Natural Remedies for COPD

If my breathing has been really bad for a while, H2O2 helped sometimes. But it seems that whatever "cleaning" effect it has, it had no more beneficial effects after the lungs were cleaned with it. Perhaps people who are frequently breathing dirty environments, pollution, smoke, or regularly getting lung infections can benefit from regular use of H2O2.

Otherwise a few days in a row for cleaning out the lungs every few weeks or months might be good enough for some in good, clean, safe, healthy environments.

People with air filters, AC, & relatively clean air around them may not see any improvement from regular H2O2 treatments.

You may not need to mix H2O2 with distilled water. Pour a teaspoon of H2O2 in a small glass of your tap water. If it doesn't bubble or foam like crazy, or only bubbles a little bit, there's not much bad in it to react to, so you can mix it with ordinary tap water.

I've read coffee and caffeine may be bad for COPD. It turns out it is only bad for some of the meds you may be taking.

My COPD was so bad that I couldn't walk across the room or go to the bathroom without desperately gasping for air. Getting laid off because of breathing problems, losing my health insurance, & being on a tight budget, I gave up coffee because I could no longer afford it, and they said it was bad for me.

After some research I had discovered that caffeine is very similar chemically to some meds used to treat COPD. I traced my steps back to the last time I could walk across a room without gasping for air. It was before I ran out of coffee and gave it up!

I desperately went to my cabinet and got out some caffeine tablets I had from the days of my night-shift work, and took a tablet. These were the bigger strong ones. I used to only use a half a tablet for night-work because they were so strong. But for this experiment I took a whole one.

A whole one was too much. Got the shakes, and an uneasy stomach. Breathing only improved slightly during the first hour. During the second hour, breathing was remarkably better. After the second hour I was breathing better than I had in months!

The speedy/hyper effects of the caffeine had diminished considerably after a couple hours, but the breathing was still improving. I continued to breathe much better for 5 hours after taking the caffeine, before I noticed my breathing was starting to get slightly worse again.

I continued experimenting with different doses at different times to see what worked best. Rather than buy more coffee, I continued on using the caffeine "stay awake" tablets to formulate an accurate dosage/treatment scheme.

This is what works for me these days. I take a normal cup of coffee in the morning with a small caffeine tablet. The tablets are about half the size of the original ones, so are much weaker. It turns out more is NOT better. So if you have one of those special or exotic coffee makers that deliver a very strong caffeinated beverage, you might want to skip the tablets entirely.

Caffeine is a drug and a stimulant. If you have too much it will de-sensitze you to it, causing you to need more with less of the beneficial effect. Also too much will make you hyper or nervous so you'll burn more oxygen and get an upset stomach. So be sensible. Use only what you need, using too much will only make things worse.

I usually don't need any more caffeine for at least 5 hours. At that time, around lunch time or hours after, another ordinary cup of coffee is enough. But if my breathing has gotten considerably worse, I may take only 1/2 of one of those small caffeine tablets with the coffee. Again, I must stress, if you are having a strong coffee or strong caffeinated beverage you may skip the tablet.

AVOID Red Bull or other caffeinated beverages and energy drinks that may have other stuff in them you don't want or may be bad for you and your other treatments!

Just before, during, or after dinner time (depending on my breathing) I may have another cup of coffee. Many days I can skip it because I'm still breathing good enough. Other days if it has gotten real bad, I'll take another half a caffeine tablet with the coffee.

Again, I must stress, more or too much is NOT better. Take only the amount of caffeine you need to breath a little better. Taking too much will de-sensitize you to it, and the treatment won't work or work well anymore. Don't be impatient. You may notice only a slight improvement after 20-60 minutes of taking caffeine. The significant improvement will happen after the first hour, and continue for many hours.

2-4 hours before bedtime I might have another cup of coffee if my breathing is getting bad again. That way the speedy effects are almost worn off by bedtime so I can sleep well. However if my breathing is so bad that I can't get ready for bed or sleep safely, I'll also take a half a caffeine tablet with the coffee, and decide to stay up a few hours later until my breathing is better.

