Remember being told to shut your mouth or you would swallow a fly?
 
Remember the games we played as kids - who could hold their breath the longest?  Blowing bubbles in the bath water?  Swimming underwater the longest?
 
Remember being given a brown paper bag to blow into if we became over excited and hyper-ventilated?
 
These practices in our past, probably saved us from asthma.  And they still can today.
 
Buteyko is a treatment for asthma devised by a Russian doctor over 50 years ago.  The main thrust of Buteyko is maintaining adequate carbon dioxide levels in the body.  But none of this is really new.  All of the items described above, help to keep good carbon dioxide levels and a good acid - alkaline balance.
 

ASTHMA is NOT so much a lack of OXYGEN as a LACK of CARBON DIOXIDE ! !

 
The trick is to keep enough carbon dioxide around to maintain a correct acid-alkaline and oxygen balance in the body.
 
The key to all of this is SLOW BREATHING.  As a nurse we were taught to count the patient's breathing while doing temperature and pulse.  Normal breathing was considered 16 -24 resps per minute.  According to Buteyko, we should be
aiming for 8-10 breaths per minute.  The faster we breath, the more carbon dioxide is lost, the more oxygen accumulates and we drown in oxygen.   The release of oxygen from haemoglobin in the blood stream into the cells for energy production, depends on the level of carbon dioxide also carried in the blood stream.  Carbon dioxide exists in a number of forms and is changed by various enzymes backwards and forwards.
 
For those of us who want a more technical view, in the diagram below - Oxygen (O2) diffuses from the lung into the blood stream and high O2 saturation allows it to hop onto haemoglobin (Hb) turning it into an Hb O2.
 
Oxygenated haemoglobin travels around in the blood stream until it is displaced by a high concentration of hydrogen (H) atoms which make it alkaline forcing the O2 out, to diffuse into the surrounding cells where it is used in the process of energy roduction.
 
The end result of energy production is water and carbon dioxide.  However CO2 is toxic in this state so body enzymes combine it with water to make carbonic acid (H2CO3).  This then transforms into bicarbonate (HCO3) in the bloodstream, leaving a spare hydrogen which hops aboard a passing oxyhaemoglobin releasing the oxygen to go to the cell, while the hydrogen haemoglobin (Hb H) and HCO3 travel in the vein back to the lungs.  Here high oxygen concent-ration allows entry of oxygen molecules makes it acidic and forcing the H out where it re-combines with a bicarbonate (HCO3) to make carbonic acid (H2CO3).  This is acted on by another enzyme which splits it into water (H2O) and CO2, which both pass through into the lung and are breathed out of the body in exhaled air.
 
So we can see why it is important to have enough carbon dioxide around in its various forms so that the oxygen can be unloaded to get into the cell for energy production.
 
Ref: "Biochemical Basis of Buteyko's Theory of the Disease of Deep Respiration"  www.buteyko.com.au/but/biochem
 

Buteyko Breathing teaches controlled pause after exhalation to normalise the breathing of asthmatics, for emphysema and chronic fatigue.  PPNWA has 2 video tapes on Buteyko available for borrowing by members or you can ring Breath Power for classes and more information on   (08) 9330 3326