Is asthma TMS? Can asthma be overcome by TMS strategies?

[Riffdex]

Asthma is regarded as potential TMS by Sarmo. i had asthma since I was young. However, I have not had an "asthma attack" for at least 15 years. I have an inhaler hanging around but I never use it. I guess I would use it if I ever had trouble breathing. But there's not been a use for it. I almost wonder if its presence is bad from a full recovery standpoint. I suffered from TMS pain in my wrist - constant inflammation that always continued to come back. During this period, I had turned my house into a "recovery zone", having ibuprofen out on my night stand, an ice pack always in the freezer, my wrist support device, etc. However many TMS experts suggest that you cannot truly heal from TMS until you accept that you are healthy first. And a healthy person doesn't take anti inflammatories every day, a healthy person doesn't have the need to constantly wear an ice pack on their hand, a healthy person doesn't wear a wrist device 24/7. So I got rid of it all. This was important to my eventual full recovery, imo. I wonder if I need to get rid of my inhaler to fully move past this idea in my head that I "don't breathe as good as the average person"? Having this in my life may be stopping me from moving forward, it is a reminder of the kind of person I believe(d) myself to be. That is, a person who suffers from asthma.

 

[Click#7]

Asthma is regarded as potential TMS by Sarmo. i had asthma since I was young. However, I have not had an "asthma attack" for at least 15 years. I have an inhaler hanging around but I never use it. I guess I would use it if I ever had trouble breathing. But there's not been a use for it. I almost wonder if its presence is bad from a full recovery standpoint. I suffered from TMS pain in my wrist - constant inflammation that always continued to come back. During this period, I had turned my house into a "recovery zone", having ibuprofen out on my night stand, an ice pack always in the freezer, my wrist support device, etc. However many TMS experts suggest that you cannot truly heal from TMS until you accept that you are healthy first. And a healthy person doesn't take anti inflammatories every day, a healthy person doesn't have the need to constantly wear an ice pack on their hand, a healthy person doesn't wear a wrist device 24/7. So I got rid of it all. This was important to my eventual full recovery, imo. I wonder if I need to get rid of my inhaler to fully move past this idea in my head that I "don't breathe as good as the average person"? Having this in my life may be stopping me from moving forward, it is a reminder of the kind of person I believe(d) myself to be. That is, a person who suffers from asthma.

Asthma attacks can get pretty drastic and an inhaler can ease the symptoms, but you said you are " a person that suffers from asthma"....but haven't used your inhaler for 15 years ?. I think you need to have a discussion with your GP and ask for a medical opinion to find out the severity of the asthma. Maybe having some breathing tests to re-establish what is going on. Not having an asthma attack for 15 years...is the inhaler expired ? Dr. Sarno advised speaking with a medical doctor about stuff like this as essential. Or make an appointment and see a TMS physician. Stress either emotional or physical (like cold weather) can trigger an asthma attack. Please seek an expert medical opinion if you truly were diagnosed with asthma as a youngster. I don't think people on this forum are qualified to give medical opinions esp about life saving medications.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Hey Riffdex - that's great advice from @Click#7, and it's what I would also say. I also, want to ask if your inhaler has actually expired - or do you keep it updated, "just in case".

I know that asthma attacks can be brought on by stress - so you have to ask yourself: with what you know now, if you were under extreme stress, how likely are you to allow your brain to be so mindless that it would give you a full-blown attack?

That being said - there's stress, and then there's STRESS. I'm in earthquake country, which means that I have an emergency "GO" kit in my car in case I have to evacuate and can't get into my place. If I had a history of TMS-related asthma that was now in the past, perhaps I would keep an inhaler in that kit - but I wouldn't worry about having one at hand in the house.

 

[plum]

I'm diagnosed asthmatic but haven't taken medications for almost 30 years bar two occasions when I was in no doubt about the potential risk. Asthma may well be TMS but it's not something I would play chicken with. I still have that one inhaler which I keep in my dresser. I'd rather have it to hand in a 'God-forbid' emergency than die because of someone else's idea of what healthy is.

Common sense and pragmatism are also healthy. The whole anti-meds TMS approach is something purists embrace but the field has evolved a lot since those days. Besides I doubt any professional would endorse kicking these kind of meds into touch.

You can mature as a person without needing to make gestures of this nature. I wouldn't get too caught up in such things as more often than not it is perfectionism rearing its ugly head.

