iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Source: Herald Sun

I can well believe it, My oldest son who is 28 now and thankfully has "grown out"of the illness was often hospitalised for days on end with asthma attacks when he was a young lad. Doctors here in the UK used to encourage blowing up balloons as a way to strengthen lungs and give them a good workout. When he got a bit older I used to take him out with me on long cycle rides (10-40 miles) to get his lungs working, armed with his inhaler which he used less and less often. Whether that helped or not I don't know but I didn't know about the didj then, could have saved us a lot of effort AND I would have been a better player by now as well!!
Would be interested to hear any personal experiences of asthma and didj playing, by the %figures quoted for sufferers compared with the general population, we must have a few members of our forum with asthma.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I get stress-induced asthma through intense exercise. The first time I got it must have been when I was a teenager (how long ago was that!!!), we were doing an LT set in the pool, LT standing for lactate-tolerance. Those sets are killers! We basically go as hard as we can, competition speed, for whatever distance we specialise in, 50 m, or 100 m or 200 m. We have a good rest, like 4 or 5 minutes in between, then go again at full speed. We would repeat that 5 or 6 times. The lactic acid builds up in the muscles and basically makes you feel like shit, like you can't move and everything is heavy, that's why it is called lactate-tolerance.

Anyway, I got my first asthma attack this way. I didn't get it too often after that, maybe it was because of my fear at training too hard, but I gave the sport away not too long after.

These days I get asthma if I go for a jog at medium intensity, and sometimes at low intensity. It is weird because I don't get in when I'm running on a treadmill, only when I'm out in the streets pounding the pavement.

I don't play enough didj to really know if it makes a difference or not to my asthma. I don't take any medication for it and just live with it!

Guan

Guan

I know what you mean about LT, did a similar thing when I used to do cycle racing many moons ago, we used to find a long hill (we had a long one 1.5 miles about 1 in 8 ) and cycle up it flat out without reducing our cadence(pedal revolutions) until we just couldn't breathe anymore and ground to a halt! This also gave us our max heart rates(wore a HRM) so we could calculate heart rates for effective training. I those days a 100 mile bike ride was something we used to do early on a Sunday morning and be back before our partners had got up!!! I used to cycle regulary 250 miles (approx 470km's) a week. These days(gave up the car 16 years ago) I just cycle to work and round about town etc. I don't get asthma but have a small fear of being out of breath which makes me even more breathless! I had a really bad panic attack(ended up in hospital) whilst out cycling about 10 years ago and this still haunts me now and again especially if I am maybe going up a hill and I start to dwell on my breathing I can start to get panicky and breathless. Have managed to control it a bit better as time has gone past (I know it is all in the mind so I can "talk" myself out of it)but I don't think it will ever go away completely. Despite that I still consider myself pretty fit for a 56 year old and hope to be blowing powerfully down a didj for many, many years to come!!

Best
Paul

Good one Paul, that explains why you're so fit! I don't ride much these days after having had several falls and close brushes with trams and cars. Its a bugger riding around Melbourne because of tram lines, fall into a tram line and its all over especially if it is raining!

For all those asthma suffers out there, there is a way to manage it with medication or inhalers (but best to go to your doctor to get an opinion) called the Buteyko method, check it out on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buteyko_method

Guan

Hello

I'm from Denmark. My name is Søren Dahl - i suffer from the illness kartagener syndrom. http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/kartag ... 041804.htm

I must take medicin every day - but after I started playing the didgeridoo, which I did for 3 years ago - my illness has become much better. But I will always need to take my medicin. I didn't play the didge because of the ilness, just because I think it is the cooles instrument in the world. I never or tell people that I have a ilness when I play for people, because it will just make people sorry for me, and think im incredibel that I can play the didgeridoo when I have the ilness and so on....it play for people so they can feel joy about my playing - and not because they shall feel sorry for me - but it is so nice to know for my self, that it also helps my ilness.

Here is a little you tube clip of me playing my didgeridoo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykYI8E9Pgq0 - i'm very inspired by Ash Dargan which I think is one of the best didge player ind the world playing contemporey didge - just love him and his music. In july 2007 he visited Denmark where i joined a workshop with him - he is the best I think.

Sorry for my bad english - hope you understand what I'm trying to tell

Best

Søren Dahl
- Denmark

Hi everyone,
Another asthmatic here and former mad-keen cyclist (until I split my scapula jumping fallen trees on my mountain bike!). Very interested to hear your story about asthma and panic attacks Paul, I've ended in hospital the same way around 3 times - I'm sure it's fear driven like you say. Asthma started as a uni student living in cold, damp, squalid houses. Giving up wheat products and cow-based dairy a few years ago made an enormous difference. My wife reckons I sleep more peacefully (i.e. no snoring/wheezing!) when I get stuck into didj practice. Not sure whether this is a physical (alveoli opening up) or mental (stress-busting) thing.

