PowerBreathe and Cell food

I am having real problems with chronic coughs and wheezing and some breathing difficulties. After ruling out heart failure (I had swollen ankles as well), the doc suggested asthma and has been testing various inhalers on me. I find they make a minimal difference. During one incident I saw an out of hours GP at the local hospital with breathing difficulties. She gave me a nebuliser which immediately made me worse and I was taken to A&E and given steroids, which worked a treat. The GP thought this meant it wasn’t asthma, the A&E doc disagreed.

Subsequently I had a spirometary test with readings before and after a nebuliser and the post-nebuliser results were again worse. The nurse considered OCPD but said her hunch was asthma. A GP I saw recently whilst in rehab said he thought it was neither asthma nor OCPD, but wasn’t sure what to suggest.

Anyway, while I am waiting to get to the bottom of it i have been reading quite widely and come across PowerBreathe and “Cellfood” concentrate which are reported to improve lung function. Is this just sales patter or is there any truth in it? Has anyone got any views or experience on either before I consider splashing out?

Thanks in advance!

Many thanks in advance.

[angievere]

PowerBreathe has come up before - put 'powerbreathe' in Search keywords box and you will get previous posts. I brought one about 2 yrs ago and son used it for a while but there were no real benefits. I asked our consultant and his view was 'won't do any good, won't do any harm'.

I'd never heard of Cellfood - I googled it and it doesnt look too hopeful! If it was that good we would all be taking it. There is a post on it (2007).

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Thanks Angievere,

I was using the wrong search box - the one at the top of the page rather than the one to the left, which is why I got no results. Based on what I have read I think I will talk to my GP before buying either of these; neither seem to have a great reputation asthma wise. Unless anyone else has better experiences?

[yaf_user681_12988]

Powerbreathe

Hi pward33

Purchased one of these last year after a bad boute of chest infection and Asthmas flare ups, sadly it is now sitting in a draw unused. Tried it few times with no change or improvements

Joules

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Cheers Joules,

Shame it didn't work; hope you're improved now!

ThinK I will give this up as a bad job; thought it was too good to be true but I was getting to the point I would try anything!

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PowerBreathe no cell food

On success with Powerbreathe I reckon the following from a specialist is good guidance

“When you are comfortable with that full five minute session, then increase your work load by about 5 cm H2O, and start again to build up to a comfortable five minute exercise time. Note, if initially your muscles are very weak, you may lower your inspiratory load about 10 to 20 cm H2O, as well as reducing your work time to only a minute or so. In this case, also gradually increase your work load as well as your exercise time as your strength and exercise fatigue improves.

When should you stop your IMT (aka Powerbreathe) program? Ideally, you should again have your Maximum Inspiratory Pressure measured. If you are able to achieve a MIP of 80 to 90 cm H2O pressure you have probably achieved your therapeutic goal and will no longer benefit from further IMT. Otherwise, if you can exercise for about ten minutes with an inspiratory work load of 40 cm H2O you will probably have reached your training goal.” (see sierrabiotech.com/bt_copd_i... )

To monitor suction pressure with Powerbreathe and to find your maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP), simply make a 2mm hole in the side of the PVC mouthpieceof the Powerbreathe or some other similar device to receive the top end of a suitable length of 2mm tubing as used in infusion sets to be bought very cheaply at a pharmacist/chemist. Then see how far you can draw up colored water from a bottle. Monitoring Powerbreathe in this way gave me a much better incentive. I personally think that pressure monitoring is the key to success. With a bit of tinkering about you can do IMT without a professional gadget as follows:

To make the choke or resistor to inhale through, roll up a 6cm x 2cm piece of PE blister foil as used in aroFOL padded envelopes. After popping some of the blisters to get the right degree of resistance, breathe through the roll in the 2cm length direction and you will find you can vary the amount of resistance by squeezing radially. This roll of strip is secured on the one end of the monitoring tube so that IMT training is quite possible with some practice. RF.