BREATHE EASY IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS
CATEGORIES: 2: Inflammation, 3: Blockage
RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENTS: Beta Carotene, Lecithin, L-Cysteine,
My father, Raleigh, was career Army. He loved it. Loved the order and organization. The discipline and polish. The precision and pomp. He considered it a true meritocracy, and believed there was no more level playing field for a man of color then, than in the U.S. Army. Thankfully, he never tried to impose his love of order and discipline on me. He didn’t bring home the soldier, only the dad.
But whatever made Raleigh a good warrior also fed a bit of an obsession with my safety and well being. His only child, and him a single parent. Thus it was his habit to try to incorporate defense information into our everyday activities. But it never came across like a “lesson.” He was smart and always teaching me new things. The defense part seemed all of a piece with the other information.
More often than not he made it a game, like “Front Door Intruder,” where he would knock on the screen door and pretend to be an intruder. I would open the front door, spot the malice in his face. He would pull the screen and come at me. The game was to see if I could turn and make it up the stairs to my bedroom and lock the door before he could catch me. Of course he taught me not to open the door in the first place; this was just his backup plan in case I forgot.
If we were watching a show on television and a woman was on her way into a trap, he would turn to me and want to know what was wrong with the picture. What mistake was she making? What should she do? When the victim was a man, my father would identify himself with that person and ask how I would go about rescuing him. If I gave a wrong answer I might hear something like, “No, no, first you have to create a diversion.” Then we would run through my options for creating a diversion.
Among other things, Raleigh signed me up at the Police Athletic League for rifle lessons, taught me himself how to use a hand gun, and the correct way to hold a knife as a weapon. He showed me the best escape routes out of the house from every single room, how to get to the police station through a series of backyards, and that a well placed kick to the shin would slow an attacker as quickly as one to the groin. If you’re wearing shoes.
He also schooled me on basic survival techniques. Sundays, when the family was lazing around the house reading the newspapers and funny pages, and laboring over the New York Times crossword puzzle, he would suddenly pull out The Army Survival Manual (ASM) for a bit of light reading and discussion. Groans might be heard from another room but I usually cooperated, and he usually reciprocated with ice cream, sometimes homemade by him.
The ASM makes for absorbing reading. It tells a soldier how to survive in a battle situation when she is separated from her unit. How to think, psychologically, and what to do. But there are survival tips that serve civilians just as well: What if your car breaks down in the desert? What if your small boat washes out to sea while you’re napping? What if your snow mobile runs out of gas on an Alaskan ice ledge? What if you get separated from your camping party and lost in the woods?
The ASM instructs that if you are stranded in a survival situation, there are fundamental steps to be taken if you want to make it out alive. And the steps should be taken in specific order if possible. If you are injured, first aid takes priority. Second is to find water, because we can only live a few days without it; third is build or find shelter for protection from the elements, whether rain, snow, wind, sea, or sun; fourth is find food; and fifth is find a way to signal rescuers who will be looking for you, or, make plans to travel from the site on your own.
Notice that none of the steps tells you to find an air source. We expect air to always be there. We can live without it only minutes at best. So no one cautions searching for an air source. But what if you couldn’t depend on getting enough air, and had no real control over the situation? What if once you got air in, got your lungs all filled up, you couldn’t get the air back out? In a very literal sense, asthma steals your breath away.
ASTHMA AND INFLAMMATION
Asthma is a chronic inflammation in your lungs, which triggers certain responses from your body that together form what we call an asthma attack.
Let’s say you’re on vacation with three friends, renting a seaside cottage on the Maine coast. It’s a hot July day and the bees are out busily pollinating flowers. You have a cigarette on the porch with a cup of Earl Grey. Watching the waves entices you to take a swim in the Atlantic, where you push yourself beyond your normal limits. As you leave the water you feel a tightness forming in your chest. Your heart speeds slightly in anticipation of an imminent asthma episode. By the time you get back to your room, you’re coughing and having trouble breathing.
An asthma attack starts with inflammation. That’s what asthma medicines like inhaled and swallowed corticosteroids try to achieve, the control of inflammation. You can have inflammation anywhere in your body, but in the lungs is possibly the worst place to have it. If you suffer from asthma, you walk around with a chronic, low grade inflammation in your lungs all the time, making them overly sensitive and therefore susceptible to certain triggers.
When those triggers are activated as they were in the opening hypothetical, by pollen dust, cigarette smoke, hard exercise, and fatigue, that low grade inflammation flares inside your lungs into a full blown one. When inflammation reaches a base point threshold in your lungs, it triggers an asthma attack.
We’re all familiar with the symptoms of inflammation. If you bang your wrist on a fence, the affected area will redden and warm due to increased blood flow as your body reacts to the damage; it will swell as the body dispatches fluids, trying to cool the heat it just produced; it will be painful from a chemical released in reaction to the damage that over stimulates nerve endings; and there will be a loss of function, because of all the other reasons.
When that process happens on a wrist it’s an annoyance but you get on with your day. If it happens inside your lungs, it’s a catastrophe, and you could suffocate. Let’s walk through an asthma attack, step by horrible step:
SIX STEPS TO AN ASTHMA EPISODE
Step 1: your specific trigger causes inflammation to explode inside your sensitive lungs;
Step 2: your body acts to protect the area by expanding capillaries, which increases blood flow to the lungs, and causes reddening and warmth;
Step 3: the reddening and warmth signal your body to send extra fluids to your lungs, attempting to cool the heat it just produced there;
Step 4: the extra fluids are absorbed by the lung tissue and result in swelling and the production of excess mucus;
Step 5: as lung tissue swells and the lungs fill with mucus, airways constrict (narrow); this lethal combination of swelling, mucus, and airway narrowing reduces the space in the lungs, until there isn’t enough left for air to move in and out. (You try to take a breath but there’s no place for the air to enter into.)
