For many years now I've had breathing issues that I've not been able to resolve. They developed in response to inhaling crap city air on my bike one summer in my early 20s and are still with me to this day. I do find living in an area with cleaner air provides a modicum of relief but it's not total and not constant or even consistent. I've had allergy and asthma testing but that's not it at all apparently. The only thing that has ever had a marked effect was a steroid nasal spray that a specialist tried one time. Imagine my surprise when I found that the problem was nasal inflammation and not lung related at all! Shocker.
Anyhoo, I'm about to start an intensive work out and yoga regimen (and singing lessons, those are for fun though) that will require the full function of my respiratory system and am wondering if there's something I can do/eat/take/apply that might help out. I'm not jamming steroids up my nose no-way-no-how and a neti pot only does so much. I could max out on pineapple and blueberries for their anti-inflammatory properties but I need a bit more than that I'm afraid. Perhaps there's something topical that's natural that someone's heard of? I already avoid scented products, have no pets or major allergens in the home, I've got a rock salt lamp that I burn candles in regularly and I can run a humidifier by the bed nightly with something in it if it might help... I'll try anything. People think I'm exhausted or bored all the time with all this yawning I do trying to get a full satisfying breath. It's a bummer.
Thanks bunches friends.

I was in a not-so-super way for a while there, experiencing much unpleasantness of the physicality leaking into the metaphysicality... well it was a mish mash... probably with feedback loops, intertwinement of mind and body... a blend of psychological and biological suchness, maybe neither and both begetting the other.

Severe chronic systemic edema was experienced as hands and feet and knees turning red, pooling with fluid, much sensitivity to noxious air, not getting full breaths, lungs all heavy, fatigue, mind so spacey, and feeling a bit of a lost cause. It was bad.

And then, I turned things around!

Things that helped:

- Avoiding certain foods that seemed to greatly exacerbate my conditions of hyper-permeable blood vesselness. Some specific foods seemed to be very strong triggers. Maybe it's sensitivity to histamine and other vaso-active compounds found in foods. Legumes and some animals foods, grains and tubers, and coconut products and fermented foods, and unfresh foods, certain nuts, and moldy foods, and other things have seemed to be potentially problematic to varying degrees. With elimination dieting, and observing how my body reacts to mono foods, I've gained intimate knowledge about how my body seems to interact with certain foods. There are many variables tho, and even some of the well-identified trigger foods may yet have a role in my diet, somehow, in some amount, or maybe not.

- Including dissolved celtic sea salt in my diet... Eden Brand. I think sea salt may be a good thing, and might help balance all the potassium and magnesium and other um's in so many foods. Ok, I'm not really an an expert on electrolytes, but I have read up a bit, and experimented with myself. I think the celtic sea salt is tops, I dissolve some in my drinking water and include it as dissolved in water in my smoothies.

I suspect hyponatremia, low sodium concentration, may be an issue for many raw foodists who eat many potassium-rich foods, and who consume much fluids as in the form of juicy fruits, and drinking water. Sodium is very much involved in so many things in the body... such a vital and key component.

I think maybe my food sensitivities had some involvement of hyponatremia.

Compile of some sea saltiness:
[www.thrivetalk.com]

- Intermittent fasting. I did my first serious fast a few weeks or so ago. It lasted roughly 3 days and during that time I consumed only water and some fresh juices, also including some celtic sea salt in my drinks. I feel like that fast has expedited healing processes in my body, and it also brought much clarity to my being. I'm excited to see how the next multi-day fast goes, but have no plans for one at the moment.

Nice website on fasting:
[www.freedomyou.com]

- Exercise, involving all of the body, biking, walking, jogging, running sprinting, pullups, pushups, stretching, playing... nothing hardcore, not too often but often enough.

