically, and keeping the muscles in question active, strong, and uninhibited. It takes time and incremental changes and check-ins for healing to not only occur, but to stick. But we can get there.Â
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