Wonder
Cure from Russia is Ahead by a Nose
by: James Hughes-Onslow,
The Daily Express, 6th August 1996
Forcing your lungs to breathe less when you are gasping requires
discipline. Professor Buteyko was brutal, taping patients' mouths
shut so they had to breathe through their noses. That's how they
did things in Soviet Russia.
At the Hale Clinic near Harley St., Chris Drake, who learned the
Buteyko method in Russia and practised it in Australia, tells patients
to breathe through their noses whenever possible. and to tape their
mouths up at night. He advises a minimum of exercise, to avoid heavy
breathing, and moderate eating and drinking - large meals make asthmatics
breathless.
TV Presenter and mother-of-five Sally Magnusson, who went on the
290 (UK pounds) week's Buteyko course with her eight-year-old son
Siggy, said: "It has been very encouraging so far but time
will tell." You start with some shallow breathing. "It's
not easy or relaxing, it's difficult, horrible," says Drake.
"If it's joyful, you're doing it wrong."
Worse is to follow. It is called the pause. You breathe out gently,
then hold your breath. You should be able to do this for a minute
or more. In our group of nine. Kevin ,the Rastafarian poet managed
10 seconds, and a three-year-old boy couldn't manage to do it at
all. I did 25 seconds, not good enough for Drake.
"You are breathing for four people," he said. "You
don't need so much oxygen. We breathe 10 times more oxygen than
we need, and 200 times too little carbon dioxide."
On the second day pauses were getting longer, pulses slower. Blood
vessels had expanded, Drake explained, and appetites had diminished.
The routine is 4 maximum pauses and 2 medium ones, separated by
3 minute intervals of shallow breathing, doing this 4 times a day.
The purpose is to retrain the respiratory centre, the part of the
brain which controls breathing.
On the third day the father of the small boy complained that Drake
had disrupted his entire family's sleeping pattern. He took his
wife and son away and didn't come back. "That boy is being
condemned to a life on drugs". Drake protested.
Valerie, a psychotherapist fellow sufferer, and I were doing pauses
of more than a minute by this time, holding our noses, pacing the
room to distract ourselves from the pain and had given up symptomatic
medication, Serevent in her case. Ventolin in mine. Kevin managed
half a minute and was using 3 puffs of ventolin a day instead of
10.
On the 5th day Kevin who was sceptical and still hadn't taped his
mouth shut at night, confessed he felt much better. "It's been
a success. This is usually a bad time of year for me. I often end
up in hospital it gets so bad."
Valerie was much better, but rather nervous of going back to see
her doctor. "It's been a big success. I expected to be very
wheezy when I gave up all the drugs but I'm not."
Sally Magnusson adds: "As a sceptical journalist I feel there
must be a catch but I can't see it yet. Siggy is feeling much better,
using fewer inhalers."
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