This is my own experience with asthma and the Buteyko asthma treatment. I learned about Buteyko entirely via the internet. Nobody around here, where I live, has heard of such a thing let alone practiced it.
I am 57 years old and I had my first real asthma attack in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. in 1962 when I was 22 years old. I was rushed to an emergency room, where I was given some kind of shot, and put on some kind of oral pills.
After about 6 months of this fighting asthma, I moved back to where I am today, to the high dry country of Southern Colorado. I was fine - no asthma. To make a long story short in the years that followed I again left Colorado and moved around to Calif, Minn, Oregon, and other places in the USA, getting asthma usually in low countries, where there was high humidity. Finally about 9 years ago I was getting asthma about every place I lived. So I moved, this time to stay for good, back to the high dry country of Colorado. I was fine, for about 5 years here, needing a puff of Primatine Mist about once a day when I first got up in the morning.
Then five years ago asthma for the first time caught up with me here. I went to the Doctor, and she put me on Beclovent inhalers and of course Ventolin. It just steadily kept getting worse, until I was using 2 puffs of Ventolin about every 3 to 4 hours around the clock. Every night about 2:30 AM I'd wake up with an asthma attack and also every morning. I honestly didn't think my Beclovent (A asthma preventive) was doing any good, so my Doctor put me on all kinds of preventive inhalers, with the same results with all of them. I figured I was on my last legs and asthma was going to eventually do me in.
Spring and summer were my worse months. May and July topping the list. It was during these months that I would become so bad that I was put on a predisone series. I also kept an emergency predisone series on hand at all times just in case I ran into trouble.
It was then, on April 18, 1996 that I got hold of Peter Kolb and the Buteyko treatment, via. the internet, and the miracle started. Within 6 days my use of Ventolin dropped to two puffs a day in the evenings, and I was sleeping the whole night through, and also not waking up in the morning with any need for Ventolin. This was in itself fantastic.
5 months later I was down to 1 puff of Ventolin in the evenings. The summer of 1996, I sailed through it without any asthma trouble at all. No need or even close to needing any predisone series. In fact no increase of asthma of any kind. No allergic reactions causing asthma, or anything. By Sept. of 1996 I was down to not using any ventolin at all. I still was taking and using 2 puffs of Beclovent a day. I have discovered that my Beclovent is now actually helping me.
It was at this point that I began to cut back on the use of Beclovent. By December of 1996, I was down to just 2 puffs of Beclovent twice a day. By January of 1997 I was so free of asthma I was completely forgeting to take my Beclovent and also I began to quit doing the exercises. Within 2 weeks I crashed. By Febuary 1997, I was back again taking about 2 puffs of Ventolin twice a day, and was back up to 8 puffs of Beclovent a day. --- What happened?
I quit doing the exercises, and I wasn't ready to quit the exercises. At the time I had a controled pause of about 20 seconds, and a max. pause of about 32 seconds. Since then I have again learned via. the internet that I have to get up to a minimum of a control pause of 40 seconds or better. So that's what I am working on now, to try and get back to where I was before and then go beyond.
Buteyko has truly been a life saviour for me. When I first heard about it. I thought it was some cruel joke, some very sick people were playing. I found out by experimenting with it, that it really does work. It is hard to do and very uncomfortable to do, and it seems until you actually do brake an asthma attack with it, a person remains skeptical.
Good-luck and thank you for your time.