I get to go a weekly meeting with my allergy colleagues. We dial in or watch on zoom; some go in person to listen to the speaker present his or her special topic. Though it used to only be in person ~40 miles away or by phone, the pandemic brought it to Zoom.
Usually a professor or allergy ‘fellow’ (a doctor still in specialty training), though occasionally a nurse or technician, will present a talk with slideshow about an ongoing ‘hot topic’.
Not only are talks interesting for me, it’s a nice ‘anchor’ on Tuesday morning– and gets me out of bed early (remember I’m “retired” now, so no boss, no schedule, and no commitments).
I love it when there’s basic science – though this is rare. Most presentations are about new drugs – indications and side effects.
While I don’t have much to add to talks focused on drugs, I try to contribute.
(It ‘counts’ to my corpus that I’m willing[1] to engage- with an outside world- instead of just living in my cocoon world.
Though honestly, I rarely share my inner insights, until now that is, although on the CME exit questionnaire – when they ask about future topics. I have suggested psycho-neuro-immunology, about microbiome or induction of HLA I and II.It seems by and large they’re improving. (Could be my attitude.)
(HLA upregulation from a baseline state activates, as in makes sticky and avid, endothelial and dendritic cells- more fertile for inflammation. By inducing more receptors, the surface body is at the ready -and waiting for any given specific (repeat) insult.)
The moderator does a good job of finding speakers from all over. It’s heartening to see disciplines coming together- like dermatology, pulmonary, and GI for example. They will share their approach to a common problem both sets of clinicians might see in practice- the overlaps.
There are several versions of summits combining disciplines in medicine to share and create new perspectives- by focusing on genomics and medications they aren’t focusing on health. Maybe someday they’ll get on track- and focus on integrity.
(Inshallah, everything will work out.)
*****
This week’s presentation was on asthma – the condition of obstructive breathlessness -when one is not able to, in this case, exhale. This might be due to tightening or a narrowing in the airway ~from constriction. Sometimes the vocal chords seize up (vrom overstimulation).
Circumferential narrowing can develop anywhere between the top of respiratory alveoli and bottom of bronchioles- which have muscles lining the airway, though the larynx is a version of gatekeeper.
Manifestations might include squeaking as airways ‘pop’ open when exhalation has a back pressure, wheezing- the column of air is squeezed, and/or coughing, dry coughing in particular- have a special sound often short and sharp. There may be uncanny quietness.
“Asthma” slows down our expressions of breath phonation. Obstruction in the contiguous moving tidal air column, as exhaled breath passes the obstruction creates prolongation.
With asthma, the obstruction is one way – not fixed. Breathing in is “fine” (contrary to when you’ve vocal chord dysfunction).
Asthma keep words longer in your throat. This might happen after using them a little too much.
Even though the reduction in flow might not be objectively severe, the suddenness can bring a feeling of pan-ic[2]– especially if it’s a new sensation.
When your body “doesn’t feel right”- your focus is then on your body – not the surrounding outside world.
*****
When I first had a sensation of breathlessness, it was getting the wind knocked out of me- from receiving a ‘bump’ to the solar plexus so strong that I couldn’t breath (maybe a punch). This had happened a few times. time to time (~ probably wrestling or roughhousing with a sibling).
Getting the wind knocked out, is always great for a moment of dr-ama and to stop action.
When breathing reboots, after what seems like forever, but is really barely a few seconds of diaphragmatic stunning, there is a huge sense of ‘relief’- like the first breath of birth.
When breath is restored- one has an experience of hormonal outpouring.
But still the experience leaves an impression – I don’t want to do that [3]again; so it’s aversive training to avoid that activity! At least that is how I interpreted it at the time.
***
For asthma though, it’s a breathlessness that builds, peaks, and can last hours (if not days) and is re-current.
Inquire closely and a patient will suggest a history of ongoing emotional pressures –and words being held back or silenced.
Perhaps a family is overwhelmed in parental dr-ama (Dr. Ama) . Their Adversity Life Scores are a bit high from stresses and strains. Then a child is discouraged from sharing their conflicts (which might objectively – to an adult, seem ~trivial- about hurt feelings, instead of “important” things.)
Soma though, does not care, and will get what it needs for that attention, even if it makes life more challenging.
******
Asthma is considered more severe if symptoms disturb one’s sleep.
