Profile: Carl - 78 yr old. With a reduced lung capacity, Carl found gardening and other activities increasingly difficult. His doctor gave him a variety of medications, mostly inhaled, but they only offered slight relief. Carl saw an advertisement for a public seminar on a new "drug-free" control technique and decided to enrol in the course.

He said, "I felt I had nothing to lose and it sounded interesting."


After learning the method Carl has been able to halve his medication and yet feels that his condition has stopped deteriorating. He can now achieve more than he did before the course, feels more energetic and is not as breathless while working in the garden. "Buteyko has been helpful and has obviously done me good, i'm glad I now have it to rely on."


Profile: Eric - 78 yr old.

When Eric was told by his doctor that he only had 30% lung capacity, he was determined to help himself live life to the fullest. The drugs he was taking stabilised his condition but never improved it. He found acupuncture gave temporary relief but it was short-lived.
The acupuncturist told him about Buteyko and he decided to try it.

"When I first attended the course I found that I scored really low in the exercises," he remembers. "But I am a very stubborn chap and soon I was able to reach very high scores indeed. The tutor told me that I was working myself too hard!"

"There is no question that it helped," Eric comments. "After 3 to 4 weeks I clearly noticed an improvement - quite a big difference. I felt I had extra lung-power. I started walking again and soon I was able to walk up to 5km in under an hour. That may not seem very fast, but compared to how I felt previous to learning Buteyko, I think it is wonderful. The method did me a world of good."


They never claimed that they would repair the damage to my lungs but explained to me how the exercises would make the remaining tissue work more efficiently and also how the production of mucus would be reduced.

They were right!