I find usually if I had a caffeine tablet or a half of one with my coffee, the next time or the next 2 times I do not need a caffeine tablet with my coffee, or can go longer without coffee. The tablets I'm using now only have about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. So a cup with a tablet is like having 2 coffees. A cup with a half a tablet is like having a large coffee.

So I'm only having the equivalent of 4-6 regular ordinary cups of coffee a day in caffeine, and unlike the coffee guzzlers at work or at most jobs, it's spread out through the whole day, not just squeezed into an 8 hour work shift.

Check with your doctor to make sure it's safe to drink coffee with the meds you're taking. However, if you're having very strong coffee, or taking caffeine tablets, you might want to stop taking the other meds for that day anyway & see how things go.

Caffeine can conflict with other meds... especially meds that are stimulants that have ingredients in them that end in the letters "ene" or "ine", or steroids. They do not mix well with coffee.

So if caffeine is so similar to other COPD meds chemically why aren't doctors recommending it, or telling you to avoid it? Doctors and drug companies won't make much money if they tell you ordinary cheap coffee is almost the same thing as the meds.

I've recently changed my coffee recipe for even better results. A slightly weaker coffee with a little chocolate, sugar, and milk is even better. They say avoid sugar because it burns O2. BS! Any energy you burn will require O2. Sugar is the quickest was to ingest energy without spending a lot of resources & O2 digesting and processing it. So unless you're already overweight, enjoy your sugar.

I use a weaker cup of instant coffee now. Only a single level teaspoon of cheap generic instant coffee in hot water. 2.5 teaspoons of sugar. 1 heaping teaspoon of Nesquick instant chocolate milk (also has a little caffeine & antioxidants in it), and 1 heaping teaspoon of dry milk. Don't worry if you're lactose intolerant, a teaspoon of low fat dry milk doesn't have enough lactose to bother most people. So you're getting a little protein, vitamin D, calcium, energy & other nutrients with every cup. It's also delicious.

The little bit of low fat dry milk won't generate extra mucus, or slimy spit. I've tried many different recipes over almost a year now. The chocolate instant coffee recipe seems to improve the breathing the best.

The second best was cinnamon (lots of antioxidant) instead of chocolate in the coffee. But I had to use 3 heaping teaspoons of sugar instead of 2.5 for the taste & energy boost I needed. Yum!

With the new chocolate recipe, on a good day, I only need a caffeine tablet with the coffee in the the morning and can avoid more tablets with the coffee for the rest of the day or until the evening. Some good days I may only have 2 cups!

But there are still occasionally bad days where I still need a half tablet with every cup (up to 6 cups a day) to get through a day even with the chocolate.

Grapefruit juice is another daily treatment I use. Again, it had chemicals similar to some meds you may be taking so check with your doctor first or discontinue the meds for the day to see how it works for you. It is safe to take grapefruit juice with caffeine though.

Grapefruit juice is also some pretty potent stuff, so more is not better, and too much can make things worse. Because I need to sleep at night, I usually take about 8 oz. of grapefruit juice after dinner or a couple hours before bedtime. That way I need very little or no caffeine to help me breathe & can sleep better.

Air conditioning! Humidity is the enemy for most of us.That's why it's better to take a bath than a shower too. Showers put too much humidity into the air.

Keep the air cool and dry. Humidity of 40% is ideal for COPD sufferers. Some people can't take it much drier than that, but others are fine down to 0%. Keep it cool. The molecules & oxygen in the air are closer together at cooler temperatures. So you're getting more O2 per breath when the air is cooler.

Blow up a balloon in the hot sun on a hot humid day. Then put the balloon in the fridge for an hour. See how much it shrank? There's just as much O2 in there as before but it's more concentrated so takes up less space. More O2 per breath!

Wear heavy sweatshirts, hoodies, and sweatpants & other warm stuff inside to keep warm, and crank up the AC. Keep it in the 60s F (16-21C) to breathe better. The cool dry are will also slow or stop the growth of mold & bacteria that can be growing in the walls, drains, under the toilet rim, litter box, & other places you can't see it. That stuff thrives on warm or humid damp air.