Hi Dave
They reckon that the biggest fear of someone who has had a panic attack(s) is having another panic attack!! As soon as you face a similar situation as the one that brought on the attack in the first place then the fear of having another takes over and you are likely to have another attack on that basis alone. Any situation that puts me in a position where I may be out of breath ie cycling uphill, strong head on winds etc, even though quite normal in those situations, can trigger a fear that I can't breathe or get enough air in my lungs and bring on an attack/hyperventilation. I can manage it ok as I said before, usually talking myself out of it and muttering to myself what an idiot I am and how stupid it is!!!!(even if I have to just stop cycling for a moment to chill out). It's just a matter of getting control of your own mind and realising what is happening and how usually its self inflicted(asthma sufferers excepted, as I imagine from my sons experiences, how easy it is to panic when you really can't breathe). Funny though, I never get any of those feelings no matter how hard/breathless I get play playing the didj!!! maybe I should try playing it on the bike cycling up a hill with a head on wind!! Ha Ha!!

hello all!!

panic attacks, asthma, full-on sports practice and playing didge on bicycles... hmnnn... i can also tell about my experience in all that!!!

first of all, about panic attacks, i used to have heaps of them years ago, like 10 years ago, i was 26 then... i had already had my year long travel around australia and had felt myself as a superadventurer, but then discovered the hardest bit was still to come, he, he...

all i can tell now is that all those attacks are behind, i haven't had severe ones in a few years even though i know they could turn up again any time, depending on my level of anxiety, which fortunately is quite low now... but as a way to encourage people suffering of them now, all i can say is that they are just panic attacks, caused by an extreme state of alert of our body, which can respond to many different circumstances, but we should all know that they aren't going to kill us or anything... i myself ended up in hospital many times, with amazing and very diverse physical symptoms: believing i was going to have a heart attack usually, with a very high heart rate, but i remember i once had all my bodie's left side numb, and i was really feeling it, which happened to me while i was driving on a highway... many others i was lacking air... i once had a numb thumb for 2 months, and after having had many tests and TACs thru neurologist's prescription, with negative results, he finally said to me "have u heard about anxiety??"...

well, i wouldn't like to be too long, going back to the issue... about panic attacks and lack of air, i used to be a heavy smoker, until 32, although i was also quite full-on into sports (running, cycling, skiing specially)... my anxiety at that time was very much under control, but i had to go to the pneumologist because i was feeling a bit of a lack of air... it was spring time... i did a couple of spyrometric tests (dunno how that's called in english!) and the doctor stated i had EPOC (stands for -in spanish- chronicle obstructive lung disease)... he told me i obviously had to quit smoking straight away, meaning really straight away (i was smoking 1 and a half packs)... he gave me inhalers with corticoids, etc... the tests showed i had an amazing lung capacity (6.04 litres, and i'm only 169 cm!!!), but at the same time they showed that i had difficulties to exhale the air -therefore there was an obstruction... i had been playing didge for 8 years already, quite constantly...

well, it was really after quitting smoking that i started having breathing problems, and these went on for a few years... and then, this lack of air started to cause me some anxiety, just like you Paul mention -the fear of not being able to breath-... wheather the lack of air was something physical or psychological is something i still don't know, but after quitting smoking i had a mild depression and quite a lot of anxiety... never needed to go back to anxiety medication, thank god i had learnt a lot the years before, but i had the feeling i was now attached to inhalers... and then i had to to this sailboat cruise with a friend, just the two of us, a delivery of a boat that would take us 26 hours at sea, from an island to mainland, no land in between... after four hours sailing i realised i had forgotten the inhaler on mainland... no turn around possible... i started panicking then, not because i was suffering the lack of air but because i was afraid it might happen and i had nothing to fight against it... i pictured all the scenarios, from helicopters rescuing me (i laugh now!!!) to my friend doing reanimation exercises on me, etc, etc... i didn't want to cause any panic on him neither, so i try to keep my attack unnoticeable... i shily asked him "wouldn't u have any ventolin aboard by any chance??" to what he answered "ventowhat?" (ventolin is a brand of inhaler)... i then realised i was fucked!! still half mediterranean to sail and i was surely going to die of breathing insufficiency... until i saw light: i was quite aware i was having a panic attack, and wheather i had or not that breathing insufficiency, i knew i could try to put my anxiety down and then see what effect that had on my breathing... i was coming from Croatia, where i had been given a bottle of this gorgeous local homemade liquor, rakia, by a friend's mother... well, u can immagine the rest of the story... i had a smooooooth sail! thank god there wasn't much work to be done because the sea was quite pleasant, he, he.... my friend was a bit surprised i started drinking rakia at 6 in the morning, "so beautiful at sunrise" my response was...

