Alternative Remedies for Asthma

Beyond using your inhaler correctly, what can you do to tame asthma? Do complementary or alternative approaches help? Here's what you should know?

The idea of your airways closing is terrifying.

When your airwaves are inflamed and react to things that don’t bother other people, you have asthma, which is all too common in the United States. It affects about one in 12 people, including more than four million children.

About 40 percent of adults with asthma say they’ve had an attack during the past year. Attacks or fears of one account for about a million emergency room visits every year. Visits tend to peak during the third week of September, with reactions to ragweed and mold outdoors and viruses in schools.

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What you can do first

Before you explore alternative remedies for asthma, follow your doctors’ advice. Carry your inhaler with you and learn to use it correctly. Many people end up swallowing their medication and getting the wrong dose.

Know your triggers, such as:

• Dust
• Pet dander
• Mold
• Colds and flus
• Cigarette smoke
• Cold weather
• Dry wind
• Strong emotions
• Over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers

Try to avoid your triggers and be prepared with your inhaler and methods to stay calm.

As one remedy, you can wear a mask to avoid triggers, for example, during flu or allergy season.

Although people with asthma may worry a mask will make breathing harder, that’s not usually the case if your asthma isn’t severe. The risk of an asthma attack rose sharply when people stopped wearing masks as COVID 19 restrictions lifted. Some research suggests that wearing a mask while sleeping helps children with asthma reactions to dust mites.

If standard approaches still leave you with symptoms, it’s natural to keep looking for help. If you decide to try treatments beyond what your doctor recommends, tell your doctor and don’t stop taking your medication.  

Home remedies for asthma

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, anything that helps you manage your emotions can improve your asthma control, but no alternative approach will do the trick by itself. Such methods are extras, to support your medication and help you avoid triggers.

Try acupuncture

Acupuncture, for example, seems to improve patients’ experience of symptoms, but the research so far isn’t strong enough to say it improves measures of lung function. One reason acupuncture might work is that it can calm your immune system.

Eat fish

Having higher levels of certain kinds of fatty acids in your blood has been linked to greater asthma control and less need for medication. To get the benefits, eat deep sea fish like sardines and salmon or take fish oil supplements.

There’s not much of a case for herbs or any supplements touted for asthma control, including vitamin C, vitamin D, soy, selenium, and probiotics.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers not to rely on OTC asthma products labeled homeopathic, a theory with assumptions that nearly all scientists think are either proven wrong or implausible.

Avoid stress

If massage, yoga, or meditation helps you bounce back, those stress relief tactics may help you avoid symptoms like feeling out of breath. Massage therapy on your neck and rib cage can help release the tension of the muscles you use to breathe.

A meta-analysis of research found evidence that massage for children with asthma improves lung function, but the research tended not to be well-designed.

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