Root Cause Approach to Asthma: Address Asthma for Good!

Were you the kid who couldn’t keep up in the game of kickball because your asthma kicked in? Not only was it annoying, but it can be embarrassing and limiting for kids. Maybe you didn’t experience it, but now your child is and you feel helpless. You want them to be able to run around all day and have fun without being triggered by viruses, environmental exposures, or exercise.

I’m here to help you out. Today I’m covering the things you should consider to get to the root cause of asthma.

Struggling with asthma can be exhausting, annoying, and even scary when you experience shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, and/or excess mucus production. But the good news is that there are things you can do to support the body, get to the root cause and not live in fear or dependence on nebulizers and inhalers.

What is Asthma?

Asthma is a condition where your airways swell, narrow in, and become inflamed. Many people develop this at a younger age, but even adults can develop it at an older age.

Common Asthma symptoms:

• difficulty breathing

• coughing uncontrollably

• wheezing

• feeling your chest tighten

• feeling like you can’t inhale enough air to breathe

What Causes Asthma?

We’ve seen an increase in cases over the past decade, with asthma impacting over 25 million Americans. So what’s causing this increase in cases? We’re finding several things can trigger asthma nowadays.

Triggers of Asthma

• environmental irritants and toxins

• genetic predisposition

• pollution

• air quality (especially in the case of wildfires)

• increases in food sensitivities and allergies (histamine issues)

• gut problems

• increasing use of antibiotics & medications

• food additives

• food dyes

To be honest, there is no magic natural remedy for asthma. The most important thing you can do to eradicate asthma in the long run is get to the root of the symptoms. You actually can find relief when you deal with it from the root!

Getting to the ROOT causes of Asthma

Finding the underlying or root cause of asthma means you first have to figure out what offenders are contributing to the inflammation and narrowing of the airways.

Addressing Poor Gut Health

My favorite natural ways to help asthma symptoms is by healing the gut! The majority of the immune system is located in the gut, so it’s vital that you are prioritizing gut health to keep your immune system and inflammation in check. When you do this, you’ll see the severity of asthma symptoms lighten up. In order to heal the gut, you have to, find what’s damaging your gut. This could be food sensitivities, toxins, pathogens, antibiotic use, stress and more.

Food Sensitivities: Eating a certain food could contribute to your asthma or even enhance its severity. For example, often babies are fed little snacks to keep them happy, like cheerios, and are given conventional cows milk multiple times a day. Since many babies and people, in general, have a sensitivity to dairy and gluten, it wouldn’t be surprising to find out your little one’s body is reacting to these foods as well. This could put their immune system into overdrive and add to their inflammatory load, causing systemic inflammation and exacerbating allergies and asthma.

Toxins: Environmental toxins are everywhere nowadays. They are on childrens’ clothes, in our household products, in our air, and even in our food and water sources! Toxic overload can wreak havoc on the gut barrier and gut microbiome.

Vaginal Delivery vs C-Section: Did you know that even the way you (or the way your child) was brought into this world could affect the risk of asthma and allergies? When you give birth vaginally, some of your gut microbiota transfers to your little one and helps build their immune system from the start. However, c-section babies lack specific beneficial bacteria, making their immune systems a bit weaker. Since they may not have a healthy natural microflora, they are more prone to higher levels of inflammation throughout the body because their immune system may not be able to appropriately respond to “foreign invaders” (aka certain foods or toxins).

Things to Consider with Asthma

• Heal the gut. Read my previous blog on the 5R protocol to heal the gut naturally to overcome a plethora of symptoms.

• Get a food sensitivity test. This way, you know exactly what foods to avoid to help the severity of your asthma while you focus on healing your gut.

• Invest in a high-quality air purification system for your home or child’s room. Better air quality means healthier lungs.

• Rebalance your nutrients. Simple testing can let you know what vitamins and minerals you are lacking. Supplementing and changing up your diet can have a significant impact on your asthmatic symptoms. Even taking magnesium can be great for relieving muscle spasms, including the muscles that surrounding the airways!

• Focus on reducing inflammation with a highly anti-inflammatory diet. Include antioxidants and omega-3 oils, which are found in fish and flaxseeds.

• Check for histamine intolerances. Histamine intolerance could even be the culprit to asthma. If you find out you have histamine intolerance, reducing high histamine-containing foods can be a natural way to help asthma.

• Consider carpet or other environmental triggers in your home like pesticides, chemicals, or even pets and pet fur.

• Rule out mold toxicity.

• Consider doing allergy testing, specifically IgE testing for environmental and food allergens.

• Sometimes providers will even prescribe nebulizer glutathione in saline (be careful, as this must be prescribed and overseen by a provider because it can cause bronchospasm in some patients).

Address your Asthma Naturally with a Functional Medicine Provider

If you are looking for a home remedy for asthma wheezing or natural asthma remedies to get rid of these annoying and scary symptoms, check out my signature program, Get Your Gut Right!

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