Conversations about COPD (Salt & Potassium)
There are a lot of comments about salt in here, so I want to add to the conversation by sharing my experience & reasoning of why I’m ANTI-salt.
To me, it’s super-scary to recommend salt to terminal patients so I dont usually comment about salt because there are a lot of dying desperate terminal patients in here and salt is one of those things with too many question-marks.
I did my own experiment and removed salt completely from my diet, back when I was expelling a lot of mucus – where litres would be coughed up every morning for the few hours upon waking (this was approx. Feb this year) – I did a test with drinking salt-water over a couple of days, and not only did I cough much less but the body stopped expelling the mucus (I mean from a bucket of tissues down to about 1-2 tissues).
The change was so instant & dramatic that if I wasn’t paying attention, I probably would’ve jumped for joy.
But instead, I see salt as very dangerous as it clearly inhibits one of my body’s natural functions, and begs the question: Is it a “good” thing or a “bad” thing?
A doctor or patient might think that it is good because the “symptoms” have been removed, but I believe my body is coughing up phlegm for a reason, helping me heal; it wants to expel the toxins and it is cleaning my lungs, and it worked hard throughout the night to clean out the toxins.
So salt for me, inhibits my body’s natural job of expelling the crap out of my lungs.
Although it “worked” to stop my coughing & mucus, I’ve got a big (HUGE) question mark over the top of it, whether that is good or bad; as I am paying attention to my body’s signals and believe every symptom & signal is a ‘clue’ to healing & repairing.
Now it’s several (10) months later, and I am still on a no-added-salt diet, and I don’t have that horrible experience of coughing up litres of thick mucus crap everyday – only when I have an cold/infection or a little bit in the morning (but I’m still smoking and drinking coffee with milk so I believe once those things are removed, the body won’t need to expel anything in the morning).
It took a couple of months but my body has finally expelled the majority of crap naturally, and whatever the cause was (in my diet or toxins) has finally gone.
Now, when I have any food that my body doesn’t like, I can tell within 30-60 minutes what the cause is so I can avoid that food in future. i.e. wheat, pasta, vegemite, bread, – I have a reaction in my lungs within an hour, and those were foods in my daily diet before so I would never of known that my body has a problem with these foods unless I had removed the salt.
So that’s why when I comment on my site or in here, I always recommend the diet & mindset clean-up first because it’s been the biggest, easiest & cheapest natural change I did for these 3 things:
1.) HAPPINESS
(you need to “want” to live & get your power back – stop “giving in” to others and find something that makes you look forward to a good future. This is very hard to do when you are in a “I’m dying”, “Life is too hard”, “I’m not appreciated”, “Noone loves me”, “Noone cares if I live or die” mindset),
2.) ENERGY & VITALITY
(life sucks when you can’t get out of bed, and you need energy to make money – and unfortunately in this day & age, you need money to access a healthy lifestyle, & you need energy/vitality to get through each day), and
3.) LUNG-IMPROVEMENT
(removal of wheezing & 24/7 coughing & ‘hopefully’ cell-repair at a cellular level —-
— We are made up of what we eat, breathe & think; the cells that we make are a direct result of the combination of poisons & nutrients we put in our body).
The next recommendation to be done ‘at the same time’ is a toxin-cleanup (my house was killing me – literally, but I had to “move house” before I realized that the other house was killing me).
Once you get those cleaned up (diet, toxins, mindset) which is the biggest life-changes, then you can experiment with different things that will hopefully enhance the repairing & reversing process.
So I see things like essential oils as just an enhancement – which would not of made much difference to my current healing if I had continued to eat crap & live in a toxic house & think the way I was.
You don’t use such things “INSTEAD” of diet/mind/toxin cleanup, but rather “in addition to” as a way to enhance the healing process, just like Qigong, or breathing exercises, or daily movement, energy pendants, crystals, saunas, bio-mats, rebounders, medication, etc. enhancing the process, not using any of these “instead” of having to do a diet/mindset/toxin cleanup.
You still need to do the 3 cleanups no matter what, and the rest is an enhancement to faster recovery & longevity.
We basically have to stop thinking “instant-fix” “instant-relief” “instant-cure” and start realizing that our cells take time to repair, renew & regenerate, and that we can help the body to create healthy cells & repair the sick & diseased cells by being mindful & deliberate of what we are exposing our body to.
KP December 8, 2013
yes you got it right, cleaning cells take time… I know my house was making me sick too, after it got flooded
BLD December 8, 2013 at 1:04pm
Salt can cause congestive heart failure, since it causes edema in the lungs and if the lungs don’t work properly then our hearts will become effected, usually congestive heart failure or left or right sided heart failure. I never use salt…and watch sodium every day..I only use 1800 mg – 200 mg sodium per day. I log everything in a journal to make sure. I already had congestive heart failure, and I shivered while reading your report..lol. I have also heard about a natural supplement called, Noc (could be wrong on name, but pretty sure this is name)…and it is suppose to remove mucus, but like all supplements, it will probably take time before it helps (after taking one tab every day). Also, consuming sugars or carbs is suppose to encourage mucus from Chronic Bronchitis. It is best to only consume fruits, vegetables, and proteins, but not carbs or sugar.
DMH December 8, 2013 at 2:18pm
What our bodies need is potassium not sodium which is what alot of salt used in food contains. I was reading a book called the Gerson Therapy which is a dietary cure for cancer and most diseases and their theory is that when sodium is pushed into the cells, it displaces potassium which is what the cells use for energy. Most folks that get muscle cramps benefit from potassium tablets not sodium which also can be accomplished by eating a banana. I’ll take the banana.
The experiment I did in this post was with salt-water..i.e. adding salt (Himalayan salt and sea salt) to water, and drinking it for 2 days (after previously cutting it out of my diet )… and my mucus ceased – it was amazing! but my problem is that I have no idea if that is a “good” thing or a “bad” thing, because I am really concerned about how my body can expel the toxins if salt is inhibiting my lungs from being able to get rid of it.
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