- Reducing my belly. For a while I was wondering if I was storing belly fat, or if I was experiencing belly distension due to intestinal edema... and maybe both were occurring. Well today, I am wise not to greatly over-eat, and to provide my body with only the nutrition it wants, and not more. As my belly has become flatter, my breathing feels better. I think I was having systemic edema and it was like the intestinal edema was causing the weighing down of my lungs and everything in my central section, such that breathing was burdened. Also the lungs may have been experiencing edema.

- And yah, that's about it, but not even the half of it, but probably plenty of it. My diet today is constantly evolving, but I seem to be doing well at the moment consuming some unsalted pistachios, and also some smoothies that contain bananas, and various other things, and including the celtic sea salt in my drinks.

- Sunshine, fresh air, clean water, self love, self forgiving, one love, forgiving others, being in the now, being in the Mystery... all good



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2010 06:49AM by jono.

Wow, jono, detailed response! It gave me much to think about which I did not think I needed to think about, ya know?

Coconuts, do you know for certain that you don't have apnea while sleeping? The thing you mention about yawning struck me as odd, as this isn't typical of a sinus related problem(unless congested ears are implicated). As for alternatives to steroid nasal sprays, this list has some pretty good suggestions:

[www.articlesbase.com]

I'd also find me a health food store with competent staff; Zerbo's maybe?, where they can recommend an actual formulation. Good luck, kitten

Tam, thank you for that link. The list is good, I'll try some of that stuff and see. I sure do wish I could fix this problem for good but I just think I made myself too sensitive with overexposure to irritants in my 20's. Darn city living.
I picked up some respiractin somewhere that did a bit of good and I have carried around a little aerator with peppermint oil and stevia dilution to spray in my mouth as needed but it's very temporary relief (altoids work too but that's pure sugar). I don't get the yawning either, it just seems to be the only way to get a really good deep satisfying breath. My mom has apnea, pretty sure I don't. I could ask about testing though. Can you imagine going to sleep with that thing on your face? Oh my Maude, it's a super space mask. Freak the kids right out I'm sure!

Thank you Jono for your experiences, though they aren't similar to mine it was great to real your affirmation about changing diet and lifestyle and finding better health.
Foods do not affect my breathing, I do eat a small amount of that super fancy extra special pink sea salt, fasting doesn't seem to have any impact, and I don't have any extra body fat as I'm slim and fairly fit. The exercise is the issue, it helps me breathe but I need the breath to be able to do it the first place. I'm working that one out.

Tamukha, yep, and I've done a lot of thinking on health stuff, there can be much to think about... and I like how everything seems related - life and health and the cosmos and this and that, analogies abound, and learning about one thing can bring insights about another thing. Sometimes I think I can over-think things, but thankfully I think I've pretty well sorted a lot of stuff, and maybe I can now not think so much, and I can simply be, haha, can it be so simple, can I simply be... hmm maybe I'll think about it

Coco, I like to say your name, Coco it's like a self-affirming name, filled with much meaning if I allow my self to explore all the little tangents of relatedness and hidden meanings, syllables singing, there's something special about the hard c sound. Yah, my road has been pretty unique in some ways... we do have some overlap as I was also experiencing excessive yawning for a period, and also have had many rather severe exposures to toxic chemicals which I think may have caused my body to be more sensitive to chemicals, and I really can be buggered by things such as a neighbor's dryer vent spewing gnarly chemicals from dryer sheets and such into the air.. sometimes if driving behind an irritant spewing truck I will actually turn down a different street or perform some other evasive maneuver.

On the salt, I'd suggest switching to the celtic sea salt. When first exploring the "healthy" salts, I tried the Himalayan pink salt and I did not seem to experience benefit from it, but there were many uncontrolled variables when I experimented with the pink salt so I can't really conclude much about how it affected me. If I recall correct, I think the pink salt is mined from the earth and the pink salt was formed millions of years ago. I consider salt to be an "ocean extract", and perhaps it would be even more ideal to consume (and soak in) fresh sea water from a pristine area, than to consume the extract as salt. The celtic sea salt seems like a much fresher ocean extract to me, and I resonate much more with it than the pink salt. It's like the pink salt has been sitting on the shelf for millions of years, while the celtic sea salt is freshly harvested. Well, then there's the consideration of how clean is sea water today vs millions of years ago, but still I'm going with the celtic sea salt. I know of another raw fooder who has done much experimentation and he has shared that he resonates much more with the celtic sea salt, and that the pink salt was inferior, even tho last I heard he was not supportive of consuming any salt at all, but I think some salt can be a good thing.

