Don't Just Rely On Your Rescue Inhaler. COPD Patients Are Switching To This Instead

Respiratory therapist breaks ranks on the $300-a-month inhaler routine nobody questions - and the one thing she hands people instead of another prescription

Dear friend with COPD,

If the tightness eases and you still cannot clear...

If you have used the rescue before your feet touched the floor...

If that has never once been explained to you...

Then what follows could save you from years of solving one half of this and never touching the other.

But I need to warn you first.

This is going to make you angry.

Because it is not complicated, and it is not new, and it is not hidden.

And before any of it, three things it is not.

It is not that the lungs got worse this year.

It is not age, and nobody on this page is going to say that word to you again.

It is not that you did not try hard enough, because there is a shelf in that bathroom that proves you did.

So why has nobody said it.

Not because anybody is hiding it.

But because nobody can bill for it.

There is no code for sixty seconds in your own kitchen, and the people who actually see it are standing over somebody at two in the morning.

Nobody writes down what they know.

And here is the part that should annoy you.

Three inhalers, taken for life, at the three hundred dollars a month one customer wrote to us about.

That is three thousand six hundred dollars a year, every year, forever.

Nobody has to hide anything to want that to continue.

They only have to keep answering a question you did not ask.

So the shelf grows.

And nothing else does.

My name is Marcy Doyle.

I am a respiratory therapist.

Twenty nine years, most of them on nights at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania.

I get called at two in the morning when somebody cannot finish a sentence.

I have looked at what comes out of people in a clear plastic jar under a strip light, most nights, for all of it.

And until it was a woman called Eileen, I believed that if the inhaler is not fixing it, nothing will.

THE MORNING I RAN OUT OF THINGS TO SAY

It was twenty past six on a Tuesday.

I stood in the bathroom doorway with a mug of coffee going cold in my hand.

Eileen had both hands on the edge of the basin. The tap was running.

She had been there eleven minutes. I know because I looked.

At the end of it she rinsed the basin and wiped it with the corner of the towel so nobody would have to see.

Then she said good morning.

Here is the part I have not got over:

Twenty nine years of getting things out of people's lungs for a living.

And I did not know what to tell her.

Three inhalers. Prednisone twice. A shelf of cough medicine in every strength they make.

Every appointment added something. Not one ever took anything away.

I had nothing that was not already on that shelf.

WHAT I FINALLY WORKED OUT, AND HOW LONG IT TOOK ME

I went at it the way you go at something when it is your own family.

And then one night on a shift I was looking at a jar under a strip light, the way I have looked at a few thousand of them.

But this time I actually looked at it.

Because there were two different things sitting in that jar, and there always had been, and in twenty nine years not one person had ever drawn me the second one.

And what I landed on was not complicated, and that is the part that still annoys me.

It is not that her lungs had run out of road.

It is that everything she had been given was arriving in the wrong place, and had been for nine years.

Let me show you what I mean.

THE PART NOBODY HAS EVER DRAWN FOR HER

This is the part I wish somebody would draw for every single person with this.

There is a loose wet layer sitting on top.

That is the layer a thinner works on.

And that is the layer she hauls up at the sink every morning, and it is back by the afternoon.

Underneath it there is an older layer that has gone hard and set itself onto the wall of the airway.

Think of a chimney that has not been swept in nine years.

The air still goes up the middle. It always does.

But it never touches the walls, so what is baked onto the walls does not care how much air goes past it.

And underneath both layers there are tiny hairs whose entire job is to sweep the whole business up and out.

Bury those under something that has already set and they stop.

They are not broken and they have not given up. They are pinned.

So fifteen minutes of work produces a teaspoon.

Because the work is going into the top layer, and the part that costs her the morning is welded underneath it.

WHAT ACTUALLY TAKES A LAYER LIKE THAT OFF

Think about the shower head in that same bathroom.

Nine years of hard water and it has crusted up on the inside.

And you can run water through it every morning for another nine years and it will not shift, because the water goes straight down the middle and out the end.

So you take it down and you sit it in something strong, and you leave it overnight.

Not because scrubbing is lazy. Because there is nothing to scrub. It is on the inside of the thing.

And in the morning it comes away in bits, and some of them are darker than you were expecting.

That is the whole of it, and it is three things and not one.

Something strong enough to matter. Sitting against the thing itself and not running past it. And left there long enough to do the work.

Take one of those three away and you have a shower head you have run water through.

THE THREE THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE TRUE AT ONCE

For anything to move what is actually sitting there, three things have to be true at the same time.

One. It has to be strong enough to matter.

Tea is leaves and hot water. What ends up in the cup is mostly water.

That is not an opinion about the plant. It is arithmetic about the cup.

Two. It cannot go through the stomach.

Anything swallowed meets acid, then the liver takes its cut, and whatever survives gets spread through every drop of blood in the body on its way to everywhere at once.

The airway gets whatever is left of what is left.

Three. It has to be held long enough to go in.

Two seconds and a swallow is the same as swallowing it.

Miss one of the three and you get exactly what she got for years.

Nothing.

That is why the tea did nothing.

That is why the capsules did nothing.

And that is why the cheap dropper squeezed into a glass of water did nothing, and it was never the plant.

SO WHY HAS THE INHALER NOT DONE IT

Because that is the fair question, and she is going to ask it before she gets to the end of this page.

The inhaler already goes into the airway. That is true and it is not a small thing.

And it works. It opens the tube so the air gets through, and every one of them stays exactly as her doctor wrote it, forever.

But a puff is a mist, and a mist settles on the wet layer on top.

And the wet layer is the one she hauls up at the sink, so by the afternoon whatever landed on it has gone up with it.

It never sat against the wall. Not once in nine years.

Same with the syrup. Same with the tablets. Same with the machine and the mask if there is one in that house.

Not one of them was ever aimed at the wall, because every one of them was aimed at the middle, and the middle was never what was costing her the morning.

WHAT SHE TAKES NOW

✓ It is concentrated. Not leaves in hot water. There is something in the dropper worth arriving.

✓ It goes under the tongue. Held there, not tipped down the throat, so it is not starting at the stomach.

✓ It is timed. A full sixty seconds by a clock on the wall, before food and before coffee.

All three. Every morning. That is the whole of it.

So I put a bottle on the window ledge over Eileen's kitchen sink, next to the radio.

And I did not make a speech about it.

I said sixty seconds, before the coffee, and I will ring you Sunday.

She did it because I asked her to, and not because anybody sold her anything.

It is called Veylor.

Wild mullein, which is the one that works on what is set on the wall, and it has to be the wild kind, because the farmed sort is grown fast and comes out thin.

Bromelain, out of pineapple stems, which is in there to break the old stuff up so it has somewhere to go.

Ginger, so the whole business keeps moving instead of sitting in her chest.

Cordyceps, which is for the part she has stopped mentioning to anybody, which is the stairs.

And a little lemon peel, because otherwise nobody keeps anything up for thirty mornings.

It is the only thing I have found that does all three at once.

It is concentrated, so there is something in the dropper worth arriving.

It goes under the tongue, so it does not take the long road through the stomach.

And it is held there for a full sixty seconds by a clock, not counted in her head, because that is how long it takes to go in.

Two full droppers, first thing, before food and before coffee.

Every prescription stays exactly as it was written. Every one of them, forever.

Nothing here replaces anything, and nothing here asks her to stop.

THE SAME DOORWAY, NINE WEEKS LATER

It was twenty past six again and I was standing in the same place with the same mug.

But the tap was not running.

And the coffee in my hand was still hot, which is how I knew before anybody said anything, because that coffee has never once been hot in that doorway.

Eileen was at the basin about four minutes and then she came out.

And she still wiped it round with the corner of the towel, out of nine years of habit, and there was nothing on it to wipe.

She did not mention it. Neither did I.

Then she said good morning, and that was the whole of it, and it was the first morning in nine years that it was.

WHAT HAPPENS, IN ORDER, INCLUDING THE WEEK PEOPLE QUIT

Day one.

Sharp and bitter, nothing like the drops before it, and about halfway through the count a warmth comes up under the jaw.

Days three to seven.

More comes up, not less. Thicker and heavier than it was.

That is the first sign anything down there is moving at all, and it is also where people stop, because nobody tells them what it means.

Days eight to fourteen.

It goes dark. Brown going to nearly black, dense enough to sink in the basin instead of sitting on the water.

That is the week nobody expects and the only one that proves anything is happening.

Weeks three and four.

Fifteen minutes comes down to about eight, and then to about five, and she notices because the coffee is still hot.

Weeks five and six.

She gets her end of a conversation back, and the person on the other end stops asking whether she is alright.

Weeks seven and eight.

She stops working out in advance where she would have to sit.

See the thirty mornings →

THEN OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CLASS STARTED ASKING HER

It did not stay quiet.

Somebody noticed she was not at the sink as long and asked her what had changed.

She told one person.

That person told two more, and inside a month I had women I had never treated stopping me in a corridor to ask about a brown bottle.

None of it came from me.

It came from women comparing notes about their own mornings, which is the only way anything actually travels in this.

WHAT OTHER WOMEN HAVE WRITTEN IN

Carol Estes, 67, North Carolina
“I told my neighbour the whole mullein thing was nonsense, because I had done the tea years ago. I want it on record that I was wrong about the plant and right about the tea.”

Denise Karras, 71, Ohio
“Week two got worse and I nearly put it in the bin. My daughter told me to finish the bottle. Day eleven what came up was dark and it sank.”

Wendy Ashcroft, 74, Adelaide
“The sink used to be fifteen minutes. It was five this morning and the kettle had not boiled.”

Dorothy Ferrante, 79, Michigan
“My great grandson had his birthday at the park and I was there the whole thing. I had picked out a chair beforehand and never used it.”

Check Availability →

AND IF YOU ARE READING THIS FOR SOMEBODY ELSE

Because a lot of the people who write to us are not the one standing at the sink.

They are the daughter who already does all the websites, reading this at half past eleven at night with the phone on the arm of the chair.

So two things, and then I will leave it.

It can arrive without a conversation. Nobody has to be talked into anything. She just has to find a small amber bottle on the counter and be told sixty seconds before the coffee.

And the second week is going to look like it is making her worse, and she is going to ring you about it, and that is the week it is actually working.

Do not let her put it in the cabinet. That is the entire job.

NINETY DAYS, AND SHE IS MEANT TO USE THE WHOLE BOTTLE

Ninety days from the day it lands on the mat.

One bottle is thirty mornings.

And thirty mornings is far enough in to know, because the thing people notice first shows up somewhere in the second and third week, well inside one bottle.

So the window is deliberately longer than the bottle.

Nobody is deciding against a clock, and nobody has to commit to anything past the first one to find out.

If she gets to the end of those thirty mornings and nothing deep has moved, the bottle goes back, empty, and she keeps her money.

There is no form to fill out.

Nobody asks her to prove she took it, or to explain what she means by nothing moved, or offers her something else instead.

That is the whole policy and it fits in a paragraph, which is more than most of them manage.

THE PART THAT IS GENUINELY OUT OF OUR HANDS

The mullein in this is wild.

Not farmed, not grown to order.

It is cut by hand in a short window once a year, and when a run is gone it is gone until the next picking.

There is no countdown on this page and I am not going to invent a number to put in front of you.

If the page still takes an order, there is still some of it on the shelf.

WHAT IT IS ACTUALLY BEING WEIGHED AGAINST

Three thousand six hundred dollars a year.

That is the routine she is already on, at the figure one customer put in writing, and it does not stop.

Then there is the shelf. Two winters of cough medicine, the box replaced every fall whether it did anything or not, the syrup bought twice because she forgot she had one.

Nobody adds that up, because it goes out five and ten dollars at a time.

Against all of that, this is one bottle and thirty mornings.

And if it does nothing, the bottle goes back empty and she keeps her money.

So the question is not what it costs.

The question is what another year of the same shelf costs.

TWO WAYS TOMORROW GOES

There are only two of them and you are going to pick one in the next few minutes, so I want to say out loud what each one actually looks like from the inside of your own kitchen.

The first one is the one you are already on

You get up tomorrow and it goes the way it went today. The recliner keeps the blanket folded over the arm because that is where you end up by ten. The faucet runs while you are at the sink so nobody in the next room has to hear it, and fifteen minutes go by like that before you are dressed. The phone rings at four and you let it run to the machine, because you know exactly how the first minute of that call sounds and you tell yourself you will call her back once you have your breath. In March there is another appointment and they add one more thing to the list, and the list gets longer but the mornings do not change. A year from now the blanket is still on the arm of that chair.

The second one starts at the same sink

You take it first thing standing in the same spot, and day one it is sharp and bitter so you have your coffee sitting there waiting for you. The second week it gets worse before it gets anywhere, and you keep going because you were told in advance that it would. By the third week the fifteen minutes is more like five and you are dressed before the news is finished, and somewhere in the fifth week you get to the end of your own sentence on the phone and the other person does not slow down for you. Then it is a Saturday and you are up on the second floor at your granddaughters house and you did not count the stairs on the way. And in October you book the seat to go see your sister in Scotland.

Start the thirty mornings →

HOW TO START, FIVE STEPS

1. Open the order page (the button below takes you straight there, and there is nothing to read once you land on it, it is the same page the women up in the comments used)
2. Put your order in (about two minutes of typing, address and card, and the confirmation email with the tracking number comes through the same day)
3. Watch the porch for a padded envelope (inside is one amber dropper bottle, 2 fl oz, thirty mornings in it, and for most people it turns up inside a week or so)
4. Take it the first morning, before anything (two full droppers, held there for a full sixty seconds by the clock on the stove, before food and before coffee, then swallow, and it is sharp and bitter that first day so have the coffee poured and waiting)
5. Do not stop in the second week (days eight through fourteen it gets thicker and it gets worse, and that is precisely where most people put the bottle in the cabinet, and the ones who keep going are the ones writing in here about their sixth and seventh week)

Check Availability →

Wild mullein is harvested, not farmed, so stock runs out.

With respect,
Marcy Doyle
Respiratory therapist, 29 years

P.S. - P.S. A woman named Ruth in Ohio wrote to me in June and said her son had stopped doing the talking for her at the pharmacy counter, and he had been doing it about two years without either of them ever discussing it. She was on her seventh week. Most of her message was about the dog getting into the trash.

P.P.S. - P.P.S. The wild mullein is picked and not farmed, so there is only so much of it in a season and when a run is gone it is gone until the next picking. There is no clock ticking on this page and I am not going to invent a number to put in front of you. If the page still takes your order, it is because there is still some of it on the shelf.

P.P.P.S. - If the second week is worse, that is the week that proves it. Do not put the bottle in the cabinet. Everybody who writes in about their sixth week got through their second one first.

CommentsNewest

Add a comment…

• 
  Sharon Whitlock

  Has anyone here actually taken this or is it just the article again. Ive done the tea, bought it twice and it did nothing at all, so Im not paying to find that out a third time.

  Like · Reply · 👍9 · 5 h
• 
  Pat Rennie

  Sharon I did the tea all winter and it was a waste of money, this is not that. Im on morning 26 and the sink used to be fifteen minutes, this morning it was about five, and every inhaler stayed where it was.

  Like · Reply · 👍8 · 4 h
• 
  Barb Kinsella

  Telling you now the second week is bad. Mine got thicker and I nearly threw the bottle out, my husband said finish the month so I did and by day 11 it was coming up dark. Dont quit on that Tuesday like I nearly did.

  Like · Reply · 👍7 · 4 h
• 
  Doreen Blackwood

  Do you take it with the morning pills or before them? And how long is the shipping, I put my order in Tuesday and there's been nothing on the porch yet.

  Like · Reply · 👍3 · 4 h
• 
  Gail Fournier

  Doreen mine took 8 days to Ontario. Its first thing before food or coffee, two full droppers, and you hold it a full minute because I kept cheating at about twenty seconds, so now I use the timer on the stove.

  Like · Reply · 👍6 · 3 h
• 
  Maureen Ellis

  Week 2 for me and I am not going to describe what came up this morning but it went down and stayed down, so something is moving that wasnt. Bottle is by the sink so I dont forget.

  

  Like · Reply · 👍6 · 3 h
• 
  Trish Aldworth

  Jean Mackie read this one. Its the same thing you were saying to me at church on Sunday about the stairs and having to stop halfway.

  Like · Reply · 👍4 · 3 h
• 
  Nancy Kowalczyk

  Ordered a second one for my sister in Cleveland, she has the same as me and she quit in 2009 and she still cant get from the door to the car without stopping at the mailbox.

  Like · Reply · 👍5 · 2 h
• 
  Rob Trethewey

  My wife Denise has had this 6 years. She walked to the end of the driveway and back this morning and then she stood there talking to the neighbor instead of sitting down. Sorry about the photo, I took it through the door.

  

  Like · Reply · 👍9 · 2 h
• 
  Lorraine Fitzhugh

  I bought this for my mother, shes 78 and she would never order anything on a computer herself. She called me Sunday and talked for twenty minutes without stopping and she hasnt done that in about two years.

  Like · Reply · 👍8 · 2 h
• 
  Eileen Brackett

  Has anyone in their seventies actually done this. Im 74 and everything I read seems written for people who just have a bit of a cough and not for someone whos had it nine years.

  Like · Reply · 👍5 · 2 h
• 
  Wendy Marsden

  Eileen Im 79 in October and Ive done six weeks of it. My daughter set the order up for me and I just do it when the coffee goes on, and thats the only thing thats different in my day.

  Like · Reply · 👍7 · 1 h
• 
  Marg Cudmore

  Day 9 and honestly its worse than when I started, and every answer on here is keep going. Somebody put a number on it, how long before I know either way.

  Like · Reply · 👍4 · 1 h
• 
  Cheryl Vandenberg

  Marg mine was at its worst on 9 and 10 as well, then day 12 what came up went brown and heavy and sank. Give it to the middle of week three before you make up your mind, thats all Im saying.

  Like · Reply · 👍6 · 1 h
• 
  Janet Oliphant

  Went back for another and it said limited. My niece looked it up and the wild kind only gets picked a few times a year so its not the same as whats sitting on the pharmacy shelf all year round.

  Like · Reply · 👍5 · 1 h
• 
  Bev Tunnicliffe

  Same, so I took two this time. Last year I ran out and waited three weeks for more and I could feel it going back on me. Won't do that again.

  Like · Reply · 👍4 · 55 min
• 
  Rosemary Kilbride

  I read this in the spring and did nothing about it, so thats four months gone. Started five weeks ago and last Saturday I sat through my grandsons whole birthday out on the grass with them.

  Like · Reply · 👍7 · 45 min
• 
  Diane Prosser

  Should have got it months ago instead of another appointment where they add one more thing to the list. Week 7 here and I stopped working out where the benches are before I go anywhere.

  Like · Reply · 👍6 · 32 min
• 
  Kath Somerville

  Mine was on the porch when I got back from the store. Starting in the morning before my coffee, Ill come back on here and say either way.

  Like · Reply · 👍2 · 24 min
• 
  Joyce Mainwaring

  Just put mine in. My friend Nola in Tauranga started in June and she went out to her sons place for lunch last week, and she hadnt done that since before Christmas.

  Like · Reply · 👍3 · 16 min

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Please read this part

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Keep taking everything your doctor has prescribed. Nothing here is a replacement for it. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual experiences vary.