Children and Asthma
Why include children in the title of this on Asthma? Isn’t everyone affected from this disease? Yes, that is certainly true, but asthma commonly begins in childhood and this is the ideal time to look for and correct the cause.
Oh, but isn’t asthma hereditary? My medical doctor says it runs in my family…if so, how can hereditary problems be helped through chiropractic care? These questions and many more questions often come up when a chiropractor discusses asthma with a patient. The patient has been told it’s hereditary, or an allergy to dust, pollen, molds or a food allergy to milk, cheese, etc. Putting all this aside for a moment, let’s take a brief look at asthma.
A concise definition of asthma is given in Clinical Medicine, a 12-volume set of medical books that states:
“Bronchial asthma is a disease characterized by episodic and reversible narrowing of the smaller bronchi and bronchioles through a combination of smooth muscle constriction, edema, mucus formation, and cellular secretions…”*
This definition describes the clinical problems that are associated with asthma.
"There is a muscular constriction of the smaller bronchial tubes with mucus secretion and tissue swelling that causes the difficult breathing of the victim of asthma. Actually, the lungs become filled with air, as it is relatively easy to breathe in, but it is difficult to exhale. The unfortunate victim gasps for a quick breath and then pushes very hard to expel the air with a long, wheezy exhalation. The agony of a child, who does not understand the problem, is really dreadful to observe. Panic, anxiety, and fear are mirrored in the face of a child caught in the grasp of an acute asthmatic episode. Due to the lungs being filled with air and the difficulty exhaling, the asthmatic child actually develops a chest as deep as it is wide. This is called the barrel chest of the young asthmatic."
Now notice in the above quoted definition that muscular constriction and increased mucus flow are involved in asthma. Both of these problems can be caused by a nerve reaction. Muscles constrict by the action of nerve impulses and increases in mucus flow can also come from nerve irritation. This is the reason that chiropractic care comes into the picture. Chiropractors look to the areas of the spine where nerve interference can lead to bronchial constriction and hypersensitivity to the mucus membranes. The body is hypersensitive to things that do not bother other people: food allergies, allergies to dust, ragweed, etc….all fall into this category.
By adjusting the spine to eliminate nerve interference, chiropractic has shown positive results in the care of asthma.
Most people have heard the statement given by medical doctors: “perhaps the child will outgrow it.” Yes, perhaps they will, if the spine changes enough during growth or through the jolts and jars of childhood activity, then the nerve pressure may be released and the child seemingly “outgrows” the problem.
But why wait? Why not have the child’s spine checked and adjusted, if needed? Although every child's condition and response will be different, many asthmatic children (along with adults) have been known to spontaneously, within a matter of minutes, snap out of an asthmatic attack after a chiropractic adjustment. Asthmatic children generally need to be under regular chiropractic care to effect correction. Once the spine is stabilized, a wellness program of visits to the chiropractor is usually sufficient. Certainly, avoiding irritant inhalants and aggravating food substances is advisable. But more than that, chiropractic care reduces the hypersensitivity and muscular irritability that are the root of childhood asthma.
As to the hereditary causes of asthma, most certainly chiropractors recognize that asthma does run in families. One possible reason for this tendency is that the nerves that go to the bronchial tubes are on the periphery of the nerves that emit from the spine, and thus they are the first to be irritated by vertebral misalignments.
There are numerous possibilities to explain the exact mechanisms of why chiropractic spinal adjustments helps asthma, and more research certainly needs to be done, but why wait? Why let doubt interfere with helping your child?
Millions of people have experienced help through chiropractic care for many so-called organic, allergic and hereditary conditions. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Take your family to a chiropractor, try chiropractic care and see for yourself the results of our drugless, bloodless method of health care.
Certainly drug therapy affords relief to the sufferer of asthma. But the prolonged use of the drugs certainly has its hazards. It makes good sense to give natural methods a wholehearted try, and remember, you cannot say,” We’ve tried everything” unless you’ve included chiropractic care.