Nightmares can do that and so can restless legs – or any number of conditions. But any con-dition, (a thing or entity that gets talked about with others), becomes more ‘real’ when you address directly.
The symptom is only a surrogate – as a means to an end -and is necessary, for you, for now. (I feel like I get at best, a few hours of sleep a night – even though I am in bed ~9-10 hours! It’s fine; I meditate supine or recumbent.)
In the sixties and seventies, the major over-the-counter treatment was Primatene – (‘First’ ‘teen’- might be a subconscious interpretation. In the mid 1950s, when Primatene came on the market, most people with money to buy it, went to school and learned Latin – and with that grammatical subtlety exploitable by marketing. (Here’s where they might want to chip in for a language department.)
Primatene was an inhaled spritzer of racemic epinephrine (AKA adrenaline). It opens up the airway and helps you breathe better.
If you went to an ER or called a doctor, you’d commonly receive a shot of adrenaline causing jitteriness – tremors and feelings of spacey high. Leaving you feeling humbled and disconnected. (Otherwise, sensations also commonly associated with anxiety and hyperventilation.)
If symptoms continued, treatments, yes, now there would be “treatments” and multiple, might then ‘graduate’ to taking daily pills (initially theophylline) or using a nebulizer. Some relatives of theophylline are caffeine (tea or coffee) and theobromine – an alkaloid in chocolates. Either way, an end result is to get sped up- and flood with ~dopamine and like chemicals. Feeling light and lifted, comes from your heart and lungs- when they are open and ventilating.
The nebulizer, filled with beta agonist (like albuterol) is a machine that makes visible cooling steam (such as might come off a sublimating glacier or snowscape) and bubbly whirring noise as the device sonicates its concocted mixture. Usually a combination of normal saline squeezed out of it’s thick plastic pink pod snapped off a sheet, and the medicine – in it’s clear plastic pods. Feels like space age because it is.
The nebulization process creates a good ten to fifteen minute time out- and white noise in the meantime. This is always helpful when anxieties build. (Unfortunately benefits balance out with the addition of beta agonist – drugs the stimulate relaxation- still stimulate and add to anxiety.)
The last two, pills and the neb treatment “require” mom to remind the child it is “time”. The doctor stresses, “it’s preventative”, and fearing repeat urgent evaluations, mom is motivated. This is an opportunity for mom to demonstrate “caring” to the recipient (needing reassurance).
Naturally mom is the one designated by doctor to execute such care.
Besides, Dad’s too busy or at work, to tend his child’s needs (lest his boss think he isn’t “serious”-when he’s hoping for a promotion, or so he keeps telling her).
This further guarantees her efforts and involvement with said obstructed individual.
(Soma will do anything to get her fair share of mom’s attentions – especially compared to another sibling- she ‘uses’ Psych as tool).
And mom’s blamed- or can feel that way, when patient doesn’t improve- despite her bet e(f)-forts[4]. She wants to get back to her other interests and children.
She goes back to the doctor and needs a different treatment- insists on a better one.
Steroids come next – highly complex end-products of adrenal cortex – products of protein and lipid syntheses. Receiving a shot of corticosteroid shuts down the adrenals for ~ a year.
*
Providing and asthma action plan was my standard practice. This is a written response plan to given symptom with graded interventions designated by “green”, “yellow”, and “red” zones.
The desire was for them to be empowered; use their symptoms as tools – to be proactive; taking a time out; Adding white noise; Being quiet with mom. I thought of the last couple now.
If one has a chronic “challenge” – be it asthma, IBS, migraine or other neurologic or connective tissue dis-order, write out a specific scenario from start to finish. Include noticing person, places, and things – with roles defined- where your body ends up lying or sitting alone in a room. Each detail is a key to what your soma is trying to get you to change- in many cases, wants more of – without the dr-ama). give it some time for your picture to unravel. Look for themes.
[Depending on how a diagnosis is handled, if spoken in front of the child (looking disarmingly like they don’t know what’s going on- when in fact they’re absorbing EVERY word) creates fixed beliefs in their mind – scaffolds of truth. (Recall they understand information as literal – to them symbols and sounds of words still have meaning).
They don’t understand that adults, even those trying their best to help one another, can be wrong- even those mom really trusts- like the doctor.
