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http://www.123asthma.com – Asthma articles, videos, posts, ebooks, causes, cures, treatments – all about asthma. Includes natural treatment, puffers, air purifiers.

For those of you who don’t have severe enough asthma to warrant using a prescription, do you know any good home treatments? I’m basically looking into what foods help and what to avoid. For me, dairy foods tend to trigger it but I can’t find any natural treatment that’s a good natural bronkodilator.

Surprisingly, caffeine is an excellent bronchiodialator for many people. Your results may vary, but when I was a kid I accidentally discovered that Coca-Cola really helped me breathe when I was in a bind.

I’d be careful when it comes to finding “natural” treatments, though. Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you (for example, cyanide is natural and so are poisonous mushrooms and berries) or that it won’t have negative side effects. As helpful as some of the natural cures are, many of them require further study to fully understand.

I’m a strong endorser of caffeine, although I know that different asthmatics have varying experiences with it (just as we all differ on what medicines work or what our triggers are). I’d say that you should still ask your doctor for a medicine like albuterol. You might not need anything stronger if you have mild asthma, but it’s still the best thing out there. The closest natural alternative to the albuterol family is actually less safe.

One more note on dairy. This REALLY varies from person to person. I don’t have any problem with dairy and it’s never done anything negative or positive with my asthma. With my doctor’s help, I’ve monitored my diet and tried all sorts of things. But I know that dairy makes symptoms worse for other people. If you want to find out how your diet affects your symptoms, try using a “peak flow meter.” You can find one at your pharmacy or online. It measures your lung capacity. Keep a journal of what you eat, the weather, and anything else that might be a trigger. It takes some detective work, because every single asthmatic is different, but it’s worth it to find out if some foods help and others hurt.

Asthma IS a physical condition, but psychological factors plays probably the most important part. the physical symptoms can be treated with medication, but if there are emotional factors involved, those need to be addressed, as well.
asthma can be triggered by many things, as others have listed, but can be made much worse by emotions. first, from a physical perspective, if you are emotionally upset, your immune system doesn’t work as well as it should, your resitance is lower, so your body will react quicker to triggers such as pollen, animal dander, pollution, etc.
second, having an asthma attack is scary!! when you feel you can’t breathe, the anxiety makes it worse. the airways constrict making it harder to breathe..it becomes a vicious cycle. one of the things i tell my patients in an attack is to lower their shoulders and take slow, deep breaths, in thru the nose and slowly out thru their mouths with their lips pressed together like they are going to whistle.
this does several things. it calms one of the major nerves that has to do with breathing (vagus nerve), it gives the body nitrous oxide created in the back of the nasal passages that helps to calm the body as a whole, and it holds the air in the lungs longer allowing better oxygenation, and it slows the movement of the air thru the airways which helps with the constriction.
sorry.. don’t mean to be so long winded (no pun intended lol) but thought the extra info might help. good luck!
Source(s):
Registered Respiratory Therapist