The Truth about Asthma - Hyperventilation

Search Other Recommended Buteyko Websites:

Hyperventilation syndrome and asthma.
Demeter SL, Cordasco EM. Hyperventilation syndrome is a common and often disabling condition. Traditional treatment consists of reassurance and anxiolytic drugs. Hyperventilation is known to precipitate an asthmatic reaction. A retrospective review of patients with hyperventilation syndrome was performed to ascertain the frequency of asthma as well as the response to bronchodilator medication. Forty-seven patients were seen. Thirty-eight were tested, and asthma was proved in 36. Two additional patients had positive clinical responses with bronchodilators. Thus, asthma was identified in 38 of 47 consecutive patients seen for hyperventilation syndrome (80 percent), and asthma was proved in 36 of 38 of patients tested (95 percent). Hyperventilation syndrome was eliminated in 29 of 35 patients (90 percent) treated with a combination of explanation and bronchodilator treatment

Dysfunctional breathing and asthma
Simon J C Davies, Peter R Jackson, Lawrence E Ramsay, Dick Kuiper, and Mike Thomas
BMJ 2001 323: 631

Dysfunctional breathing and asthma It is important to tell the difference

BMJ 2001;322:1075-1076 ( 5 May )
General practitioners and emergency departments from time to time see patients with asthma who appear very breathless, with fast deep breathing and wheeziness, who complain of tingling lips and hands and who recover quite rapidly after breathing in and out of a paper bag and then using a few puffs of salbutamol. Asthma and anxiety with dysfunctional breathing are both common conditions and they often coexist. Indeed, a paper in this week's issue suggests a very high prevalence of dysfunctional breathing among patients with asthma.1 There are reasons to doubt the prevalence suggested by this paper, but the overlap between anxiety and asthma nevertheless creates a problem for patients and their doctors since we seem not to be very good at telling the difference.

Chronic Hyperventilation Syndrome

(CHVS) is a vast complex of bizarre, protean, symptoms and disorders that are caused by habitually breathing too much. Technically it is not a syndrome at all since the symptoms are so variable. Not withstanding that chronic hyperventilation (CHV) has a compelling appeal as the physiological basis for the many chronic disorders we see today, mainstream medicine has consistently failed to deal with it since its discovery over 100 years ago.
In 1975 British cardiologist, Claude Lum wrote: Some forty years ago Kerr, Dalton and Gliebe wrote "Patients presenting the well-known pattern of symptoms haunt the offices of physicians and specialists in every field of medical practice. They are often shunted from one physician to another, and the sins of commission inflicted upon them fill many black pages in our book of achievement.”

Buteyko & Hyperventilation
Buteyko for the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
Article: Buteyko for the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation with References
Author: Peter Kolb BSc(Eng), MSc(Med) Revision 1.2 <http://knol.google.com/k/alex-spence/buteyko-hyperventilation/202i29i90v7sn/2#>