Children believe what doctor says is ‘fact’- because mom brought them to their authority figure. They assume the “doctor” knows better than her – because she told them so -and her physiology settles down the minute she’s in the room with him/her- which you recall, the child is intimately aware of from their sojourn in utero.
One such subconscious belief formed might be –(put into my words):
“Mom controls my ease of breathing”- “if she stops helping me, what will happen- will I asphyxiatesuffocate?”
Eventually comes the day mom is indisposed, and she either lets the child make a decision, to take care of it for themselves – or finds someone else to help. Or they go without. Either way they might gain initiative- to reach out and advocate for themselves.
Or another, “Mom’s efforts are necessary for my health”.
Instead of knowing the body heals by itself – with time, though some ailments – if severe, need outside help (for reassurance its OK to heal-but this is the whole point of having them!)
Mom’s attentions help by loving them even when they’re s’ick [5]– and otherwise a little unlovable. Mom supports by her actions, which prove to soma she still cares.
“If I miss treatments, something bad might happen”, (it won’t).
You probably don’t need them any more, once you start “forgetting”. The body is like that- take her ‘forgetting’ as cues – you don’t need it anymore.
(No one I know of wonders why stimulants might be a treatment – doing my mystic ‘channeling’ thing, I get, “endogenous systems already overwhelmed”; ‘she’, as in soma self, can’t “get it up anymore”, (without a equally deep drop later). Then she’ll need “help” from an ad-ult being (a person closer to their ultimate), outside of her. Reassures she still needs them and they are there.)
You might say, her “re-silience” is off.https://drjenwyman-clemons.com/2023/04/13/re-silience-resilience/ Maybe she’s been bumped off her windowsill, and is licking wounds.
*****
Because asthma was primarily believed to be due to narrowing of airways from autonomic neuroplexus-mediated muscle instability, medulla, our brainstem, gets information that ‘something’s up and needed’.
She, alone – as in vagal nerve bodies, can’t discern what – but she’ll make more pathways to become efficient. Muscular tightening is tension.
Tension suggests a somatic response is due to adverse stimuli – that is a thing triggered from ‘outside’.
No doctor I know will disagree – anxious kids come from an anxious home. Insert any adjective though – would also be accurate (and also is likely adjective of the sign on your fourth or eight house astrologic cusp).
Styles of behavior hone temperaments-and our set of responses. Maintaining a temperament from a milieu of hormones reflects it’s chronic ‘bias’.
***
Now asthma is thought of as versions of inflammation – which is also accurate, but the ‘roots’ are a “mystery”. (At least no doctor I know so far has interest in discussing them with me, let alone patients- from any molecular perspective.)
What is it about TNF that gets the whole process going? Sure it’s responding to intrusions- we’ve tested for and found them getting triggered by viruses, bacteria, etc. Why not the hapten chemicals – that bind to proteins – known to become antigenic as a conjugate?
I’m guessing they’ll find a whole new library of TNF and similar ‘receptors’, were they to look for them.
But why exactly? This might be discussed. How could the body end up with IgE, without switching to IgGs at first? When and why would it ‘suddenly’ think a common natural world substance were ‘more like a worm or parasite’ – historically what IgE ‘attacks’. Why does TGF-beta need to thicken an airway-what is it trying to wall against?
Meanwhile doctors keep looking for answers in ancestral genes that have never lived in a chemical, technologic, and overfed world.
(Lol, if they only accepted that DNA transcription and translation are mediator dependent- examples of energetic (and chemical) resonance trying to ‘digest’ and then return to a version of homeostasis and equilibrium, they might instead inventory the environmental “diet”- reflection of said resonance.)
When conditions are ripe, meaning lots of substrate such as ribonucleotides and amino acids) and high signal (usually short lengths of amino acids- but can be carbohydrates and lipid), the body responds by translating DNA into RNA into protein. The more the merrier. Bigger proteins are favored under conditions of high substrate. Cells ramp up smooth ER and Golgi too.
Usually a mutant form’s energy is “good enough” for the template -bouncing in an ~ energetically insulated sea of cytoplasmic and rough endoplasmic lipid-lined spaces possibilities guided by Gibbs free energy- starts out with lots; ends with less (for the protea to digest then).
In new proteins, mutations, energetically ~equivalent, are common and normally ~ignored; rarely do they significantly affect translation (protein making) or function.