Don't let the air get stale and de-oxygenated though. Crack the windows open at least a couple times a day to refresh the air. Even in the freezing winter. Turn up the heat or sit in front of an electric heater while the air is being refreshed in winter. It won't take long to refresh the air a little so you can close them again.

Cooking consumes a lot of O2, expels CO, CO2, dirties up the air, and heats the place up, so it's the best time to crack open the kitchen window to let in fresh air during winters.

Can afford that? Keep a small safe room that is always air conditioned, air filtered, and regularly refreshed, to retreat to... like your bedroom. It's pretty cheap to keep 1 small room conditioned well to escape to. Put a TV, computer, and projects to do in there to pass the time with on bad breathing days.

Avoid fireplaces, wood stoves, campfires, and other open flames & fires. They're very, very, bad for COPD. I have to stay home for Christmas and Thanksgiving because family insists they must have logs burning on a fire even though I can't breathe. Ironically my Mom passed away with COPD, but they have forgotten she couldn't breathe near a wood fire either.

Don't like the nasty looks they give me when I start coughing up goo either, so I'm glad to stay home during the holidays anyway.

Air filters! Although your small 400-500 watt window AC has a filter in it that helps, it will only trap large particles or hair, & a few contaminants may condense and stick to the cold damp AC core to be drained to the outside (so yes, they will clean the air a little). Even if you can only afford a couple $40 walmart portable air filters for a small bedroom they do help a lot. H2O2 may not help much if you're already breathing relatively clean air most of the time or overnight when the dirt settles in the lungs the most.

The disposable filters inside can cost almost as much as the units, & may need to be replaced in 3 months. But there's ways around that. Open up the unit to get at the replaceable filters. Tape a thin, cheap, sheet of single ply generic toilet paper over the front of the paper filter assembly. The cheapest version of Scot toilet paper works best for me. Replace the paper every 1-2 months (if you have pets & kids around once a month). The replaceable filters in mine have lasted 19 months so far, and seems like I'll get them to last over 2 years.

I used to desperately gasp for air just walking across the room or going to the bathroom every day for months. With the caffeine, grapefruit juice, AC, & filters, I can get most of my household chores, cooking, and eating done almost every day good enough. I can walk 8 blocks to get groceries, & carry them home, taking a rest for a few minutes every block or so now.

I live on the second floor. I can go downstairs to check my mail every day without much problems now. No cure, but much better than before.

• MSM is made form DMSO, MSM taken with vit C build new cells in the body, should be taken every 12 hours to get even cell growth, add chicken collagen 2 for elastin, NAC, N-Acetyl Cysteine to help rebuild lungs.
• VIT C -1000 mg
• MSM -1000mg
• NAC -600mg
• chicken collagen 2, these items can be purchased from vitacost.com

chicken collagen 2 sold as hyaluronic acid item #nsi 3002115 you may also consider taking magnesium up to 1000mg per day, magnesium is very important most people are deficient, but too much can make you run for a bathroom,

The colloidal silver is good, it kills pathogens.

1) Get a baseline spirometry test done by an MD,

2) have a CT-scan,

3) have a sputum culture and sensitivity testing for possible pathogens,

4) items #3 and #4 help to rule out more serious complications like bronchiectasis and colonized pseudomonas aeruganosa, which is nearly impossible to eradicate with antibiotics,

5) acetyl L-carnitine 1000 mg. 3x/day has been proven to loosen mucous secretions and helps to promote their elimination (an amino acid available in health food stores).

6) avoid 2nd hand tobacco smoke, campfire smoke and all other lung irritants.

7) Even the most serious infections may be helped by intermittent prescribed nebulized antibiotics (tobramycin and colistin) when necessary. 8) MSM is safe to use in fairly high daily dosages (start with 1 tsp. 3x/day and gradually increase to 1 tbsp 3x/day.

9) Unfortunately, very little research has been done in humans with DMSO for COPD, which should probably help some antibiotics to become effective against MDRAs (multiple drug resistant antibiotics).

10) Nebulized hypertonic saline has also been reported to be beneficial for loosening pulmonary secretions in COPD.