Health Tips - Kalusugan mo

It is an unfortunate truth that there is currently no cure for asthma that modern medicine can provide, leaving many people stuck to deal with the condition on their own and suffer in silence using a range of ‘management’ techniques and medications such as breathing techniques or inhalers containing steroids.

Obviously this leaves many people dissatisfied who would rather get rid of the problem permanently and not have to worry about it ever again, or about taking medication for the rest of their lives. These people may then well turn to the much-promoted-online natural remedies that promise to ‘cure’ asthma and not involve anything quite as powerful as steroids at the same time. If you thought that sounded a bit too good to be true however, then you just might be on to something.

You see natural remedies for asthma are feeding off of people’s desperation and are simply a scam to get people to part with their cash with no reward in return. You need to bear in mind that there is no known cure for asthma and anything that claims otherwise is a scam. Sure, it may be a well-intentioned scam (a lot of these pushers actually believe their own sales pitches) but unfortunately that will not make it any more likely to work. Let’s look at some of the natural cures with a critical eye.

Vitamin B12: Many ‘cures’ for asthma consist of B12, while many websites will tell you that this is one of the best things to take for the condition. The good news is that vitamin B12 is good for you, but you probably have it in your diet anyway. Furthermore what it is good for is not even relevant to asthma with it helping the nerves and synthesis of red blood cells. Eating more will not ‘fix’ your asthma any more than vitamin C will fix your broken leg. They do entirely different things and do not cure illness.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Again – if there was a cheaply available house hold item like this that would cure asthma then people would have discovered it by now and no one would have asthma. No one’s trying to ‘keep this under the radar’ – if this cured your asthma you’d tell everyone right. Notice how no one is telling you to take it (other than the online pushers)? Here is a quote from another website: ‘[apple cider vinegar] is one of the most popular and effective natural cures for asthma. Just one tablespoon diluted in water after your meal, or at bed-time (or both) will start getting rid of the asthma.’ – you decide if that sounds likely.

Cold Showers: The claim is that it will help blood circulation and immunity while ‘shocking’ the body. Actually this is probably one of the best ways to cause an asthma attack causing your muscles to seize up and you to hyperventilate.

Homeopathic Remedies: These include antimonium tartaricum, arsenicum alb., blatta orientalis, drosera, kali carbonicum, pothos foetida and phosphorus. The exact one you’ll be told to take will depend on your age, your personality, and the sound of your cough… which pretty much should already raise alarm bells.

Again from another website here is a description of who would best benefit from phosphorous: ‘This is one of the best remedy for noisy wheezy breathing, cough in a tall, thin, narrow chest person who are always anxious, and need a lot of reassurance and attention.’ The bad grammar does not help inspire confidence either, but more to the point someone who needs attention is going to benefit from the exact same medication as someone who does not: steroids. More worryingly there is absolutely no evidence for any of the various ingredients in homeopathic remedies and they are selected on the basis that they cause ‘similar’ symptoms when ingested as the illness. However a homeopath then removes the ingredient from the solution again so that it is made of 100% water when taken. It is said that you benefit from the ‘vital force’ of the ingredient or ‘water memory’. These are still sold in mainstream stores and recommended by doctors which has recently lead to a lot of criticism (rightly so) in the media and demonstrations. In one recent protest individuals purposefully overdosed on homeopathic remedies in order to prove that they were simply 100% water. If this sounds unfairly biased against homeopathy, it is because most homeopathy articles gladly dismiss modern medicine with no basis for doing so which can be seriously dangerous.

The best ‘natural’ cures for asthma then are simply those that will make you healthy anyway. Learn to control your breathing and to spot the early signs of an attack and then try to calm yourself down again and fight it off that way (you are still likely to need inhalers for the worse attacks as asthma is not a psychosomatic condition). Meanwhile help keep your body in good shape, stay thin so as not to put any extra pressure on your airways around your neck, and do lots of exercise to improve your body’s ability to use oxygen. Finally, try moving somewhere where you will encounter warmer weather and less smoke and fewer allergens.

Source: Health Guidance