1. I should live so long!
2. I'm not female,
3. It's a 20 minute operation.

Pete

....

If your agenda is that Indian pranayam (yog) is better than western
methods of treating asthma, I'd guess you are right.

1) General unsoundness of orthodox asthma treatment.

As anybody can see from a Google search with the words
"cause of asthma"  known OR unknown
the cause is unknown to western medicine. The frequently repeated
statement that the cause is inflammation of the airways and that this
should be treated with steroid spray etc. is only a working hypothesis.
This means that western medicine is an experiment as regards asthma.
Furthermore it is often proclaimed that asthma drugs enable asthmatics
to do sport.  This is of course not wrong in principle, but the fact
that up to 80% of athletes in some disciplines such as cross country
skiing and the Tour de France means that the word asthma is being used
with two different meanings, because one would expect only around 10% at
the most of athletes to really have asthma.  Bottom line is that the
word asthma is used in an argument enabling athletes to dope themselves
with asthma drugs.

All this should call for caution about the activities of doctors and
asthma drug makers. It is not a question of getting the "best possible
medical advice" but of a bit of common sense.

2)    Ethnomedicine.

    In the East (pranayam, TCM) slightly obstructing an inhale is
recognized as a beneficial exercise, think of nada sodhanna (alternate
nostril breathing) and ujjayi (oceanic breathing).  This is admittedly
not generally recommended as a cure for asthma, but probably if such an
attitude to breathing is widespread, asthma would be unlikely to occur
in the first place, because breathing would be healthy. As
"representional tools" the chakras seem to scientific and almost common
sense.

3)    Defective breathing exercises in the West.

Generally (it seems) the all-important diaphragmatic breathing, which
generally accepted as effective against asthma, is taught by lying down
and putting one hand on the chest and the other on the abdomen and then
breathing so as to minimize chest movement and maximize abdomen
movement.  See  http://www.ohiou.edu/isarp/conf_02/papr_4.htm , page 10
on "belly puffing".  This practice would of course tend to prove in a
circular argement to western doctors that breathing exercises are
non-specific, and more like a massage. Authentic pranayam is not taught
in this manner.

4)    Wrong beliefs about nose function in the West.

    Although recent research shows the physiological effects of a sniff
maneuver in stimulating the diaphragm and producing a deep breath, the
standard belief among western physicians is that the resistance in the
nose should only that due to "warming, humidifying and filtering the
air". As a result operations on the nose may lead to there being an
abnormally low resistance and a life of serious disease.  The popular
error about nose resistance being minimal is abused to produce so many
iatrogenic effects.

5)    Beneficial effects of "SIMT" (specific inspiratory muscle training)
and certain incentive spirometers.

    SIMT is shown to have beneficial effect on asthma (do a Google search
with the words:  inspiratory  training). There are various manufacturers
of devices in the field. Patent specifications speak of using incnetive
spirometers offering an adjustable resistance on an inhale to inflate
the lungs and prevent atelectasis. This would imply that the SIMT
devices would have the same effect and might well teach an asthmatic to
rely on natural nose or throat resistance to avoid being short of breath
owing to air trapping (comparable to atelectasis) and to overcome
bronchospasm by natural means. Research on SIMT does state that the
resistance due to bronchospasm is to be overcome by strengthening
inspiratory muscles. This possibility is never mentioned in the
apparently so comprehensive material produced for patients from the
various orthodox asthma organizations and the pharmaceuticals industry.

It therefore seems quite clear that nose resistance plays a vital role
for inflating the lungs, although of course we normally breathe at rest
or during exertion with minimized resistance.

6)    Practical suggestions avoiding asthma drugs.

    I would therefore strongly suggest to those plagued by any sort of
unnatural shortness of breath due to a functional disorder and not due
an infectious disease or cancer to try out an SIMT device; or more
simply and perhaps more effectively to try the following:

Simply  put a finger into your mouth between your teeth and lips to
leave a gap and then breathing in the this gap so that your cheeks are
pulled in a bit. There may then well be the feeling that the gap is
somehow directly wired with the action of your diaphragm.  The smaller
the gap, the more powerful the diaphragm action - a bit like the effect
of a reliever spray in some cases. This "pursed lips inhale" may in some
respects be better than using an SIMT device, since it is easy to vary
the gap and therefore more sensitively control the diaphragm. Regards,
Richard Friedel