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Practitioner
Profile Phone: (09) 360 6291 Content on this page Glenn White's personal, life changing experience with asthma led him to end his successful and highly lucrative career prospecting for gold to share and teach Buteyko breathing techniques to people who, like him, have their lives interrupted by asthma. For 20 years, Glenn White's life was like Indiana Jones, prospecting for gold in snake infested jungles of South East Asia. That all changed four years ago. He nearly died – not from venomous reptiles or tigers or flesh-eating tropical infections, but from asthma. The 46 year old geologist sought gold in thin rock seams rather than Indiana Jones’ Temple of Doom, but for White, an asthma attack was as frightening as any crypt curse. “That night, it was as if something was sitting on my chest and choking me,” he says. “ I thought I was going to die.” Over the next few weeks he was hospitalised three times.
Glenn White - Papua New Guinea in his life as geologist Glenn experienced asthma since childhood but it had got worse as he got older. “I took more and more medication – two puffs of maximum strength steroid preventer in the morning, up to 12 puffs of Ventolin per day, and when it got really bad, a course of steroid tablets called Prednisone,”he says. “I was becoming increasingly concerned about the side effects from the steroid medications. These included oral thrush and frequent colds and bronchial infections that required me to be on regular courses of antibiotics. All drugs have side effects and I was starting to feel like a medicine cabinet.” “Medication gave me temporary relief, but the slightest thing would bring on another attack – a whiff of smoke, strong perfume, pollens, dust and pets would have me reaching for my inhaler. Even some foods would start me off. I couldn’t go out for dinner with friends and have a few laughs without ending up a gasping wreck. Hell, if you can’t laugh…” Then someone told him about a breathing method called Buteyko that was supposed to help asthmatics. The Buteyko breathing technique is named after
Professor Konstantin Buteyko who pioneered the method in Russia over
fifty years ago. Buteyko noted that hyperventilation (over-breathing)
was associated with asthma. He developed breathing exercises and
a simple management strategy that controls asthma symptoms by helping
to restore normal breathing. After thirty years and thousands of
patient successes the Russian Government endorsed Buteyko’s
method during the 1980s. Six weeks after completing the course, my GP said I could reduce my preventer medication. “I thought it sounded a bit loony-tunes,” says White, “but by then, I was prepared to try anything. I was amazed at the results. Within two days of starting the course I was breathing freely. Six weeks after completing the course, my GP said I could reduce my preventer medication. Two weeks after that, I was able to stop all medication. I have been symptom-free and drug-free for four years.” White has given up his lucrative career as a gold geologist to teach the breathing techniques that gave him back his quality of life.
Medical Evidence that Buteyko is highly effective Medical trials of the Buteyko method around the world
are now attracting the attention of doctors. A six month case-control
study at Gisborne Hospital showed an 85 per cent reduction in inhaled
relievers and a 50 per cent reduction in inhaled steroids. The control
group showed a 37 per cent reduction in reliever medication and no
change in their use of preventer medication after six months. The trial
was published in the December 2003 edition of the New Zealand Medical
Journal. Gisborne Hospital’s Patrick McHugh says it is the first time Buteyko has been formally investigated in New Zealand. While it was a small study it showed that Buteyko can achieve significant reductions in the need for asthma medication. Having found that the Buteyko method is safe and effective, McHugh says doctors need to reappraise what is best-practice for asthma. Compared to a lifetime of expenditure on medication and doctor visits, he wants to make Buteyko more accessible to the public. “For those for whom the Buteyko method works, it could offer them greater independence and quality of life,” he says. “It gives people with asthma an evidence-based choice on how to manage their condition.” Another study, led by scientist Sue Cooper at the University of Nottingham's Division of Respiratory Medicine, found that 90 volunteers over six months who practiced Buteyko breathing exercises twice a day experienced improved asthma symptoms. They were able to cut use of their reliever inhalers by up to two puffs a day. A much larger trial recently run in Glasgow by Jill McGowan, one of the UK’s most highly qualified nurses and a former university lecturer, showed that the 384 adults between 18 and 69 years who completed the programme experienced average reductions of over 90 per cent for reliever medications, preventer medications and asthma symptoms. “We see results like this in every class we teach.” says Glenn White Buteyko is taught in a one week course consisting of five 90-minute sessions. Clients are taught simple breathing exercises and life style guidelines that permit them to perform all their daily activities without experiencing breathlessness or asthma symptoms. Improvement usually occurs within the first 24 hours. Most clients are free of asthma symptoms and no longer needing their reliever medication within the first week. Buteyko Breath Correction practitioners endorse international guidelines for the use of medications – that asthmatics take their preventers as prescribed and relievers as required. However, over 90 per cent of Buteyko course graduates no longer require reliever medication within one week of starting a course. What’s the science behind the Buteyko method? The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand recognises that “over-breathing” is a key component of asthma attacks. That may seem contradictory to people who have spent their lives struggling for breath, but that gold-fish gulping for air is the result of an imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide which causes smooth muscle around the airways to constrict in people prone to asthma. While most people have homeostatic systems which automatically rectify that imbalance, asthmatics’ systems over-react in a similar way to the anaphylactic shock some people get from a bee sting. Buteyko teaches asthmatics breathing habits which help regulate the gas-blood chemistry and prevent the onset of attacks. “I could write pages and pages about the physiology and chemistry of gas exchange but what really matters is that the breathing method works,” says White who has a science degree. “Thousands of New Zealanders now practice Buteyko and their lives, like mine, have been turned around.” Buteyko is suitable for children from three years, and adults of any age.
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Glenn White BSc MSc
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