Asthma / Immune System / Gut Health
- May 27, 2019
- 3 min read
Imagine out of nowhere you feel like you are suffocating and don't have control of your own body. On the outside people don't realize why you all of sudden start to panic. Maybe no one is around which is even more frightening. On the inside you realize your lungs aren't working properly and you are 100% focused on finding your next breath.
The chain of events could have simply been triggered by an allergen which provoked inflammation and constriction of the airways. Common symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing, chest pain, and wheezing (an alarming whistling sound during breathing).
If you have experienced asthma first hand you understand how traumatizing this health condition can be.
Around this age in the picture is around the time that I developed asthma. It was frustrating to feel as if I couldn't fully experience certain activities as a kid, especially pushing my own limits with sports I enjoyed. I would have to keep my inhaler with me at all times and was even prescribed steroids to help manage it. I couldn’t be in close proximity to environmental irritants like wood fires and up until this last year I had only used the fireplace in my house a few times ever! There was one experience while camping that I will never forget. My family was on vacation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and at dusk everyone had campfires going at their campsites. The high elevation combined with the smoke meant that there was very little clean breathable air. It was a scary night and I ended up resorting to sleeping in the car as my last option. Even that was barely manageable. Asthma affects every aspect of your life. Your physical, mental and emotional state. Most people don’t truly understand how struggling for the next breath feels like it could be your last. I never wanted my children to suffer like I did. So, when they were young I started our journey of being conscious of what we put IN, ON and AROUND us. Looking back I definitely credit switching to a natural antibiotic (that kills bad bacteria and preserves the good) as one of the most significant things we did to improve our short and long term health. It enabled us to keep our gut microbiome strong which meant our immune system stayed strong. Research on asthma shows “If you get antibiotics in the first year of life, you have a 20 percent higher rate of asthma” – Brett Finlay, Microbiologist. Through the years I always heard that healing your gut is key to managing asthma conditions. For years I implemented many positive lifestyle changes and took a high quality prebiotic and probiotic. Unfortunately, it didn’t give me the relief I was looking for since I still had limited lung capacity when I did high intensity exercise. Implementing many great healthy habits and still knowing I had underlying asthma symptoms made me feel defeated and as if I would have to live with limited lung capacity forever!
Luckily, last year I finally had a breakthrough just two weeks into my new gut health routine! I realized that my lung capacity was the best it had been in a very long time, if ever! Healing my gut brain axis enabled my body to have clear and efficient communication to help it identify ways to help itself. Having increased lung capacity was a side benefit I didn't expect. I started the new health routine to address other concerns and here it was helping a life threatening condition I had all my life!
The journey of healing my gut has truly been "the missing piece" of my health puzzle. I share these personal details to give hope to others we know that struggle with asthma. It is empowering to know that true solutions exist that can help us and those we love have a better quality of life everyday!
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