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I would like to share some of my experiences, understandings and finally my recovery from asthma. As a young child I was considered severely asthmatic, trips to the doctor were frequent, even to the so-called "great" in Harley Street. There were hospital stays, steroids, diets, cold baths, cabbage water, running, deep breathing exercises, all to try and stop me from wheezing. None of it really worked, well not for long. Those wonderful relieving jabs of cortisone in the middle of the night were, although very temporary, life saving. I became resigned to the frequent pattern of catching a cold and one or two weeks later ending up in hospital.

That changed for me when the drug Intal arrived in the sixties. With the help of this new drug and some awareness of what food, animals etc to avoid, my asthma subsided, somewhat, until my 20s. However, as an adult, the effects of this wonder drug were not so good and from this time on I gradually became more and more reliant on bronchodilators (relievers) and inhaled steroids. This soon increased until I was taking a course of oral steroids almost every month. I became increasingly concerned about my health but didn't know what to do. There didn't seem to be an alternative, I was seeing an excellent homeopath, had tried acupuncture, Chinese herb's, exercise, eurythmy, numerous diets, steam inhalations, and seen specialists in America and England. I think it is very important to point out that some of these things certainly made a difference: homeopathy, avoiding dairy, wheat and other foods, not allowing myself to get over-tired or over-stressed, therapy, they have all helped and still do. But I still felt there was nothing that I could really rely on. And I found in the middle of a busy life, the subtle differences of one thing slightly helping, or another hindering, were often lost. I dreamed of discovering a cure for asthma.

As I encountered one health practitioner after another I found myself having to deal with their perceptions of the nature of asthma. The most common being neurosis. It used to infuriate me to be on ther receiving end of very condescending advice (however seemingly helpful) to relax and take deep breaths. How did they know what it was like to struggle for every breath? The implication that I suffered from this condition because I was ultra neurotic was too much.

However it did start a process of questioning and an increasing of awareness about myself. Was I really that sickly, with endless allergies and having to be careful of so many situations and certain foods. I had come to view myself as not only an asthmatic, but because of my condition, as someone with justifiable excuses not to do things. I was beginning to think like an invalid and I didn't want to.

I was someone who was definitely carrying heavy baggage from the past, present and no doubt into the future. In our enlightened age of being responsible for ourselves and all our experiences I felt stuck. What I knew, but was not yet able to seriously take on, was that I really had to be READY to heal. This sounds as if I was aware of the whole process, I was not. But I'd come to a point where I'd wanted to understand and was open to learning more. I was aware that I hadn't really put myself on the line before and actually opened up to what the asthma had to teach me. I needed to let go of the support system that asthma had given me. AND by now I realised that the healing of my breathing problem would not only change my experience of breathing but my experience of everything else in my life. I had been living life through my asthma. It had effected not only my breathing but like a chain reaction every other part of me. The illness had become so much part of me and my life that family and friends hardly noticed, like myself when I was wheezy.

These realisations had been hard won. There had been many, many occasions when I hadn't been sure if I could keep breathing until the cortisone worked. I needed to go more and more inside myself as my breathing worsened, drawing on the latihan, trying to push the rising fear of suffocation away from my mind; travelling to hospital with ambulance lights flashing, praying and telling God that now was not the time, I had more things to do and was not ready to leave this earth. One time a doctor was amazed at how seemingly calm I was when I arrived in such a poor physical state, I was pregnant at the time and knew that in order to survive I had to had to shut down as much as possible and put all my energies inside to sort out the conflict within.

Another time while we were living in America I'd had flu and after being sent home from one visit to hospital I arrived back the next day to find myself being wheeled into intensive care. This totally shocked me. The cortisone hadn't done its usual trick. I was on everything that modern medicine had to offer and it was not working. I got to work quickly, praying, visualising trying to put aside all the external thoughts and messages, to concentrate on becoming aware of what was really happening so that I could do my part in the healing, leaving the doctors to do theirs.

I made promises; I would walk every day, avoid dairy, wheat, sugar, coffee. I talked to God and vowed to do better - although was not sure how! I suppose I knew or thought I knew that again this was not the time to die, but at the time my circumstances were not so convincing! I remember Bapak saying that we 'die' many times on this earth and for me that means leaving the known, or safe ground, facing and going through into the unknown with faith. whether into another world or into another reality within this earth. I needed these hard hits to really help me move on it seemed. I had certainly become a hard nut to crack. The realisation was instantaneous however that although I was in the dark most of the time when the next serious attack came I would have to become focused as quickly as possible in order to survive.Amidst all the medical interventions, external panic and the desperate struggle for life, I was being called upon to tune into a different reality, to bring God into the situation in a new way...somehow joining myself with God..... changing my consciousness. I realised in a serious attack, the minute I 'bought into' the hospital scene, I was in danger of losing myself, and my ability to stay close to the reality of what was going on. If I lost that, I felt that I would lose the experience, it would become someone else's. If I was to survive and learn, I had to be in control even if that meant, in reality, 'being in control of not being in control'. I was the only one who was truly aware of that and I didn't want to have to fight for the privilege to face what I needed to. Therefore, when I was deteriorating in health I was aware that to get into hospital and to a place where I could feel at peace would cost me a lot of external effort. Would my family realise that when I said "go" I needed to GO. You can't yell in the middle of an attack I also needed to keep an eye on the doctors to make sure that their perception of where I was at and mine were not too dissimilar. I wanted to be helped with the cortisone and then left to get on with it, not fussed over or questioned unecessarily. Quite a demand in the normal hospital situation!