Whichever form of gene bringing more functional ‘relief’ and ‘balance’, from soma’s view (not the world’s necessarily), will be favored.
For this reason, studying individual mutations is not helpful – they are a resonance issue; not specific at all; though length of telomeres’ in a sample might be indicative of wear and tear – in that moment. Check again, eight years later – when we’ve supposedly ‘replaced’ all our cells. Then we’ll understand more of what shortens a lifespan in a lineage. (Even that is a mirage.)
As predicted, because of all the conditioning from over-naming, asthma’s prevalence steadily increases despite all the new treatments and genomic’s “predictions[6]”. (But the $$$$ keep flowing.)
Asthma is a subconscious cry for a need, not want – the soma’s not getting enough love, air, consumption, or elimination- or fears it isn’t. The treatment seems to relieve it’s symptoms (by seeing the doctor), even if briefly.
With nebulizer treatments, moms get a time out too- with white noise at least, while holding child ‘sucking’ on the mouthpiece.
*****
Doctors, using insurers[7], make access to treatments into a have/ not-have issue. Kids get attention, and a form of status and special treatment, for their inhalers at school. (It used to be Nike’s, now it’s fashionable to have an inhaler or epi pen – or other form of built-in crutch.)
By making treatments tantamount to extortion (‘if you want status – you need to do this’), as an organization “doctors”, MDs especially, do not serve the common good (at least until now).
What they offer are versions of placebo. The doctor, like magician, uses his voice and all he’s learned (trust me, he believes it too!) to ‘sell’ his given treatment. Usually one he has any particular insight into – from his or her experience, and from what he’s been told.
Review historically, all substances used in the name or notion of “healing” came up because some guy (at least the one given credit) dreamed it might heal and it did. Oh wait, it was the one who said out loud, “Which one”, their title is homophone. (“witch[8]”). We know who does the co-opting.
Treatments work by the power of suggestion and longstanding cultural expectations. In the USA, treatments are particularly expensive- for now anyway.
Because it’s the environment messing with them, and their responses serving to protect from further dis-integrity, treating symptoms out of context makes no real progress towards resolution -and fosters co-dependency.
Our environments, as in diet of food, speech, and media – as well as being ‘heard’- with (or without) kindness[9]– reflect our lot of self].
***
I get panic attacks every so often experienced as breathlessness and palpitations with a sense of doom.
While I don’t make a big deal about them, so no one keeps naming, they have their effects (to make me lie quietly on the floor and/or do nadi-shodanan, cool off with cool water, and take layers off). Each ‘at-tack’ humbling- I ‘get’ to stop what I’m doing and focus- on me, for the moment.
I had one this morning, after my ballet class. This time I inhaled on the right, thinking the “a,b,c’s” as a prayer, while I exhaled freely on the left, and vice-a-versa. [10] They stopped after two rounds.
The first time I had a pan-ic attack, we, neither my mother or I knew what to do (I was ~7). She had to (got to) call her mother (my grandmother) for advice.
That time, I was locked out of the house- and on our deck (probably after some haranguing with my mother, per usual-me talk too much? Can you imagine?! ). It was dusk and she’d told us, my sister- then ~4, and I, about the “puma” nearby. (She’d seen or heard of a scat finding –no doubt from a “reliable source”).
While I paced back and forth on the deck, first it was OK, (I love being outside; I’m an explorer at heart) but after a while I got worked up.
In my mind’s eye could see him, the big cat, nearby nestling in a tree, waiting for the likes of me – sweet smelling morsel – currently making noise and attracting attention to pounce down upon.
I grew frightened and upset- probably yelled. I began pounding on the door. She ignored me.
After I got all worked up- as in agitated and upset, I started getting short of breath and wheezing.
When I (finally) quieted down, she let me in again.
(No doubt) I was dramatically gasping, in stridor actually. (Wheezing can also occur when the vocal chords close except to allow only a small narrow diamond shaped noodle, instead of tube, of air to pass through. Instead of wide open when one speaks or yells, the otherwise clamped shut.)
My distress must have been obvious – both mother and sister registered concern;
She called her mother who suggested making a steam tent. (Now I got attention from 2 ad-ults- and probably grandfather as well!).
For the next 20 minutes or so, I sat with the plastic shower curtain draped over my head and elevated to catch steam off a kettle on the stove. Taking sips of breaths, the sensation of tightening loosed, and I could breathe again.
