Breathing

It's one of those things you take for granted until you can't. Or it's painful and difficult every time you do.
Breathing.
Basic.
Simple.
Necessary.
You don't even have to think about it. You don't learn it. I bet it doesn't cross your mind even once a day.

It does mine.
Breathing has been a big subject in my life, well, forever.
I was born a couple weeks early and my lungs just weren't completely ready. So as long as I can remember, I've thought about breathing.
I've worried about breathing.
I've been on countless medications, inhalers, steroids, various cocktails. My body has stopped responding to some medications and then the entire regimen had to be re-thought. More than once.
I can't exercise too strenuously.
I can't be around crazy dust.
Smoke.
Cats.
And I'm sure there's more.
For a while, I outgrew it. I didn't have any problems for almost seven years. I think I went about four years without even needing my rescue inhaler once. I thought I had grown out of it. I thought I was done.

Then, when I was pregnant with Daughter, I had a really bad attack from cats. I ended up in the hospital and thankfully everything was fine. Once that was settled, I thought it would just go away.
It hasn't.
It's only gotten progressively worse.
Every year is just a little worse than the year before.
It started with just being triggered by allergens, being sick or exercise.
Then it was also seasonal...winter was tough.
Then it just started happening for no apparent reason. Even heart palpitations.
I went back to the Dr. More tests. More medications. Nothing fixed, nothing solved. Just more things to take to hopefully help me breathe normally.
It wasn't helping. I was taking my rescue inhaler every single day with no triggers, and multiple times a day with triggers.
I heard that changing over to raw foods helped. That was pretty extreme for me. I've always been fairly health conscious about what I put in my body, but after reading countless books and cookbooks about going Raw, I decided that I knew I couldn't stick with that and I'd have to start slow.
For a long time I had cut out meat a lot more, I'd say I was about half-vegetarian. Then after more research linking dairy with allergies and asthma, I cut that out. Funny thing is, I have always struggled with a slight intolerance for dairy products, but it's not bad enough that I can't cope with it so I've never given it a second thought.
I did that for a while and noticed some improvement. Not a huge amount, but a little. Then I decided to take a little plunge and eat meat very rarely, maybe once a week if even and make my diet a little over fifty percent Raw. At first it was great. I loved it. I did well on it and felt great. It was easy! Then I just didn't make it to the store and started eating little cheats here and there. I always say, I'm not a Nazi about it. All things in moderation. No big deal. But I almost completely fell off the wagon. And within just one week, my breathing started to be bad. Now it's been about two or three weeks and it's really bad.
I'm almost out of my rescue inhaler. I flew threw it in a combined time of about six weeks. It was supposed to be enough for six months to a year.
Now it's almost all the time. Breathing issues, that is.
I feel like someone is sitting on my chest.
I feel like I can't catch my breath.
I feel like I'm breathing through a straw.
I will try so hard to breathe in deeply and get a satisfying breath that my body will tremble.
But I can never get that one breath.
I get dizzy.
I have heart palpitations.

If I go up or down the stairs a few times I need my rescue inhaler. If I go for a short jog or long walk, I need my rescue inhaler. If I do a few loads of laundry, wash the dishes and clean the play room, I need my inhaler. Any amount of light housework, walking, too much talking even and I feel like I've run out of air.

So I have to jump back on my bandwagon. No more dairy for me. Little to no caffeine. Extra vitamins. Little to no meat, and only fish or chicken. Raw foods a little more than half the time. Cleanse with water. Like double the water that's recommended. Nothing else to drink...water, herbal teas. That's it.



I hate to be cynical, and I have absolutely NO qualms with health care professionals, doctors and nurses, etc. I do feel like they and in turn, we the patients, get cheated out of a decent education on the incredible healing benefits of what we put in and don't put into our bodies. How it is possible to live a life without the drugstore.

So there...I've had my moment on my soapbox. I will update y'all later to let you know what my Dr. says and then maybe I'll even keep up on my diet journey and let you know if it's helping. I hope so. I'm tired of not breathing. Well, not breathing well. And I'm tired of pumping myself full of drugs and reading all the warning pamphlets that come with. One of my inhalers has a warning that it may lead to asthma induced death. Huh?!

Yeah, see what I'm up against?

Anyone else? What are your thoughts on these matters?

Do you think I've lost it? I've finally gone to a dumb extreme?

Am I crazy...too skeptical?

Let me have it. ;)

We've got Issues...

Breathing issues, that is.

The whole family, with the exception of hubs, has respiratory issues. The boys and myself have it the worst, Daughter has it occasionally. 

Allergies, seasons, cats, smoke, being sick, running around too much...all of this can bring on some serious attacks. I've had asthma all my life, Son was recently officially diagnosed. Baby is too young to be diagnosed, but has had respiratory problems since he was ten days old, so it's pretty inevitable. 

Steroids (inhaled, liquid, shots, etc), breathing treatments, medication in pill form. Low oxygen levels, Coughs that last eight weeks. All of it...story of my life.

I used to wonder why I had asthma, I used to hate it. Now don't get me wrong, I don't love it now, but I'm glad that I have it and have had it my whole life to know what my kids are experiencing. Sometimes I feel frustrated, knowing that I am probably the reason they all have these issues, a lot of times it can be partially genetic. Nevertheless, I am still glad I can sympathize, yet keep a calm mind about it. I very rarely overreact, even though it is really scary when your kids just cannot breathe properly, and I think that helps a lot.

Anyway, these are some pics from the last time the boys were sick. Poor guys

I will never forget how it broke my heart to hold this mask over my baby's face when he was just ten days old, desperate for him to be able to breathe. We were so blessed to have such an amazing doctor. She called us every night around seven to check on him, dismisses all copays for the time while he was sick because she wanted to see him so much (daily for over a week) and even offered to come to the house to treat him, knowing that I had just had my third baby and hubs work schedule was a little kooky. What an angel! I have never witnessed such dedication. She was and is amazing!