Allergy Induced Asthma: Breathless, Tight Chest

Wheezing

Wheezing is a frequent symptom of asthma. How does Chinese medicine explain it?

The following contains some technical terms.  I hope you don’t find them too difficult to understand.

There are two situations.

• The acute attack. This is the one everyone worries about. But what if you could lessen their frequency or seriousness by treating the underlying syndrome?
• The underlying picture or syndrome that you see between attacks.

 

Acute syndromes: the acute causes of wheezing

• Acute Phlegm (two kinds: Hot Phlegm and Cold Phlegm)
• Wind

 

 

Between attacks, the underlying causes of wheezing

• Lung deficiency
• Spleen deficiency
• Kidney deficiency

Why do people get allergy induced asthma?

Asthma, in terms of breathlessness and wheezing, has been around for thousands of years. But the ancients seem not to have recognised allergy induced asthma much, or at all, when the classic texts were written 2500 years ago. Perhaps it didn’t occur back then.

It is only recently that it has appeared, but not in people living traditional lifestyles, or not at least until they adopt a ‘Western’ way of life or move to Western countries.

So what is it about the Western way of life that produces allergy induced asthma? And why?

Greater minds than I have held these matters in deep contemplation for 50 years, but with few agreed answers.

And it must be said that I don’t think Chinese medicine has comprehensive solutions yet either, but it does have ways of looking at it that perhaps deserve consideration. Some of the following also follows Japanese acupuncture theories which though based on the original Chinese texts have explored them somewhat differently.

Some of these ideas help to explain possible Western medicine reasons for the asthma.  The following doesn’t pretend to be a completely inclusive list. Some people violently oppose the suggestions, and some suggestions are elephants in the room that nobody in orthodox science or medicine dare question.

All of them are considered to contribute to a deficiency in the Kidney’s defensive Qi system,  so inclining people towards asthma.

Allergy induced asthma from the period before birth

• The hereditary constitution of the parents often predisposes the child to similar conditions, or to conditions associated with them. (From a homoeopathic point of view, it is surprising how often the tubercular tendency – the actual technical term is ‘miasm’ –  appears in the background of people with asthma.)
• If the child is delivered well before its natural term, the foetus will have lacked the opportunity to grow steadily in its ideal environment, with all the nutrients needed supplied in the combinations and concentrations exactly adjusted to its needs on a minute by minute basis. Lacking these vital nutrients, it lacks the wherewithal for healthy Kidneys and adequate Ming Men energy. This makes it more susceptible to Kidney deficiency syndrome symptoms like allergy induced asthma.
• Any major factor affecting the mother’s health during pregnancy, weakening her body’s ability to nourish and protect the foetus may reduce the viability of the baby’s Kidney Qi. These include accidents, starvation, privation, shock, emotional trauma, poisons including medical and social (‘party’) drugs, tobacco and alcohol: all may provide a basis for allergy induced asthma in the child.

Allergy induced asthma from birth

• If the birth process is prolonged or leads to fetal distress, this may harm the baby’s Kidney Qi, increasing its likelihood as an asthma cause.
• Some Japanese practitioners have suggested that both Caesarean Section (CS) operations and tying off the umbilical cord too son affect future health:
• CS operations deprive the infant of the experience of the birth canal, when the child’s head and body are tightly compressed on their way out. One suggestion is that CS birth gives no impetus, particularly to the Lungs and Kidney energies, possibly weakening their ability to react and adapt to life’s circumstances. As you will have read, above, having healthy Kidney and Lung energies are vital if you want to avoid asthma.
• Tying off the umbilicus too soon after birth may deprive the infant of vital nutrients intended to support the child in its first few minutes out of the womb. Based on this is a Japanese acupuncture treatment for the condition: of course, other aspects of the condition must also be addressed. In Chinese herbal medicine, the mother’s placenta and/or umbilical cord is sometimes used to strengthen the Kidney qi of children with allergy induced asthma, or indeed, asthma of any kind.

Allergy induced asthma from post-birth

• An ‘elephant in the room’ for allergy induced asthma is the possible consequences of vaccination/immunisation. These introduce attenuated disease or disease-like matter into the body in the expectation that the body will develop antibodies to the disease, so preventing its occurrence. In the UK, up to 20 different injections may be given to the infant before it is 24 months old, in the hope that giving them early prevents a big immune reaction (because the child’s immune system is not fully developed until around 24 months and, because of that immunity deficit, the child is more susceptible to these diseases at that time.) 

Primary and Secondary actions of medications

• I suspect that Western medicine has not fully appreciated the significance or implications of the primary and secondary actions of medicines and drugs, including vaccinations. (NB – vaccination is in no way comparable to the principle behind homoeopathy.) 
• Another objection to early immunisation like this is that the injections also contain other substances which are necessarily there to ‘carry’ the disease matter but themselves may be poisonous. In Chinese medicine, besides respiration, the Lungs rule the skin and the Kidneys provide the means to warm and moisturise it. Introducing disease-like matter through the skin may interfere with the Lung functions, and that the body has to metabolise the stuff and ultimately expel it via urine may upset Kidney function, both of which may lead to allergy induced asthma. NB There are many more issues surrounding vaccination than those mentioned here.
• Quite apart from the above on vaccination, animal research shows some kinds of vaccination may produce asthma or eczema in susceptible people because they induce IgE antibody formation which leads to inflammation.
• Breast milk from some mothers who eat dairy food and some kinds of fish may cause allergy induced asthma in their breastfed offspring, or at least if the babies were too young when first introduced to it.
• Modern experience suggests that exposure to ‘dirt’ and animal dander early in life may teach a child’s immune systems (eg Kidney and Lung functions in TCM, predominantly) to learn to adapt to them, reducing the likelihood of allergy induced asthma later on.

Do you have a contribution to make on this topic?

No doubt readers will have their own views. If you have a contribution to make on allergy induced asthma or on asthma causes in general, please use the form at the bottom of the page on asthma causes.