Less Pain and Prescription Drugs

The benefits of peri-operative pain management extend well beyond the realm of patient comfort. Pain management experts point to decreased occurrence of complications such as pneumonia and blood clots in the lung; decreased bodily perception and reaction to stress; and shorter ICU and hospital stays. In a study presented at the 19th annual scientific meeting of the American Pain Society, researchers found that length of stay following outpatient procedures increased significantly with increasing pain severity.

Inadequately treated pain may have long-term consequences. Painful experiences can indelibly imprint themselves on the nervous system, amplifying the response to subsequent noxious stimuli (hyperalgesia) and causing typically painless sensations to be experienced as pain (allodynia). Physician's Weekly. May 13, 2002 Vol. XIX, No. 20

Pain relief is often just a breath away. Controlling pain with foreign substances such as prescription drugs can further confuse or toxify the body. A client with peripheral neuropathy finished an Optimal Breathing session. Her 250mg morphine dose was 5 hours late, and she felt no pain anyway.

Anne Di Filippo is breathing easier these days -- literally -- and because of that, her life is better. In the fall, she took the Rossmoor Recreation class, Optimal Breathing, and it's helped hermitage severe back pain caused by fused discs. Di Filippo's distress began last August, and after seeing a physician and then a chiropractor. she took codeine for relief. Her friend, Jonnie Semrad, recommended Optimal Breathing, and she signed up, but she was skeptical. "What does my pain have to do with breathing?" she wondered. but she said she soon learned it was related. After placing his hands on her ribs as she breathed, class instructor Mike White pointed out that her lungs were blocked from holding herself in because of the pain. He taught her to breathe correctly, being sure to release all the air. "that minimized the pain," she said. Di Filippo has not used the medication since she took the course. "I still have the pain," she said, "but when it comes, I use the breathing techniques." She also uses them at other times -- when she can't sleep or feels overwhelmed, for example. She believes they would be a boon to many Rossmoor residents, especially those with respiratory problems, and she highly recommends White's class.

DiFilippo will appear on a television program featuring White and his students in the series "New Attitudes" on the Lifetime station in early 1999. She will be interviewed, along with a 29-year-old athlete and a woman who lost more than 100 pounds after learning breathing techniques, and a class will be shown.

White is a certified massage therapist, nutrition educator, doctor of divinity, and has been studying breathing for 25 years. He gives students simple exercises to indicate where their breathing is blocked and recommends the kinds of exercises, body work and ergonomic techniques that might be beneficial. He also applies principles of opera, yoga, Tai Chi, nutrition and spirituality in his teaching.

"Breathing is a metaphor for living," White said. "If you make your breathing easier, everything in life becomes easier. If breathing is easier," he said, "you will sleep better, think more clearly, be healthier, recover from stress quicker and -- yes -- even have better sex."

Anne DiFilippo demonstrates exercises she learned from Mike.

Rapid Breathing Development Program