Breathing Problems (especially At Night)

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A1A

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My respiratory trainer arrived today!
Yeah!

This is a simple respiratory resistance device that appears to have solid science behind it.
This might be exactly the idea that hamster is talking about to strive for air hunger.
Yet, the device puts it all into a neat little easy to follow package.

It speaks of only needing about a 5 minutes a day.
I wonder what would happen if I were to use it for an hour a day while stair climbing?
Perhaps this would be more vigorous than is intended (or safe).

Noodlz2, well you see it's like this, sure we have good, sparkling clean air outside, but .............. it is also super super cold in Canada.
So, basically we have to stay inside most of the time with air that is much much less healthy than outside air.
Probably be healthier if I went somewhere that had marginally worse quality air that was marginally warmer.

Hamster, do you recognize my comment about resistance air breathing under water that can lead to permanently expanding your
carotid artery, giving you more cerebral brain flow and life long higher intelligence? I would love to try something like this.
Do you have any idea how I might be able to achieve this without having to go deep sea diving?
 
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maillol

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What is the device? A training mask?

There are various exercises that are part of buteyko but the essence of it is just to reduce your breathing.
 

DannyIrons™

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My respiratory trainer arrived today!
Yeah!

This is a simple respiratory resistance device that appears to have solid science behind it.
This might be exactly the idea that hamster is talking about to strive for air hunger.
Yet, the device puts it all into a neat little easy to follow package.

It speaks of only needing about a 5 minutes a day.
I wonder what would happen if I were to use it for an hour a day while stair climbing?
Perhaps this would be more vigorous than is intended (or safe).

Noodlz2, well you see it's like this, sure we have good, sparkling clean air outside, but .............. it is also super super cold in Canada.
So, basically we have to stay inside most of the time with air that is much much less healthy than outside air.
Probably be healthier if I went somewhere that had marginally worse quality air that was marginally warmer.

Hamster, do you recognize my comment about resistance air breathing under water that can lead to permanently expanding your
carotid artery, giving you more cerebral brain flow and life long higher intelligence? I would love to try something like this.
Do you have any idea how I might be able to achieve this without having to go deep sea diving?

Great to hear that you're having positive results A1A! :)
As a Buteyko practitioner just like Ecstatic, I'm prone to be biased about Buteyko, but it's such an effective method that doesn't really get the attention it deserves.
I would highly recommend that you follow a protocol given by a Buteyko practitioner and I'm sure you'll see great results. There are also plenty of videos online where you can learn the method for free, it's totally doable without help but some people need guidance.
The principle is simple - maintain nasal breathing during the day and sleep, and practice reduced breathing exercises to de-sensitise the chemoreceptors, which reduces breathlessness, addresses dysfunctional breathing - which leads to higher levels of CO2 (more oxygen uptake in the cells). That's it :)
 
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Aad

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you want to strive for air hunger, just a bit of air hunger. That will initially lead to more mucus. Let it stay there. Avoid coughing. If you must cough try to suppress it. Exhale and just pause for a few.

It's perfectly okay to feel out of breath and have phleghm. The mucus will become re-sorbed on its own.
thank you!!!!
 
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A1A

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Here's an update.



maillol, there is a mouthpiece with a ball in a tube attached to the mouthpiece.
The amount of air that I can breath in and out can be controlled by a knob.
Twisting the knob makes it more or less difficult to breath.

I noticed a powerful effect of this device after only a few minutes.
I will be careful before I use it again.


Ultra 1.PNG





I received my air quality monitor today!
It reports CO2, TVOC, HCHO and an air quality index.
The numbers seem higher than I would have expected.
While some on thread might applaud a reading ~900 ppm CO2 I think this is somewhat high.


DannyIrons, I want to find the underlying cause of my problem as soon as possible.
Perhaps a treatment first approach might correct the problem while leaving the cause in place.
Yet, I think Hamster is quite right: I am systematically making all the changes that I should have
made a long time ago and in so doing I am making my environment healthier. For example, I am so glad
that I replaced our gas elements with electric. Burning a hydrocarbons with a range of adulterants in a
confined space is absurd. While this might not be the direct cause, removing every possible problem
will get me one step closer to what might be the ultimate cause.
 

DannyIrons™

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Here's an update.



maillol, there is a mouthpiece with a ball in a tube attached to the mouthpiece.
The amount of air that I can breath in and out can be controlled by a knob.
Twisting the knob makes it more or less difficult to breath.

