Carbon Monoxide- Induced Asthma

An Invisible Poisonous Gas: CARBON MONOXIDE.

Dear friends,

I hope you are all doing well.  I have been sick for about two long months, and right now I am back with lots of health.  I made a few discoveries about health which I’d like to share with you here.

I was diagnosed with asthma in late October of last year.  It was horrible.  I did not trust American drugs, therefore I did not take any asthma medications.  Getting medications from back home was also difficult, because it required a prescription from an American doctor (and American doctors were not so willing to write a prescription for a medicine they did not know).  Thus, I was technically left one on one with asthma.

I searched for causes of asthma, and noticed that I especially coughed very bad and had difficulty breathing while driving and while walking in downtown Chicago.  What’s prevalent poisonous gas in downtown and major roads?  CARBON MONOXIDE!  All cars’ exhaust gases contain carbon monoxide (CO)!

In order to find out more about my condition, I read two types of sources: about asthma and about CO poisoning.  Together the sources pointed at my condition.

I eliminated most of CO exposure from my life, and my condition quickly improved.  Asthma is gone!  In order to make sure that I was right I walked in downtown Chicago for couple days and coughs and asthma symptoms started coming back again!

The thing is CO is colorless, almost odorless, and most of all poisonous gas.  It sinks in the bottom of lungs because it is heavier than air – therefore coughing it out is essential.  Plus, CO blocks passage of oxygen into blood (by forming carboxyhemoglobin).  When I had asthma, I was breathing, but was not getting any air…

You all live, study and work in large cities where there is excessive amount of CO – mainly from cars.  The condition does not come about immediately, but extended period of exposure to significant levels of CO will eventually cause asthma-like symptoms.  A lot of these cases get mistaken for cold and flu – doctors get to prescribe a lot of cough, cold, and flu medicines.  Antihistamines and antibiotics also get used.  Such drugs do provide a temporary relief from coughing and difficulty of breathing, but do not remove causes of those ailments.

I recommend you the following measures in order to minimize your exposure to high amounts of CO:

1. Do not bike/jog/exercise along major roads.
2. Do not walk a lot along busy streets, especially in downtown areas.
3. Do not use heat/AC too much because these devices suck in CO which floats above roads. 

If you are interested, please do not hesitate to email me with any questions.  I will be happy to provide more information, sources, and references on this topic.  Also, I would like to ask you to forward this information to other people who might be interested.

Sincerely,

Mamurjon Rahimov, MA

Chicago, IL

Mamurjon@yahoo.com

A Brief list of references:

1. Asthma Hotline.  December 2006.  www.noattacks.org
2. American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. November 2006. www.aaaai.org
3. National Institute of Health.  December 2006. www.nih.org
4. Microsoft Encarta. “Air Pollution”
5. “State of the Air 2005: Protect the Air You Breathe”.  American Lung Association.  www.ala.org
6. Carbon monoxide.  Environmental Protection Agency. www.epa.org
7. Living near a highway damages children's lungs: study. Marlowe Hood. www.cnn.com