Changed breathing has lowered my PATM significantly

[bettertimes]

Hello fellow sufferers!

I've been dealing with my PATM for about 4 years now, and up to now I haven't really found any relief, apart from following an extremely harsh diet, only based on steamed vegatables.

So, I've been away on a roadtrip the last two weeks, and I was listening to a ton of podcasts. One of those was "The Art of Manliness" (yes, a cheesy name, but a really good podcast), and in one episode, the host was interviewing a breathing expert called Belisa Vranich. She told that 9 out of 10 people breathes the wrong way, and not breathing right could cause numerous problems including wrong stomach pH, anxiety and make it hard/impossible to cure different stomach problems.

Summarized, she argues that we're supposed to breathe only with the lower part of our stomach, and to breathe "horizontally". Instead, most of us are breathing with our chests, and our chests often goes up and down - which she refers to as "vertical breathing". Also, she suggests that the part of the breathing when our bodies do the work should be when we exhale and relaxed when we slowly fills the belly with air. What most of us are doing is the opposite - having the body to work when we inhale and relax during the exhale.

Having nothing better to do, I started following her advise while driving and it felt weird, almost awkward, as it's a completely unfamilar routine, and those abdominal breathing muscles aren't in super shape either.

I did this for a few hours in the cars, constantly having to remind myself to change the breathing pattern. The next morning, I woke up with almost clear sinuses which normally are completely blocked during the mornings, and the usual PATM reactions were much lowered, hard to put a number on it but only perhaps 10-20% of what it normally is.

So I'm going to continue try to do change my breathing, I've just bought her book "Breathe" on Amazon where she offers a step-by-step guide to change it. I can't give a review of it yet, but at least I feel better, both physically and mentally as lesser reactions for me equal much less stress.

If you feel this is worth a try, google The Art of Manliness and Breathe and you'll find the episode where she explains how it works. Belisa Vranich, the breathing expert, is a clinical psychologist and I thought the explanation she offered was reasonable and well anchored in applied medical science.

I'll give an update later on how it goes, and if the book offers some good tricks.

Good luck to all of you!

[bettertimes]

@ribeyes I do think it helped a bit with the general amount of stress I experienced, and in turn I think the reactions went down a little bit. I hasn't healed me, not by far, but something that really made a difference for me was to take 1 pill of 50000 ui Vitamin D every 4 days. PATM has approx. reduced to about 20-30%, but it does come back briefly if I have coffee or chips. Fried food in general, and also beer, increases the reactions so much. It doesn't feel as bad when I have red wine. The next things I'm trying is red pine needle oil taken with a nebulizer, and also to take DAOsin to see if it is histamine related. Are these any methods you have tried?

[ribeyes]

@bettertimes

Any update?

[bettertimes]

Replied below, wrote it in the "wrong section" :)

[cgTheDeathGod]

This is extremely useful information, and helps confirm some theories I have.

To everyone trying to reduce symptoms, focus on your breathing!

[Smellyorus]

I just listened to the podcast and it seems pretty hard to do lol

[bettertimes]

Yeah it is :) I'm listening to her book on Audible now and she's giving some solid tips on how to train the diaphragm and it helps. During work today I only heard 3-4 coughs when a normal day is up at approx 50-100. Not saying this is a complete cure but I really think it helps, and I agree with ray2502's assessment that it likely has something to do with systemic candida. The plan for the future is to keep training breathing like this and to combine it with a strict diet and other fungus killing supplements.

[ray2502]

When I was diagnosed with having low vitamin D levels several years back,prescribed high doses of vitamin D supplements ( think it was 50,000 iu's). Anyways, I was completely PATM free for 1 month until I stopped taking the VD. It was maybe two weeks after I stopped taking it that PATM came back. I'm going to try it again and see if I have the same results. I think if we find out what is the correlation between vitamin D and PATM, we might find out what our underlying problem is.

[Smellyorus]

I also have low vitamin D levels @ray2502, does the liquid dropper or pills work best for you? Why did you stop if it was working so well

[Smellyorus]

@bettertimes All I know is to not move the shoulders up when breathing, but it still feels unnatural and a conscious action. It's kind of annoying to think about the way I'm breathing every moment

[bettertimes]

Glad to hear from you both @ray2502 and @Smellyorus. Thanks for the info about vitamin D, I will order some strong vit D to go along with the breathing etc. Yes, I can only manage to breath like that for a short amount of time until I loose focus. However, it takes time - weeks or months to get it right, but part of the problem is that we need to learn how to use our diaphragm, which for many of us has been a dormant muscle for years. I'm doing exercises now 2-3 times daily where I'm laying down on a bed and put weights or books on my stomach and do 20 slow but complete inhale/exhales with only the stomach. Hope that helps to get you started, but I think you might benefit from hearing/reading the guide yourself :)

[Smellyorus]

@bettertimes Do you have any more tips for doing it properly?

[da16424]

Cool - I'll try it out. Thanks.