I noticed a powerful effect of this device after only a few minutes.
I will be careful before I use it again.


View attachment 16239




I received my air quality monitor today!
It reports CO2, TVOC, HCHO and an air quality index.
The numbers seem higher than I would have expected.
While some on thread might applaud a reading ~900 ppm CO2 I think this is somewhat high.


DannyIrons, I want to find the underlying cause of my problem as soon as possible.
Perhaps a treatment first approach might correct the problem while leaving the cause in place.
Yet, I think Hamster is quite right: I am systematically making all the changes that I should have
made a long time ago and in so doing I am making my environment healthier. For example, I am so glad
that I replaced our gas elements with electric. Burning a hydrocarbons with a range of adulterants in a
confined space is absurd. While this might not be the direct cause, removing every possible problem
will get me one step closer to what might be the ultimate cause.

Hi A1a, could you please let us know more specifically your symptoms, you have headache complaints and during the night you have mucus/blood in the throat. What is the primary symptom that is bothering you?
 
OP
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A1A

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DannyIrons, thank you for replying.

Strangely almost all of my original symptoms have now disappeared.

When I first started this thread I was scared to go to bed.
I was waking up with severe headaches and often a racing pulse.
I had started sleeping upright in a chair.
There was occasional blood from coughing.

Even during the day I felt somewhat unwell.
I had slower cognitive functioning and a certain amount of cardiovascular symptoms.

These were the main symptoms that I was experiencing.

Now, however, I can sleep through the night without a problem.
Perhaps the changes that I have made have helped me.
For the most part all of the symptoms are now below awareness almost all of the time.

However, the main remaining symptoms which are possibly the
central issue from the beginning are my breathing difficulties. These breathing
problems that I have include when I reach about a 90% inhale I have a wheezing
sound that seems to be located in my throat and then when I push for an
exhale there is still a lack of exhaling. It is surprising to me how much my airway continues
to shut down when exhaling. If I just breath normally, then I am fine. Yet when I go for a maximal exhale
it is highly noticeable that my air pipe is shutting down. Without the spirometer, I probably
would just let it go and be convinced that I was imagining this. However,
I know that I am not imagining. The spirometer continues to report
values (e.g. PEV, FEV1) that are well below what is considered normal for those with my
characteristics (height etc.). I am motivated to continue pursuing this because I can
see now that one can straddle certain respiratory thresholds in ostensibly
good health, yet when these values slip below these thresholds apparent and serious illness
can manifest.

I am still not clear what the underlying problem might be.
However, I am very glad that I am working through a range of the more
obvious problems. Today I have made a great deal of progress towards fixing my
house humidifier. It has been non-operational for quite some time. I need a new filter
to get it up and running. I also now have a few relative humidity monitors. They are
all reading in the mid-20s which supposedly is bad for health. Low relative humidity
can cause respiratory issues. Tomorrow I think I will start to add moisture into my house by
boiling water etc..

There are not many additional items that I can think of, though the problems that I have
now isolated might be the driving cause behind my symptoms and indeed the actual pathology itself.
It might take time though once these issues have been addressed to actually begin to feel better.
Damage to the respiratory tract likely will not heal itself overnight.
 
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DannyIrons™

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I understand your pain my friend, I have had serious respiratory disorders since I was a very young boy, now I have been completely symptom free for many years.
I would not overly concern yourself with spirometry readings unless you have a serious respiratory disorder such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The act itself of spirometry is an act of hyperventilation and isn't the neccesarily the best feedback parameter for your breathing issue.
It sounds like your airway is collapsing due to the negative pressure you are causing when forcing the inhalation/exhalation.
Your breathing should be minimal, do you wake up with a dry mouth?
The Control Pause will give you a more accurate feedback to your problem - you should ensure you are nasal breathing which activates the diagraphm and uses the oxygen
rich air from the lower lobes of the lungs.
 
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A1A

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DannyIrons, thank you very much for your reassuring words.
I greatly appreciate your comments.

I am finding this thread to be very useful. I suspect that not many people truly understand the actual nature of these breathing concerns; by communicating on the thread I can avoid all those people who might try to contradict the problems that I have noted with my breathing. Until recently, I would have been one of the people who didn't understand these concerns. People with COPD or asthma have tried through public service announcements etc. to make me aware of what it was like to have breathing problems and to warn me to avoid smoking etc., though it can difficult to transfer profound wisdom to others when there are no common reference points. The global scale decline in respiratory illness also impedes the transfer of folk knowledge from one generation to the next. I was very unclear how someone could not breath normally and without consciousness monitoring. The messages just did not reach me. Having others on thread who know what these issues are about is very comforting to me. People here have common reference points to understand these concerns.