All that said, congratulations on not needing your inhaler in so long. Interestingly I've had a couple of dreams of late where I couldn't breathe in the dream and I've woken in a mild 'asthmatic panic' but, thank God for Claire Weekes, I settled it within seconds. So yes, broadly speaking the TMS protocol does apply to asthma but be mindful. As far as I know there are no TMS martyrs to date. Please don't be the first

 

[Click#7]

I'm diagnosed asthmatic but haven't taken medications for almost 30 years bar two occasions when I was in no doubt about the potential risk. Asthma may well be TMS but it's not something I would play chicken with. I still have that one inhaler which I keep in my dresser. I'd rather have it to hand in a 'God-forbid' emergency than die because of someone else's idea of what healthy is.

Common sense and pragmatism are also healthy. The whole anti-meds TMS approach is something purists embrace but the field has evolved a lot since those days. Besides I doubt any professional would endorse kicking these kind of meds into touch.

You can mature as a person without needing to make gestures of this nature. I wouldn't get too caught up in such things as more often than not it is perfectionism rearing its ugly head.

All that said, congratulations on not needing your inhaler in so long. Interestingly I've had a couple of dreams of late where I couldn't breathe in the dream and I've woken in a mild 'asthmatic panic' but, thank God for Claire Weekes, I settled it within seconds. So yes, broadly speaking the TMS protocol does apply to asthma but be mindful. As far as I know there are no TMS martyrs to date. Please don't be the first

The TMS elders are so wise....

 

[plum]

The TMS elders are so wise....

Bless you @Click#7

I have remembered, with great sadness, the loss of someone who tragically elected to treat a very serious condition as TMS. The poor man died. God Rest His Soul.

@Gigalos posted this thread as both remembrance and reminder.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/always-see-a-medical-doctor-before-you-start-to-treat-your-symptoms-as-tms.17065 (Always see a medical doctor before you start to treat your symptoms as TMS)

Please view this as a mindful heads up. Take good care.

 

[Click#7]

Bless you @Click#7

I have remembered, with great sadness, the loss of someone who tragically elected to treat a very serious condition as TMS. The poor man died. God Rest His Soul.

@Gigalos posted this thread as both remembrance and reminder.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/always-see-a-medical-doctor-before-you-start-to-treat-your-symptoms-as-tms.17065 (Always see a medical doctor before you start to treat your symptoms as TMS)

Please view this as a mindful heads up. Take good care.

I believe TMS is in everyone and can influence many medical conditions, but with that said thank you for posting that valuable thread.

 

[plum]

I believe TMS is in everyone and can influence many medical conditions, but with that said thank you for posting that valuable thread.

I believe that too. I also fully believe in the TMS hybrid whereby TMS can coexist with structural and/or more serious issues. Over the years I've come to see and respect the depth and complexity of it.

Ultimately it pays to be safe not sorry and an emergency situation is not the time to be learning about TMS. Aside from being too much of a paradigm shift for the heat of that moment, it aches with hubris. Starting small, gathering knowledge and gaining understanding is the way to go. How else can we develop Mastery?

To heal serious conditions with mind~body techniques is entirely possible and I think we'll increasingly see people achieve this. Best of all, we'll nip them in the bud.

 

[BruceMC]

Stress either emotional or physical (like cold weather) can trigger an asthma attack.

Very interesting how the body and the mind both regard emotional stress (anger, sorrow, anxiety, depression) and physical stress (changes in temperature) as one and the same. It's been known for 2500 hundred years that strong emotions like anger can trigger asthma attacks and of course inhaling frigid air can also do the same thing. I think I read somewhere that emotional pain and physical pain are experienced in the same region of the brain. Would be interesting too if neuroscience could locate the area of the brain where asthma attacks originate and/or are controlled. That way you could treat the problem at the source instead of only symptomically. Sure sounds like asthma could provide some interesting insights about all mindbody disorders, including TMS and its equivalents. I know that today asthma is being treated with inhaled topical steroids that only affect the lungs and do get into the body and the bloodstream and cause side effects.

 

[BruceMC]

I notice in this 2012 talk how Gabor Maté cites a strong correlation between the stress level of parents and their children, as a result, developing asthma:

Gabor Maté also talks about how the two drugs most frequently used to treat asthma - steroids and cortisol - are also the hormones produced while people are undergoing stress. Dr Maté seems to believe that emotional repression of anger during childhood is one of the strongest predictors of asthma developing later in life. In other words, people who have been emotionally drained during childhood by not being allowed to express their emotions wind up with severely depleted autoimmune systems, which leads in turn to asthma, ALS, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma etc. etc. etc.

