Inhaling Just Fine

A friend of mine who teaches yoga asked me about how my lung cancer affects my breathing. That is an interesting question with a variety of answers, which I will try to detail concisely here.

Pranic breathing

Before I get into my personal experience, I also want to bring up a weird claim that I researched some time back about a practice called "Pranic Breathing." This is a discipline related to yoga that is supposed to help with meditation. While manipulating the speed and depth of one's breath can alter conscious perception (hyper-ventilation can make a person pass out, feel euphoric, or create a sense of panic, for example), there is nothing particularly mystical about it. However, I found multiple claims online that so-called Pranic Breathing could offer enlightenment and cure diseases -- including cancer. I was even approached by a young man who was convinced that Pranic Breathing would save him, allowing him to avoid chemotherapy.

How reliable is the science?

What is interesting to me is that the proponents of this "treatment" insist that it is based on solid science and even making the claim that it is "scientifically proven." But there are no repeatable experiments to show this, and there are no verifiable case studies that have been monitored and documented from diagnosis through successful treatment. This is very typical of claims arising from the "alternative" and even mystical healing communities that proliferate on the Internet. Examining the biology of cancer and the nature of the respiratory system, there is no mechanism by which this technique could do anything to affect the growth or death of cancer cells in the human body. But it could put a person into a susceptible, trance-like state, during which the power of suggestion might convince him that something has happened.

Poking holes in the logic

I found this whole line of reasoning interesting because of my own healthy / not-so-healthy lungs. Interestingly, lung cancer does not readily present symptoms in a patient. A tumor can grow undetected for quite a long period of time, with no obvious change in respiration. Sometimes a tumor will cause apnea, or otherwise interrupt a patient's ability to get enough oxygen while sleeping -- one sign of this may be clubbed fingers, where the nail curves downward over the tip of the finger, indicating oxygen deprivation. Also, while very advanced cases may show tumors constricting some airways, and thus causing chronic coughing (and even bleeding), the majority of lung cancer patients I have met never experienced such symptoms pre-diagnosis. In fact, a high percentage of lung cancer cases are detected by chance, through a random X-ray for something else, as was the circumstance with me.

Now, I had been experiencing shortness of breath, but it was largely due to a respiratory infection that I had independent of my cancer. Antibiotics cleared that up and I began to feel better, but I suffered a partial collapse of my lung in the process which made my progress slow. However, I had most of my breath back before I even started my cancer treatment.

Keeping my lungs healthy

One of the side-effects of my chemotherapy was that it sometimes gave me a terrible taste in my mouth and an aversion to the smell of my own breath during the week following my treatment. But this was a temporary malady, and it diminished over time as my body adjusted. Still, the respiratory system is one of the body's ways of removing toxins, so perhaps I merely got used to the flavor or smell of my own breath as I went along. Chemo did alter my senses of taste and smell, however, and that should not be discounted.

As time went on and I moved through new treatments, eventually I did experience some tumor progression in my lung. Airflow was constricted and a new infection very likely took hold deep in the lung shortly thereafter. As a result, I developed a very nasty and aggressive cough that lingered for over four months until it was knocked out by new antibiotics and the beginning of yet another therapy.

I am inhaling just fine

My lungs have sounded "clear" throughout this process -- even during the worst of my coughing phase. Only a few times in the past three and a half years of treatment have I felt like there was a wheeze or obstruction. Still, combined with the fatigue that developed as a side-effect of my treatments, there have been many times that I have been winded or out of breath after brief exertion. This has come and gone, and I am happy to say that for now, anyway, I am inhaling just fine.

Editor’s Note: We are extremely saddened to say that on October 21, 2018, Jeffrey Poehlmann passed away. Jeffrey’s advocacy efforts and writing continue to reach many. He will be deeply missed.