Friday, November 13, 2009

The ABC's of breathing is the start to good health


I am amazed at the number of asthma patients I see in my practice these days. If they are not on asthma medicine, they seem to be on ADHD medicine, and often on both. If you are like me, especially if you have an asthmatic or ADHD child, you have to be frustrated with our medical system whose solution is simply more drugs.

I want to propose a new idea that may not help everyone with asthma or ADHD, but what if it was the solution or part of the solution to 10% of the cases? 20%? 50%? From the individual and family in that 10 percent this would be life changing. And from a society-wide standpoint, especially in the middle of this health care discussion, it could lower the cost of health care in ways we may not even realize.

What if we made breathing training our first line of training, and those it didn't help could then be placed onto medication. Just this one simple step could save billions (or conversely, cost drug companies billions in sales). I don't think this is a conspiracy or anything...it is more a bureaucracy and momentum thing. So let's think about doing something for ourselves by learning to breathe correctly and then go see the doctor if there is still a problem. If you or your child is already under the care of a doctor, pay close attention, becuase as you teach your child to properly breathe, your medications may need to be adjusted down or eliminated all together. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION YET?

I want to hear from you. Post on FB, or in the comment section of this blog. I'll put more of my thoughts and solutions out there after I hear from you all in cyberspace.

2 comments:

CJ said...

I was reading through your old blogs. I thought you may be interested in breathing exercise for kids with asthma (which of course affects dental health)
do a google on:

kids buteyko

then click videos

Dr. Gary Myers said...

CJ,

Thank you. You get it. I can tell. We use buteyko breating as a suggestion to patients with asthma. I think most don't follow through, but I have had a few that did and they come back and thank me and tell me amazing results from the simple breathing training. We use an e book that describes it, but I hadn't thought of sending them to youtube! Great suggestion.