My Story and How I Personally Manage Asthma

Hi all. I thought of sharing my asthma experience here. I have been diagnosed with asthma in summer of 2018. I am 43 now, male and live most of the time in the UK. It all started with an attack. It was evening, I was in my bedroom and started coughing badly. Those dry coughs.

My initial symptoms

Initially, I thought it was an allergy to my feather duvet and pillows. Somehow I managed to get through the night. The next day I've replaced them. The cough was still there although not that intense. I was coughing mostly in the evenings and mornings while in bed. Also started wheezing too. During the day It felt slightly better.

After consulting my GP and getting the blood test done, I've been told I have asthma. I've also given the inhaler to use mornings and evenings. It was difficult to accept it. The inhaler worked. All my coughing and wheezing disappeared.

After a few weeks I traveled to see my parents in east Europe. There I've done more investigation, privately. Same diagnostic and given the inhaler. I asked if I have to use it for the rest of my life. The answer was: Yes.

Learning about asthma management

I was not happy. I don't like taking medicines. Especially forever. I started looking into it. I also have reduced the use of my inhaler to once a day and after a while I stopped using it completely.

The cough and wheezing was back. It was difficult, especially during the night. I was keeping everyone awake. I felt week. I knew as a last resort the inhaler was there, but I didn't want to give up yet.

I wanted to control it naturally. I've been to salty caves. And spent a few hours every day there. Also been bathing in very salty lakes nearby. They are so salty that you didn't need to swim. You just float. But all this didn't improve my condition.

Learning from others

I started speaking to people and an elderly person told me asthma symptoms can be treated with FAT. Fat from a small animal that lives in the forests nearby. I lived in that village all my childhood and most of my teenage years but never seen that animal although I heard of it.

At that moment I looked at my diet and asthma management routine. For the last few years, I was trying to become vegetarian, or close to being a vegetarian. I was eating lots of fruits, especially sweet ones, I love sweets, veggies, meat - just the equivalent of 1/3 of a chicken per week. No fat. Because 'Fat is not healthy'. Sweets I was eating about 3 large chocolates a week, cakes, jam.

Using diet and asthma management methods

I thought to myself: fat can't be too different from one animal to another. So I choose bacon. Not the bacon you will find in supermarkets, but the one that has more fat than meat. Also in east Europe you can get it smoked which I have to say tastes delicious.

I started eating a few slices more or less every day. Also if I wanted to fry something I used fat instead of oil. I didn't get any fatter myself.

I have to say after a few weeks my coughing and wheezing disappeared completely.

Making dietary changes for my asthma management

We keep hearing fat is not good for us. I am convinced our body needs fat. Not a lot and definitely not from burgers and processed meat which has huge amounts of chemicals. I also try to eat fatty fish once a week. Usually fish hasn't got much fat, but your local fishmonger can help you choose. I buy rainbow fish In the UK.

I can't say my asthma is gone 100%. If I don't have any fat for a week, I feel how the cough is getting closer. I have also reduced sweets considerably, and try to avoid bread, pasta, and food that has flour.

I feel so much better. It's like before. Not sure how will be like in the future but at the moment I'm very happy where I am. If this post will help one more person then it's all worth it posting here. Thanks for reading my post and wish you all very good health.

John.

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