During that time I had her ~undivided attention even if she was ~nonchalant, she flitted, maybe even have held the drape so it caught steam more efficiently.
That was one of the first times I felt a thrill (like dopamine) from danger and from the power of my imagination- on me- and the world around me.
Blessings and have a
[1] Being willing, doesn’t mean surrender – it’s actually choosing to do a thing. No longer do I say I’m willing, if I really don’t want to. No more surrendering in order to people please; I used to always say “yes”, when directly asked-unless it is an elder in my collective – and I want to treat them like the ‘king’ or ‘queen’, they are.
[2] (pan = all, ic(k)!). To one’s corpus, there’s all around ick! (“pan” means all around) If a usual event is disrupted, a corpus experiences momentary confusion – when an alternative solution is required – leading both to opportunity for ~chaos, as well as ingenuity. Say the exit is blocked getting out of the stadium (and a subset of regular patron’s idea for exiting, becomes con-fused- their subsequent work around – affects the rest- in some way, eventually.)
[3] From soma’s view, she is ruthless – and will get you to stop doing “x”. She uses any named scapegoats (“asthma”, “food poisoning”, “migraine”; no-thing is too off-the-wall (obscure). Other than to force the corpus to shift gears and stop interacting in a specific way, with specific people or places. The symptom isn’t the scapegoat – just a ‘tool’ soma uses.
Don’t forget, amongst your personal collective, any given behavior is ~tip of the iceberg for everyone’s emotions lurking subconsciously -under their surface –just being expressed by those most susceptible to suggestion.
When something about a context is deeply unpalatable –she’d rather say “no” to all of it.
Perhaps you can reintroduce each element one-by-one in from an original scenario, until something feels a bit triggering – response is re-evoked, but you could too, always ask, your soma for an “idea”, “picture”, or “image”- for keys to understanding.
Any way you choose to link- is perfect for you. But it is nice to your body, to ask her (remember your body is a vessel- she cannot speak for herself- unlike brain as she is mesodermal) what do you want to do – with your hand on your heart. ; If you listen, she’ll not be silent at all- but she can be trained to get your attention.
(So laugh it off when you get an owie!…”you were meant to”…)
[4] E(f)-fort – to be out of one’s fortress – strength; to work to do or make a thing, From our audience of self, might seem ~obligatory, rather than ‘fun’. (6th house stuff, astrologically).
[5] S’ick self being = ick. In Latin ‘se- before the root is reflexive means it’s about self.
[6] Don’t forget, as molecules in any given chemical equation, such as for tRNA to load the ribosome each component is dependent on the principle of equilibrium –between components and formed (transformed) products. Equilibrium is the state which we (energetically) are (always) seeking to return to after a perturbation.
Perturbations happen when there is a change in any component- by addition or subtraction.
[7] No one entity can insure health, and yet we try, using insurers- corporations who you pay with your money (premiums), to gamble on your health- in the event your actions are so consistently insensitive to the bodies needs, you get s’ick, (s(e) or self)-“ick”) eventually. Being s’ick, we end up both losing (and gaining) – who wants to be around ‘incubus’(?!) (Answer- those who love and care for us.)
[8] “witches” as a word, with the way its used, is incorrect – the tau is in the middle, not the end. Probably that’s the source of confusion and mi-se-ry. She, as the ‘scary hag who knows too much’, doesn’t create reality – but gives space for possibility by her suggestions and focus. For ‘creators’ those who change reality, in response to their, “I want this”, look to the sorcerers; ‘til now, would be the guys.
[9] kindness is kin (d) ness – how (ness) we are kin, as in like our ‘family’; a sense shared when there’s opportunity (“D” , or Dalet, is the gate which must be opened, to be received. Because D looks a little bit like Mem, only rounded, when dalet “D” swings open- Mem’s entity ם emerges- grounded finally.
[10] The was a story in the newspaper media (a good one and redeeming) about a child who needed to pray to Him. Being 4, she knew her A,B,C’s but no prayers. so she recited them. To me this is brilliant.
I don’t like to wish for things to change – rather to unfold with ease. So when I’m in a space without ease or am in a labyrinth of dis-ease, I’d rather let the universe guide me- to higher ground.
The A,B,C’s – calls on the entire Kabbalah of Holy entities! What more help do you need than them!!!