Step 6: the narrowed airways cause chest tightening, and pressure in the chest as your muscles work harder and harder for every breath; it can get so bad that no air can circulate in and out, and you lose function in the lungs.
There is pain and discomfort throughout this entire frightening process.
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ASTHMA’S CHAIN REACTION environmental trigger → inflammation → reddening and warmth → fluids → swelling → mucus → narrowed airways → trouble breathing → loss of lung function → with pain and discomfort throughout the entire process |
ATTACKING ASTHMA
As you can see from the steps above, if you can stop inflammation from flaring, you can stop the chain reaction that leads to an asthma attack. All of the symptoms associated with asthma have inflammation as the core problem. Because of the chain reaction asthma causes in the lungs, it takes several supplements to control and prevent it naturally.
There is no better inflammation fighter than Beta Carotene, along with its support partner, Vitamin D3. (Please see Blog 3: The Dangers of Inflammation for more information.) You are given the option of taking from 15 to 25 softgels twice daily. If you start with 15 and do not get the results as described here, simply increase your dosage and keep increasing it until the asthma is under control, even if it means taking more than 25 softgels twice daily. This is only nutrition and will not hurt you. Let me say that again. Beta Carotene will not hurt you. It is perhaps the kindest gift the universe has ever given us. Whatever dosage works to control your inflammation is your specific daily maintenance dose of Beta Carotene.
Lecithin will keep lungs clear of the mucus produced by your body as it tries to heal the usually low grade, but never ending, inflammation in your lungs.
L-Cysteine, along with its support partner, Vitamin C Complex, has an incredible ability to heal and cleanse the lungs fast and efficiently.
You can avoid the side effects of asthma medicines with these food supplements that actually heal the condition without causing harm. Taken together, they are all that you need to control and prevent asthma. You should plan on taking the extra nutrition in these supplements daily, as a maintenance dose, to make sure you keep asthma completely in check. Otherwise it will return if you stop.
| ASTHMA Quick Glance Chart | ||||
| Supplement | Breakfast | Dinner | Brand | Strength |
| Beta Carotene (softgels only) | 15-25 softgels | 15-25 softgels | Puritan’s Pride #1223 | 25,000 IU (equivalent to 15 mg) |
| Vitamin D3 (softgels only) | 1 softgel | 1 softgel | Puritan’s Pride #17621 | 2000 IU |
| Lecithin (softgels) | 6 softgels | 6 softgels | Puritan’s Pride #303 | 1200 mg |
| Lecithin (granules) | 1 heaping tablespoon | Puritan’s Pride #1064 | (equivalent to 6 or more softgels) | |
| L-Cysteine (capsules only) | 3 capsules | 3 capsules | Puritan’s Pride #100 | 500 mg |
| Vitamin C Complex | 3 tablets | 3 tablets | Puritan’s Pride #3140 | 1000 mg |
NOTES
► If you take Beta Carotene without also taking Vitamin D, you will deplete your stores of Vitamin D and develop a Vitamin D deficiency. It may manifest as sores on the inside of the mouth. Always take Vitamin D when you take Beta Carotene. Vitamin D3 is recommended because it more closely replicates the Vitamin D made naturally on your skin from contact with the sun. If you can’t find D3, take straight Vitamin D.
► Lecithin is the best natural emulsifier available, and will safely breakup and remove congestion from your lungs and sinus. I have recommended Puritan’s Pride brand because theirs is from soybeans only, and contains a minimum of 732 mg of phosphatides in each 1200 mg softgel, equivalent to 61 percent phosphatides. The value of a Lecithin product is determined by the percentage of phosphatides, because they activate the emulsifying process in your body. You may use another brand but make sure it conforms to or exceeds these specifications or it will not work as I described.
► When you use Lecithin regularly, in the beginning you will notice that you are coughing up and blowing out of your nose, a lot more mucus than usual. And it may appear thicker, nastier, and more opaque than usual. This is happening because Lecithin is breaking up congestion blockages in your lungs and other areas, causing mucus and other wastes to be expelled. This is a good sign and will taper off as your body cleans itself.
► Lecithin Granules are best used in blender drinks and sprinkled on salads, fresh cut fruit, and cereals. Make sure to consume it uncooked, in its natural state. You can use it in cooked recipes for texture and smoothness, but those amounts do not count toward your daily maintenance dose. It’s completely safe so take as much as you want.
► When you open a bottle of L-Cysteine you will notice a strong odor. It’s supposed to smell like that. It’s the sulphur. If you have a sulphur allergy do not use L-Cysteine.
► In order for L-Cysteine to work effectively it must be taken with twice its weight in Vitamin C. So, if you were to take 1000 mg of L-Cysteine, you would need 2000 mg of Vitamin C in order to get the L-Cysteine to work properly. This therapy will not work as I have described if you take L-Cysteine alone, or without enough Vitamin C.
Please be nice to each other, and look for my next blog: Blog 28: Raynaud’s Syndrome (Numbness In Extremities),where I tell you how to eliminate it forever in just days.
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PLEASE DONATE Your support is greatly appreciated. Lynn Capehart Wellness Foundation, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, meaning that any donation you make will be tax deductible. We appreciate your support for our current efforts to establish a Vitamin Scholarship Program, so that we may supply supplements to those who could be cured of their disorders but cannot afford the cost. You may make your donations through www.paypal.com using any credit card or bank anywhere in the world. Donations should be made there to the account of lynncapehartnonprofit@outlook.com Thank you. |
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