In this talk on the "Biology of Loss and Recovery" he is even more specific, showing how emotional repression denies the child's overwhelming need to attachment to his parents, which is part of the mammalian survival instinct:

Just think about how kids turn out both emotionally and physiologically when they have to live with a rage-oholic dad!

 

[BruceMC]

Very interesting how the body and the mind both regard emotional stress (anger, sorrow, anxiety, depression) and physical stress (changes in temperature) as one and the same. It's been known for 2500 hundred years that strong emotions like anger can trigger asthma attacks and of course inhaling frigid air can also do the same thing. I think I read somewhere that emotional pain and physical pain are experienced in the same region of the brain. Would be interesting too if neuroscience could locate the area of the brain where asthma attacks originate and/or are controlled. That way you could treat the problem at the source instead of only symptomically. Sure sounds like asthma could provide some interesting insights about all mindbody disorders, including TMS and its equivalents. I know that today asthma is being treated with inhaled topical steroids that only affect the lungs and do get into the body and the bloodstream and cause side effects.

I meant, do not get into the bloodstream and cause side effects. However, perhaps I spoke too soon. I think topical steroids, like Qvar, do get into the bloodstream over time and can cause side effects. After all, drugs are drugs even if the docs tell you they're safe as milk. An inhaled topical steroid like Qvar may be safer than popping oral steroids, but like everything else medical, they're not a panacea.

 

[lauraseago]

I've wondered about this, too, as it seems to be one of those 'borderline TMS' cases.

I suffered from chronic asthma as a kid, and spent most of my childhood on heavy doses of steroids. That was the prevailing treatment at the time, though looking back, I seriously question whether it hurt or helped more. I ended up with severe cases of pneumonia that led to partially collapsed lungs at least once a year, often twice. Hospital stays became very routine for me.

Like most of you, I grew out of it in adulthood and keep an up-to-date rescue inhaler on hand at my mother's insistence (though I haven't needed one in 15 years). I'm now very active with no signs of asthma, and no recurrence of pneumonia.

I'm interviewing someone on my podcast (Like Mind Like Body) this week who I think will be able to help me understand the connection. His research is largely performed on animals, but offers insight into how early childhood adversity impacts the immune system and stress responses. Asthma is one of the conditions he's been looking into. I plan to ask him some more questions about it (due to my own personal curiosity), so I will let you know when that episode goes live.

 

[BruceMC]

suffered from chronic asthma as a kid, and spent most of my childhood on heavy doses of steroids. That was the prevailing treatment at the time, though looking back, I seriously question whether it hurt or helped more.

Yes, indiscriminate and prolonged steroid use must run your immune system down quite a bit, not to mention the side-effects. I know that Andy Weil, M.D. thinks that if you use steroids or cortisone cream to make an allergic reaction like a rash to disappear, the underlying physiological process that caused it is still there and the symptoms will go elsewhere in the body. Only a temporary fix. There is a strong correlation between children developing asthma and their parents smoking cigarettes that much is true. But you have to wonder whether children who have parents who smoke cigarettes and have emotionally conflicted relationships develop asthma at a higher rate than children whose parents smoke but get along while? Very difficult to construct a double-blind test to verify that because emotional conflict is so hard to quantify and judge from a child's perspective.

I think that Dr Sarno did say he noticed that patients who had a history of allergies and asthma were more likely to develop TMS.

 

[LunaL]

I developed asthma later in life when I was 20 and had it until I was 40. It was getting progressively worse, I was using my inhaler a few times a day and thought it would be forever. My siblings all have asthma from childhood, so it wasn't a surprise I had it and it runs in the family. So what changed? First I learnt how to breathe through my nose, difficult when it's always blocked. I was frustrated doing meditation that I couldn't breathe through my nose but I learnt if I held my breath and THEN tried nose breathing it would clear the blockage and I could breathe instantly! Second whenever I felt my breathing becoming worse I would simply tell my mind to relax a few times. Breathing gently through my nose. Not panicking. Within a minute my breathing would have returned to normal. I haven't used an inhaler in 5 years. For the first year I carried an inhaler with me everywhere I went. Now I just take it out on runs or on holiday, just in case. Whenever I used an inhaler in the past, I felt I then needed it more, it was self perpetuating. By relaxing I didn't need the inhaler and eventually I never needed it. Occassionaly on cold days I can feel my chest tighten but then I remind myself to be calm and all will be well. I feel so fortunate to have been able to move beyond asthma. I discovered TMS a couple of years later for my back pain, which went a couple of weeks after researching TMS. No asthma, no back pain!!!