The advice I had been given about my medication was confusing. I had been told how bad the regular use of steroids was, also not to use bronchodilators too frequently. The trick was to get the correct balance of the inhaled drugs in order to avoid the oral steroids. I was on the maximum dose of inhaled steroids. A situation that had me trapped . Oral steroids and their side effects, on a regular basis, were to definitely be avoided.

Now to the exciting bit............. In September this year there was a documentary on T.V. about a Russian called Konstantin Buteyko. The documentary was the result of his scientific and practical research over 40 years, from 1952 until the mid 1990s. It uncovered the major cause of many diseases, connected to the hormonal, cardiovascular, nervous and respiratory systems. Buteyko discovered a new method of treatment for these diseases, drug free, more effective and perfectly safe. He had found this method was far more effective than modern medicine especially for asthma.

Through the latihan I had recently been exploring the reasons why my asthma was still with me I didn't smoke was healthy in every other way, I was fed up with the situation and knew that it was holding me back. I guess I had had enough and sincerely wanted to move on. The difference between wanting and WANTING is rather nebulous, but growing in me was a willingness to let go of any security that the illness had given me. I was told about the T.V. programme but our television was broken, someone taped it but their recording was out of focus, didn't bother to try to watch it. When I eventually did get around to view the wobbly programme it looked very interesting. With a nudge from a dear friend and a book about the method sent to me from my family, I finally made my way to a weekend course in London which was to change the course of my life. There were many people including children, about 40 all together. Some very wheezy with emphysema and others with various degrees of severity of asthma.

Alexander Stalmatski, the author of the book Freedom from Asthma (pub. Kyle Cathie Ltd) released in the UK about the method, was the Russian who conducted the class. I won't go into great detail about the method but here are the basic principles described from in the book.

"According to Buteyko asthma is the body's defence mechanism against over breathing, or hyperventilation. Modern medicine treats the symptoms of asthma, the Buteyko method treats the cause, which is hyperventilation. It doesn't matter how many times you breathe: what matters is how much air you use each minute. The way to cure asthma is to normalise your breathing pattern. To learn the Buteyko method you need to be under the care of a qualified breathing practitioner for a few days.

You can have a hyperventilation problem without developing asthma, but you will have other health problems. The Buteyko method is also effective for controlling some of the world's commonest diseases which are the diseases from which 90% of people suffer."

Over the weekend we practised breathing exercises for an hour or two at a time to change the way we breathed. These were the opposite to the deep breathing that most asthmatics have been taught, it was shallow and fast through our noses "like a mouse". I learnt that carbon dioxide which is present in our "out breath" is a natural bronchodilator and protects against bronchospasm. I realised that with "breathing retaining" my asthma, allergic reactions and general health would improve.

This we learnt over the weekend and continued three times daily until our lungs had sufficiently healed. We would then be ready to cut down on our steroid intake with the supervision of our GP. When we were free of steroids and our lungs were functioning well, we would no longer need to do the exercises. Instead we could keep a check on the situation by a simple exercise and by practising our breathing control. If we became wheezy we could increase the exercises until things resumed to normal. I arrived with a blocked nose, which had been my daily experience since childhood. We were instructed to breathe through our noses, this gradually became possible with the exercises and by the third morning my nose was unblocked and has subsequently remained clear.

One of the main eye openers for me was the realisation that unnecessary doses of bronchodilators are given, and although providing short term relief, in the long term it makes the asthma worse. This is because by opening up the airways hyperventilation occurs, even more than before, worsening the breathing, and potentially causing more problems for the future. Most of all it seems this approach is about treating the symptoms and not the cause. I haven't used my ventolin inhalor (bronchodilator) since the onset of the course in the beginning of November 1998. I normally used it about 4-10 times a day when wheezy.

I haven't needed a course of steroids since the course, I was having a dose about every month until that point. Other allergic symptoms to wine, dairy, wheat resulting in runny nose itchy eyes have improved or disappeared. I am able to walk up hills without getting breathless, in the past I would often struggle with the help of my ventolin every few steps. This, in my case, is nothing short of miraculous.

It is ironic that three days after going on the course, when I was already feeling quite different I went to my lung specialist for the results of a lung scan. I was told that I had bronchiectesis. Three areas of my lungs were affected. I was shocked, but felt that all would be well with the help of my new breathing programme. I have since had this confirmed and now know without doubt that my lungs can heal. The damage was mostly caused by my severe asthma and the over use of drugs to control it. Now my nose is always unblocked and I have some colour in my cheeks for the first time in my life. I consider myself cured - I no longer have the symptoms of an asthmatic. It is a new experience for me and as my lungs slowly but surely improve I move into a life without asthma. This new life means that everything has changed: my relationships, my perception of life, myself, my capabilities. I see that it was stopping me more than I realised

I have also understood something about the process of healing itself. We have to be willing and ready, not only to heal, but to accept the consequences and changes that the healing will bring. It can be an uncomfortable and frightening process, because it requires us to be willing to let go of the safety, the known or the attention from others that illness brings. Healing is new territory, the unknown. For me I realised I did not need it any more. Somehow by making the intention to heal, by no longer being attached to it, the healing came up to meet me, what I needed for my next step, came.

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