Difficult Breathing

Bronchial asthma is a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways of the lungs. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling sound while breathing), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. The coughing often occurs at night or early in the morning.

 Causes

Researchers indicate some genetic and environmental factors together are causing asthma. Triggering and aggravating factors include:

• An inherited tendency to develop allergies, called atopy
• Parents who have asthma
• Certain respiratory infections during childhood
• Contact with some airborne allergens or exposure to some viral infections in infancy or in early childhood when the immune system is developing

What are the signs and symptoms of asthma?

Common signs and symptoms of bronchial asthma include:

• Cough, which often is worse at night or early in the morning, making it hard to sleep.
• Wheezing with whistling or squeaky sound that occurs while breathing.
• Chest tightness. This may feel like something is squeezing or sitting on the chest.
• Shortness of breath. Some people who have asthma say they can't catch their breath or they feel out of breath.

Do’s and Don’t

All asthma patients:

• Avoid things that cause attacks
• Don't smoke and avoid second hand smoke
• Get plenty of physical exercise for a good physical condition
• When exercise provokes an attack, try light exercise like walking and cycling
• Reports suggest that trying to breathe through nose especially in a cold environment helps warming the air by the nose before it enters lungs

During an asthma attack:

• Use your prescribed medication
• Don't strain physically
• Make sure you're not alone

Homoeopathy deals asthma usually by in-depth study on the causation, heredity, tendency, and differentiation on the symptoms to chart-out right plant of treatment and to select the indicated remedy.

Commonly used drugs with their differentiating symptoms are: Antimonium tartaricum 6/30 (rapid, short, difficult breathing compels the patient to sit up; with bronchial tubes overloaded with mucous; relieved by eructation and lying on right side), Aralia racemosa Q (asthma on lying down and at night, with spasmodic cough, (Arsenicum album 6 (difficulty in breathing worse midnight and lying on back; with scanty and frothy expectoration), Aspidosperma (difficulty in breathing during exertion; and cardiac asthma), Bacillinum 30/200 (asthma with bubbling rales and muco-purulent expectoration), Blatta orientalis Q (dyspnoea with cough in bronchitis and tuberculosis), Drosera rotundifolia Q (asthma when talking with contraction of the throat at every word uttered), Grindelia Q (asthma with profuse tenacious expectoration; cannot breath when lying down), Ipecac 30/200 (dyspnoea with nausea and, profuse saliva and constriction in the throat. Violent cough with every breath), Kalium bichromicum 30 (asthma with profuse yellow expectoration, very sticky, long and stringy mucous), Kalium carbonicum 30 (wheezing associated with coldness of chest, cough with stitching pain in the chest), Kalium iodatum 6/30 (difficulty in breathing while ascending stairs, and with congestion in the chest), Kalium nitricum 30 (excessive dyspnoea; burning and constricted feeling in the chest, with sour smelling expectoration), Lobelia inflata Q (weakness associated asthma; from constriction of chest, worse by exertion), Pothos foetidus Q (difficulty breething is associated with pain in chest and relieved by stool), Sambucus nigra Q (dyspnoea in children; child wakens suddenly with suffocation, sits up, turns blue and struggle for expiration), Sterculia Q (it act as diuretic relieves asthma), Sulphur 30/200 (oppression in the chest, wants windows open, especially in the middle of night, relieved by sitting), Thuja occidentalis 30/200 (stitches in the chest during asthma, worse by drinking cold drinks) and Viscum Album Q (feeling of suffocation when lying on left side). To improve immune system, Echinacea angustifolia 1x or Alpha-WD are prescribed.

Apart from these, homoeopaths normally prescribe condition specific medicines for bronchial asthma like Grindelia Pentarkan and Biocombination/Bioplasgen No.: 2.

Please note that there could be other remedies based on constitution, modality, repertorisation, etc. For the proper treatment based on above factors, a homoeopath should be consulted. He will be in a right position to provide the right treatment, to guide other measures like dos and don’ts, etc.

Get remedies

Please consult your homoeopath

 Disclaimer: The information provided herein on request should not be taken as a replacement of medical advice or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition.