Apple Cider Vinegar Remedy for Asthma
If you suffer from asthma, you're familiar with the frightening sensation of not being able to breathe properly. While chances are you have an inhaler or medication, you may be looking for a natural way to treat your asthma. Although your doctor likely won't want you to throw away the inhaler, apple cider vinegar is a homemade folk remedy that can work quite well as a companion treatment.
A small bottle of apple cider vinegar beside a basket of apples. (Image: Ls9907/iStock/Getty Images)Step 1
Purchase a bottle of natural or organic apple cider vinegar with the “mother,” which is sediment that looks like a cloudy brown mass floating around inside the bottle. You may have to go to a health foods store to find it, as many brands of apple cider vinegar sold at the grocery store are refined or flavored vinegars that are dark but clear when you hold them up to the light.
Step 2
Shake the bottle well to distribute the mother throughout the bottle. This is what contains most of the healing properties, so you want to make sure that you consume some with each dose.
Step 3
Pour one tablespoonful of apple cider vinegar into a glass of water and stir it well. Drink it in sips spread out over about half an hour.
Step 4
Repeat the treatment after another hour if wheezing has still not subsided considerably.
Step 5
If you still don't get relief, soak a cotton pad in apple cider vinegar, and apply pressure as you hold it against the insides of your wrists. This is a second optional folk treatment that asthma sufferers say can help.
Step 6
Store your apple cider vinegar in a dark, cool place, or in the fridge.
Step 7
Understand that while it seems that ingesting vinegar would have nothing to do with the ability to breathe, apple cider vinegar is also a common folk remedy for acid reflux, a symptom of GERD, which is closely related to asthma in many cases. Acid in the esophagus may trigger a reflex which causes the airways to narrow, and other symptoms of GERD include asthma-like hoarseness and chronic cough.
According to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, a non-profit academic medical center integrating research and education with clinical and hospital care, “it is estimated that more than 75 percent of patients with asthma also experience gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). People with asthma are twice as likely to have GERD as those people who do not have asthma. Of those people with asthma, those who have a severe, chronic form that is resistant to treatment are most likely to also have GERD.”
The acidity in apple cider vinegar helps hydrochloric acid, or stomach acid, do its job which may be why apple cider vinegar relieves acid reflux, and hence asthma.
Things You'll Need
Natural apple cider vinegar
Tablespoon
Glass of water
Cotton pads