This is true that I should not be overly concerned with the spirometry, yet I see it more as a way of monitoring my response to all the things that I am doing.
It is also very helpful to have the readouts so that I could be dismissed as not having a problem. There is! My PEV and FEV1 numbers are very much below normal.
When I push just beyond sedentary type behavior, these readings manifest in obvious symptomatic behavior of wheezing, etc.. While I realize that the spirometer can
induce hyperventilation and airways collapse, what I have found quite surprising is that the problems that I am concerned about are just beyond my normal breathing
behavior. I want to have more healthy reserve than just being at the margin of illness.

{I just had a brain wave: instead of only opening my window at night I can also do this during the day! It will be cheaper and easier to do this during the day as it is a great deal warmer then.}

My strategy now is to work through the ideas that I have presented so far and see if I can move up my spirometer numbers. My ultrabreather looks like it could be a very effective treatment. I would also like to investigate Buteyko further. However, I think job number 1 is to clarify the cause, remove it and then apply some of these effective treatment ideas. Treating the problem without identifying the actual cause might just allow the problem to be masked by the treatment without removing it. If I could actually isolate the actual cause, then I might be able to move my pulmonary health to supranormal levels. Yeah!

I do not notice a dry mouth; I do breathe through my nose during breathing. I think I feel more of a slight burning in my respiratory track.

I now have several relative humidity monitors measuring my house's moisture levels and I will soon purchase the filter for my furnace's humidifier.
My humidity readings to date have shown that my house is somewhat dry. Showers, boiling water etc. can help add moisture to the air and prevent
respiratory problems.

Last night I noticed that my airway seemed less inflamed. Sure enough my reading today hit a new all time high on PEV (i.e. in the last week or so).
The numbers have not changed that much, nonetheless they do often follow closely with my perceived functioning of my breathing health. There must
be something in the air in my house that has some inflammatory effect on my respiratory system: it is not clear to me what this might be yet, however
I am working through all the likely items. This weekend I want to do some extensive dusting and housecleaning to remove an obvious potential
problem. I also want to try out the $10 hepa filter trick I saw online. Basically, they suggested people buy a furnace filter and then place this in front of
an indoor fan. Apparently, this wold be an easy and cheap way of removing contaminants in your air. I have an air quality monitor now and I coudl
check the filter to see how much grime accumulated on the filter pad to confirm whether these ideas would be effective.
 
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OP
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A1A

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Hmm, there is something else that I have found. Apparently, personal computers can be a strong source of indoor air pollution. I had not been aware of that.
Over the last year or two I have moved a computer upstairs and used this as my office. I spend a fair amount of time in this home office with the door shut. This might be a problem.
I think that I will leave a door open and also open the window to create some air flow.
 
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OP
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A1A

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DannyIrons, thank you for your reply.

Early 50s.


Progress is being made!
I have now embarked on a program of more intense house cleaning and dusting.
Also I will now keep my door partially open in my room with fresh air boost sometimes from the
outside. I am very interested to see how better quality air might affect my breathing.
There are not a great number of other adjustments that I can think of at this time to improve
my environment. I am not entirely sure what the cause of the problem might be if it were not related
to the what I have already changed. One other change might be using my fitness tracker to ensure that
I always stay active at least every hour.

It surprised me that my air quality index did not report excellent air quality even for outside air. This might possibly be due to winter weather patterns that trap pollutants close to the ground. I had hoped that I could simply solve my indoor air quality by simply bringing outdoor air inside. This will be somewhat helpful, though less than I had thought. What I guess needs to be remembered is that 415 ppm CO2 is the ambient carbon dioxide level in some of the cleanest air on Earth. The standard that the air quality monitors requires for "excellent air quality" is 450 ppm CO2. For an urban setting 450 ppm would likely be unattainable.
 