Here's the salt I've been getting from a Whole Foods:

[www.edenfoods.com]

Indeed, it has been quite amazing and pleasing, and just delicious for me to see how much my body can respond to diet and lifestyle changes. Quite magnificent creations, these biological vehicles we be existing in and with, flying on a rock around a sun in a galaxy in a universe in a multiverse in the ultimate super-organismic being of one love and grace and free will sometimes referred to as gOd, or something like that.

Btw, my dad has been sleeping recently with one of those apnea machines... I think it's silly and stupid and bizarre, and he's recently started taking prescription drugs like my mom has been for years, I think if they just made some diet and lifestyle changes, sculpted fitter figures and such, they could experience more vibrancy and health improvements, but... to each their own.

edit/addon... if i recall right, the pink salt has elevated levels of magnesium, and also perhaps calcium (nutrients that might be best assimilated in the forms as they exist in foods)... i don't know how the chemical ratios compare to freshly harvested sea salt... in any case, i think the celtic sea salt prolly has an electrolyte composition more representative of the ocean today. humans, thanks to our saline bodies, are like little oceans that can walk on land. when given a choice, i think, generally, fresh is best.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2010 03:49AM by jono.

and...yeah, regular aerobic exercise is amazing at improving lung capacity and oxygen efficiency...

Months back I was staying with a friend, he was eating basic SAD fare, but maybe a little healthier than the saddest of SAD. He was working in a restaurant, and on the feet much, carrying heavy stuff. He was doing pullups at home with a pullup bar, but not much more exercise-wise. We got ourselves a soccer ball, and started kicking the soccer ball around at the park, having a good ole time, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, and grass, and activity. At the time I had been very much mr biker guy, biking every day to the library and to the shop and around town. When we first starting playing soccer, kicking the ball back and forth while running up and down the field, it was very apparent that I could run for a good while without being winded, but my friend was quick to stop and have a breather. He said he felt out of shape compared to me, but I think maybe he was just in a different shape. After a few weeks, playing soccer once or twice or more a week, he seemed to have much improved breathing and could run for longer duration without needing to catch his breath.

... and well, i dunno what are best sources or mg and ca and k and na, and if the higher mg in the pink salt was problematic for me, as I was having seemingly overly relaxed blood vessles, and i think mg is relaxing... and maybe the higher ca was involved... and i dunno how the ratios compare to celtic sea salt, and well don't really feel to work that all out at this moment. ok zen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2010 04:16AM by jono.

The reason steroidal inhalers work is by substituting what the adrenal glands arent outputting. In turn you end up weakening the adrenals further and often end up needing higher doses.

Seen as how the adrenal glands play a role in inflammation have you tried trying to build them up, with adaptogenic herbs, vitamin C and B5 from food sources.

Which herbs, I'll try them! I'll get a bit more sleep earlier on in the night too. AFTER the holidays.

i have never in my whole life ever been able to breathe freely thru both nostrils at one time .. last winter i started using a neti pot when i had a cold and have been using it once a wee since and my nasal passages stay clear and clean and i breathe thru both sides

its really been amazing

im not tyring to over simplify a solution to you but it might be worth a try

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Which herbs, I'll try them! I'll get a bit more
> sleep earlier on in the night too. AFTER the
> holidays.

Any of the adaptogenic herbs will help restore proper adrenal gland function such as ashwagandha, schizandra berry, jiaogulan, licorice root, maca root, siberian ginseng, reishi etc. Go with the herbal powders if you can in most cases.