Is there an alternative asthma treatment plan that works?
The answer to that question is 'maybe'. There are various alternative asthma
treatment plans and natural therapies that some people claim have been effective
for them. However, there's a new approach that is proving useful for many people
and gaining increasing acceptance from the medical community. It is called
biofeedback training or biofeedback treatment.
So what is biofeedback training? And how effective is it as an alternative asthma treatment?
In essence, biofeedback training is about gaining a degree of conscious control over unconscious / involuntary body functions in order to contain disease symptoms. For instance, in the case of asthma, biofeedback researchers say that it may be possible for patients to consciously relax their tracheal muscles and thus stop an asthma attack.
Biofeedback Training
Actually, there are more than a dozen different illnesses that are being treated - with at least some degree of success - using biofeedback therapy. Asthma is one of them.
Everyone has learnt at school that the body has certain automatic functions like the heart beat, blood flow, body temperature, etc and that these functions are completely outside our conscious control. However, it has been discovered at least several decades ago that a certain amount of conscious control over normally unconscious / involuntary body functions is possible through training. The National Institutes of Health say that some people can even reduce their blood pressure by simply willing it.
Biofeedback training falls under a grouping called Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The Yale neuroscientist Dr. Neal Miller once suggested that automatic muscle functions can be consciously influenced. He was called a heretic by the medical community. However, Dr. Miller's statement was subsequently shown to be true.
Migraine patients have successfully used biofeedback training to gain relief. Biofeedback is, in fact, accepted as a form of treatment for migraine. Some kinds of asthma are being treated with these techniques. Research is being done on how to utilize biofeedback training for treating high blood pressure, perhaps even as a primary treatment for that health condition.
How can biofeedback training be used as an alternative asthma treatment?
In an asthma attack, the muscles surrounding the bronchial passages become inflamed. If those muscles can be induced to relax, asthma victims would find it easier to breathe. Medication can relax those muscles. And biofeedback training has also shown its effectiveness in achieving muscle relaxation and thereby minimizing asthma symptoms.
Asthma patients, by and large, have abnormal breathing patterns. Biofeedback training can be utilized to both recognize and correct improper breathing habits.
For instance, asthmatics tend to take a deep breath in followed by several short, shallow in-and-out breaths. The result is that their lungs never become completely empty. If they don't get empty, they obviously can't be refilled properly either. Therefore, these people are always short of breath. This breathing pattern is called barrel breathing.
Using a process called pneumographic biofeedback, barrel breathing patients come to recognize their altered heart rate when they breathe incorrectly. Then they consciously alter their breathing and observe its effect on the heart rate. They work to lower their heart rate and bring it within normal range. They do this by breathing correctly.
There have been several small studies relating to this training. The conclusion was that it does help to reduce asthma symptoms. Further, it may even help lower lung inflammation and breathing obstructions characteristic of asthma patients.
One study that was detailed in the American College of Chest Physicians during 2004 stated that asthma patients trained using the above process needed to use less medication. In addition, they improved pulmonary function. The authors of the study said that biofeedback training may be useful to help patients reduce dependence on steroids to control asthma.
While there is increasing acceptance for biofeedback therapy as an alternative asthma treatment, patients should take care to work only with a well-trained, qualified biofeedback therapist. And the doctor should be kept fully informed at each stage. He must monitor the patient's condition over time and make necessary adjustments to the medications.