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DannyIrons™

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The only useful advice I can try to give to you is coming from a prism of breathing volume - air quantity instead of air quality. Of course poor quality air is an issue these days, but by maintaing nasal breathing we can at least limit the damage of pollution with the help of the structure of the nose and nitric oxide to sterilise anything harmful - you said you are nasal breathing which is great (also during sleep?).
Also when you talk about treating the cause instead of symptoms, Buteyko is fundamentally concerned with treating the cause - which is breathing an excess of metabolic requirements, and poor breathing habits - dysfunctional breathing.
If you are interested in the area of respiratory, which it sounds like you do know your stuff! Then your first stop, absolutely, should be Buteyko. You won't regret it.
You are using spirometry for monitoring all that you are doing, but this can be done much more effectively by measuring your Control Pause each day.
 

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If you have been using the pulmicort as prescribed that can improve your spirometry readings. If you were my family member I would highly encourage buteyko while still paying attention to the humidity and air quality in your house.
 
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A1A

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DannyIrons, I am nasal breathing almost all the time.

I am not entirely sure about my idea of treating the "cause", though this is my first round strategy. I want to find all of the problems that might have contributed to my insufficient breathing capacity and fix them. I have to admit that I no longer know of much more that i could do to improve my respiratory environment. It surprises me
that I have never had these problems before and for some reason they seem to have emerged so recently. Hamster, though was quite correct; I have now made a range of lifestyle changes that have made me healthier than I have been in years. I am fighting hard to get back on track. This exertion is certainly making me healthier, though possibly not with respect to my breathing. My respiratory health still does not appear to have improved that much. I think my game plan should be to spend one more week searching
out what I think might be "causes" and then move on to what I understand to be "treatments" including possibly my Ultrabreather and Buteyko.

Some other "causes" ideas that I am considering are infections (bacterial, viral) which perhaps I could treat with methylene blue (please suggest others that might be readily available). I am also wondering whether a glucose monitor might help as there is family genetic risk for diabetes that might possibly be contributing. I typically do not have many medical symptoms, though lately I have noticed a heaviness near my kidneys.

DannyIrons, I do tend to agree with your perspective that a breathing method can be highly effective approach. I noticed this within about 5 minutes of my Ultrabreather.
I suspect that when I move to Stage 2 of the plan that I will see rapid changes on my spirometer readouts.
 

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Blossum, you are on to me. I have been non-compliant with the Pulmicort. Before, getting locked into a symptomatic treatment, I want to know what I can do to help with the symptoms. The doctor that I visited also only gave me a one time use script, in order that I would consult another doctor about this. Yet, since that visit my symptoms have subsided. At this time, my symptoms are just below my day to day normal breathing. It is frustrating that nothing so far has been able to be that helpful, though I am gradually working through my set of ideas that have grown with time as new thoughts occur to me.

In my reading online, I have found references to immune responses that can restrict airways. I have not had many respiratory infections in my life, though over the last 5 years I have had perhaps 3 with one occurring about 3 months ago. Perhaps these infections have been part of the problem. Possibly my Eosinophils are to blame? Might there be a simple way for me to tell my immune system to stop attacking my respiratory system? Additionally an online article mentioned a range of vitamins minerals that might be of help including vitamin C, B12, selenium etc.. Another even suggested aspirin, and another noted that cool air can make asthma worse; I have turned down the temperature at night as I thought that this might have made asthma better; I will now be more vigilant about washing my bedsheets and pillow as this is a source of dust mites which can aggravate asthma. I'll continue to search online for additional ideas.

charlie, thank you for commenting.

I have few references points for asthmatic illness, thus I find the comments offered by those on thread to be both informative and supportive.
Thank you everyone!
 
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A1A

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I think I am now almost ready to start up with Buteyko or the Ultrabreather.
My interventions to date have not been as successful as I had wanted.

I have noticed, though, I appear to have an infection in my left eye as I have swelling and soreness in my left eyelid; I also appear to have
a fluctuating ear infection as I have recently had trouble hearing. My hope is that if these symptoms were signs of infection, then perhaps
my asthma would subside once the infection cleared. The asthma literature notes that only ~25% of asthmatics were able to go off
of their medication over a 25 year period. I really hope that I can avoid becoming chronically dosed with anti-asthma drugs.
It is still a large mystery to me how I have suddenly acquired a possible chronic respiratory illness, when there are so few
risks that I can identify.

Also on reading the literature, I have found various treatment ideas. One of the suggestions was to go low carb keto.
About a year ago I did try out a zero carb keto diet. I hope this did not somehow cause my problem.

Any suggestions of how I can start Buteyko would be very much appreciated.
 
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OP
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A1A

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Thank you ecstatichamster! I was worried that perhaps I had already left it too long.
Could you give me a basic set of exercises to start with?
 

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