in summary, there is very close connection between the fear of suffering an attack and the consequence of suffering it!

about sports, i since then have become much more involved into sports practice, specially running and cross country running, and i can tell the times i more often play didjeridu i feel quite more powerful running... no objective evidences, just a feeling, but something i clearly notice... i have had the feeling of lacking air, but this is because the asthma i have (never had a severe crisis though) is seasonal (so far, fingers crossed!!)... i am beginning to suffer it again now, this is going to be a hard spring...

well, about cycling and playing... i did a beautiful bicycle trip from sydney to byron once, right when i started playing didjeridu in 1997-98... i carried a pvc aboard and played it at night in my tent... i repeated the trip, this time a longer one, around spain, but i carried a heavy eucaliptus didge aboard, playing and busking in every village i stopped... what a beautiful trip, but i hated carrying such a heavy instrument with me and not being able to play it while cycling on looooooooong straight roads of the plains... i had the idea of this pvc thing that would be like a hat, attached to the mouth and with the exit facing back, so the wind couldn't get in as i cycled... just an idea, but something i might end up building sometime, the didge for bicycle travellers!!

Thanks Marcuz for your detailed input, good to realise others out there suffer the same as some of us here, just speaking about it can make things better and often trying to concentrate on something else, or having a few relaxing drinks can take the symptoms away. Fortunately, I have only ended up in hospital once but with a heart rate of 165 and standing still, this was a bit scary and afterwards for a while just getting out of bed and walking to the loo was making me panic just in case it came back again. Our brain is an amazing thing(we have fooled it in to letting us circular breathe!) but let it get out of control and it can convince you of anything!!! Get control of it and the worlds our Oyster!

All the best

oops! such a long message and i still forgot something!

one day, sick of so much medication that gave me headaches and tachicardia (usual side effects of certain inhalers), i decided to try with another doctor and... ALLELLUYAH! he decided to firstly do some more exhaustive tests, that showed that i actually wasn't that bad (he never told me i didn't have EPOC, but i believe he doesn't find it necessary until it really conditions my life, a wise thing to do, because knowing i have EPOC would definitely condition it in the shape of fear: wheather i have it or not, i just have to try to leave as healthiest as possible), so he asked me what my records were in 10 000 m races, and then he said, "all medication out, u don't need it!" and then asked me "what instrument did u say u play?, didjwhat?"... he then explained me it is common among trumpet players to have amazing lung capacity but breathing problems at the same time, which was a curious phenomenon... but he then said that the ratio of smokers is higher in the brass instrument player's community than in average people's... as he also said that the ratio of people suffering asthma was much higher among the olympic community than in regular society, a phenomenon that doesn't clarify wheather extreme/elite sport practice can cause asthma or not, but what is sure, he said, objectively tested, is that asthma medication usually improves sports performance, a more than possible reason for many sportsmen to be diagnosed with asthma...

hey Paul, i totally solidarise with your case! fear can take so many shapes! i tell you i've had the weirdest symptoms, and even though i laugh today about myself and the ridiculous circumstances, sometimes hilarious, that have generated my attacks, i totally respect the power of fear: there was/is always a way to trick your brain... sometimes i feel anxiety is like water leaks: water always finds a way to reach the other surface, no matter how waterproof the medium is...

all the best!!!

Here's a PDF attached called "Didgeridoo Playing and Singing to Support Asthma Management in Aboriginal Australians" if anyone is interested.

Guan

LoL. Must be some correlation between asthma, panic attacks, anxiety and loving the didjeridu. I, just like all the others above have had experience with both. I used to get panic attacks when I was younger...and it seems I recently came down with "adult onset asthma". Surprisingly, this chronic wheezing/coughing I've developed hasn't impacted my playing. I've never achieved the circular breathing technique, but I can play the didj for a seriously long time on one lungful.

I've had a bit of asthma too... maybe mild forms of panic attacks as well.

G

God!!!

Sounds like we are all falling to pieces! lets set a 2012 new years resolution in advance!!! To get a grip guys and not let our minds take over our bodies!!! Anyway, back from oz now and back on the forum and a lot of practise and playing to catch up on..

Paul