 

[Andy Bayliss]

Hi LunaL,

Beautiful report of skillful means. When I read your post I think of how you didn't let your mind run away with you, and how you worked physically with fear. Whereas the breath can feel threatening when it does not respond the way we want, you learned to trust, and this is what was needed. And this turned the whole thing around. I think there is a lot here about TMS work. Beautiful!!

Andy

 

[BruceMC]

Whenever I used an inhaler in the past, I felt I then needed it more, it was self perpetuating.

I'm afraid this is true of almost all drugs used to treat a physical condition. After a while, they actually reinforce the symptoms they were prescribed to prevent. Therefore, I think a good adage is that less is more, until finally none. Of course, if you're symptoms are life-threatening, you gotta. I have noticed that my asthma was always intensified by my body-mind reaction to the pressure to perform and achieve my parents and their conflicted relationship imposed on me. Whenever I'd get physical geographical distance - the Tetons, Denver, the High Sierra, even Palo Alto - away from my parents, my asthmatic symptoms would subside. Too bad I didn't realize the connection earlier in life.

 

[TG957]

I came across this very interesting article that may be useful to people here. I knew about asthma being healed with Qi Gong a while ago, from various sources. I had occasional asthmatic episodes from about teenage till maybe 10-15 years ago. I cannot explain my recovery by anything specific that I had done, but it went away. It did coincide in time with me becoming more physically active, but before I started practicing Qi Gong. Still this may be relevant.

Qi Gong is one of the ancient healing arts that use movement, mindfulness and breathing to balance the nervous system. Qi Gong helped me immensely in my recovery, especially after I learned how to use it as a meditational practice. I switched back to a more physically challenging yoga once I started feeling well enough, but I still remember Qi Gong very fondly and practice one simple flow every once in a while. It is not explicitly aligned with Sarno's theories, but it builds on the mindfulness practices in which Sarno's method is rooted, encouraging you to connect your mind and body. From my personal experience, I believe that in order to stay healthy both mentally and physically, we need to pursue physical activities as much as possible. For those who are immobilized by pain, any rhythmic movement routine, even the most minimal, can be the key to recovery, if done on a regular basis. For those of us who have problems with anxiety, any physical routine is a very important mentally stabilizing factor.

Note that this patient was relieved of multiple symptoms simultaneously. I would be curious to know whether he slowly got worse if he stopped his mental and physical hygiene practice.

I have to clarify right away that I don't know what "external qi healing were performed by a qigong master for his pain and systematic adjustment" is that the abstract is referring to.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15025889/ (A case study of simultaneous recovery from multiple physical symptoms with medical qigong therapy - PubMed)

And here is the abstract, for your reading convenience:

Background: It is well known that qigong practice is beneficial to human health, but it is less known, even in China, that qigong may also be an effective therapy to treat various diseases. This report documents the story of a 58-year-old Caucasian male patient with a series of chronic conditions, including high prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels (but not a confirmed cancer), atrial septal defect, asthma, allergies, multiple injuries following an automobile accident, high blood pressure, and edema in the legs. Can medical qigong help such a patient to cure multiple symptoms simultaneously?

Method: The intensive qigong workshop involved the training and practice of gathering qi, magnifying qi energy and using it for self-healing with visualization and guided imaginary; plus supervised energetic fasting. The patient practiced qigong 4-plus hours per day during intensive training, and approximately 1 to 2 hours daily thereafter. About 10 sessions of external qi healing were performed by a qigong master for his pain and systematic adjustment.

Settings/location: The intensive medical qigong workshop took place in the World Institute for Self-Healing, Inc. (WISH) office at Middlesex, NJ; and the patient practiced qigong at home for the rest of time.

Results: After the workshop and qigong therapy, the patient discontinued all medications (8 in total) and lost 35 pounds; his blood pressure dropped from 220/110 with medication to 120/75 without medication (in 2 weeks); pulse rate dropped from 88 beats per minute resting to 68 beats per minute in the mornings and 55 bpm in the evening; the edema in his legs went away; symptoms of asthma or allergies disappeared; the PSA level dropped from 11 to 4 (normal), all without any medications.