Just reading through some BLOGS with regards to SMOKING.
Just wanted to congradulate everyone for stopping SMOKING and for everone trying to stop.
It is a great hurdle to cross, even the thought of giving up was hard for me.
I just want to say a big well done and keep up the good work. It took me a good 9 months of being on Patches then gum then even more gum, (jaws were killinh me for over a year) did overdo things with the patches and gum but it did work for me.
Two years on and going strong, bummer I was diagnosed with Bullous COPD after I had stopped but here we are dealing with the crosses we carry.
Well done and keep on stopping.
David 1968
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1968
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It seems a few of us got diagnosed with COPD AFTER we stopped smoking. I used to get a bit puffed out when I smoked but 3 months after I gave up I found I was gasping for breath after walking a few yards. I have been diagnosed with severe emphysema. Thank goodness I can walk a lot further now.
I know someone told me years ago that if you give up smoking you start to come down with all sorts of illnesses, I did read that there is something in the cigs that actually open up the air ways, so when you stop thats when you actually feel as if your breathing is being narrowed. It is apernt though that you do get diagnosed with COPD after you stop?????
Hi Dave,Well done pal,looks as though you had a bit of a struggle with giving up the weed but you persevered,credit to you mate.I was also diagnosed with COPD and asthma after stopping smoking but i'm sure that somehow i have done myself a favour,if it's only to prove to myself that i do have will power(or won't power,)
From my personal experience, giving up smoking took all the many years of tar and rubbish out of my lungs and that let all the bugs in to give me chest infection after chest infection. I already had damage there from Pneumonia, leaving me with reduced lung capacity through scar tissue. As my breathing got more difficult I needed to get medical advice, and was then diagnosed with COPD.
It may be that I, like many others, already had the condition and it was laying pretty dormant, until I gave up the cigs and a different set of conditions brought it to the forefront.
Many others may find that their health improves greatly through packing the habit in. It just didn't work out that way for me, but I had been smoking for 35 years and should really have given up when I was hospitalised with the pneumonia - too late to think 'what if' now.
There are many benefits to stopping smoking - the effect on your pocket is one, how much will you save and what else could you do with all that money? An incentive in itself.
Its the most horrible disguting habit, I look at people who smoke and I think what are you doing to yourself.
It has to be the most stupid pointless exercise ever created ( can you tell I'm an ex smoker) I look at smoking as a totally evil thing it attaches itself to your life force and each time you inhale the smoke it slowly destroys you from the inside.
The people on here who have copd and still smoke need to wake up and smell the coffee, smoking is not a friend, not a stress reliever. Doesn't help you when your upset your just fooling yourselves, it is killing you one drag at a time.
When I was told I had copd, what did I do ? Stood outside the doctors chain smoking because I was worried about the damage I had done to my lung, how crazy is that?
I'm not sorry if any of you on here who still smoke are offended by reading this, you need a good kick up the behind, look at smoking for what it is EVIL. I don't go with the softly softly approach on this issue as you can probably see.
Rant over....
Hope you all have a nice day
Regards
warren
Very well put, Warren. As a ex-smoker, I dont have any patience with smokers.
As an ex smoker strange I still have the patience with smokers. I am grateful I gave up smoking and the illness has been caught quite early for me. This means I have a slight chance, No I cannot stand the smell of smoking and irritates the hell out of me when all smokers huddle round the entrance /exit of the place and I have to walk though it. I can even smell when a car goes past me with the window open and has been smoking
Yeugh
But we all smoked and we all enjoyed it and we ALL knew the risks...... Did WE listen, did we heck, my mother used to say to me I do hate to watch you killing yourself!!!! Did I take any notice did I heck.
remember tea breaks at work when all the smokers used to smoke INSIDE..... wow I remember going to the cinema and smoking. We used to go to parties and the non smokers were the odd ones out now its the smokers,
Huddling out in the rain in the cold to have a ciggy yep done that one, and still I couldn't be told.
So just because we have seen the light and been caught don't be too harsh on the next lot of smokers
When I told family and friends that I did not get breathless until after I quit smoking they looked at me as if I were deluding myself.
I got very suddenly sick with a lung infection while staying at 8500 feet up in the Andes. 16 nights in hospital followed then I decided life was easier at sea level and came home.
To say I am fed up with my doctors here is an understatement. No help at all with what has been called lung damage due to smoking - it is not - but will they listen NO.
Then I was told there is "no funding available" for a very serious sleep problem that is driving me into depression. 9 Visits from a psychologist - first to check my memory which is 100% (the problem is not in my head) and lots of other tests but not one to a sleep clinic or lung therapy.
This has been on going since March when I saw my GP. I have not had one single nights proper sleep since the lung infection 15 months ago. I am convinced the GP is telling me "It is your own fault for smoking in the past" - My current GP was not even born in this country.
Those who use to smoke know what an evil drug nicotine is. When I was a kid in the 1950s it was "normal" to smoke and any GP who is making character judgements and treating patients accordingly should be struck off.
I am going to complain to the Primary Care Trust for my area.
David too true this same as me glad you said this I'm still chewing the gum after two years but I will stop when ready!! I too was diagnosed after I stopped smoking with COPD but the thought of smoking and taking a drag frightens me so that's a good thing. Those damn cigarettes!
I had no problems when I smoked but got breathless a couple of months after I stopped and was diagnosed with COPD.
I stopped because I had got to a stage where I was sick of it ruling my life. Constantly thinking how long it was before I could have on, standing in the wind and rain in doorways, being looked down on by others..... So I stopped with Champix and that was 9 months ago.
It was the best thing I did and although I have COPD, that would have been so much worse if I still smoked.
It is the most baffling thing about smoking, when we say we enjoy it ? do we enjoy it? I really never enjoyed it for the last few years I just couldn't stop.
I take your point jackie those of us who have seen the light shouldn't preach to those who still smoke.
My anger is also vented at the government and cigarette companies and all those that profit from this deadly trade.
I would love to see cigarette made illegal and placed in the same category as heroin people caught in possession should face a prison sentence as it kills more people than any other drug know to man.
The government and cigarette companies know that 1 in 2 or 50% of smokers will die of a smoking related illness (FACT) how can a caring society justify that?
Nothing as changed from when I was young I still see young children walking to school smoking. this cycle has to be changed or the next generation of youngest will be in the same boat as us lot in twenty or thirty years time struggling to get there breath.
I smoked for 45 years, then April past was rushed to hospital and my family were told severe pnumeonia, was in coma for 3 weeks, when I finally woke had patch on me and never smoked since, though was told in hospital I had COPD,feel lots better giving them up and bit richer, must admit miss them too, happy Sunday all xxxx
Agree with all the above, I believe the nicotine is the actuall part that opens up airways,, the rest is the poison that does the most damage,
Forty five years ago, I started to smoke, as some say it was the norm in the fifties..
My Dad smoked, his reason was the war, (on Atlantic convoys)
I was fifteen when I tried a cigarette, at the youth club... My friends had to carry me home because I was being sick, my head was spinning,etc etc. my mum and dad were furious. I had just stopped having asthma attacks and felt i belonged in the world instead of being ill so much!
I tried again because they were all smoking, this time I didn't get the bad reaction,
the ( stick had got me).
Around this time the first ventolin type sprays were being dispensed,, I was getting bronchitis regularly. So I asked my doctor if I could have one, my asthma attacks were not so bad,, but my excema was getting worse,,, he asked me if I smoked,, he could probably smell it on me,,,and I at fifteen, said only one or two! as you do.
This is the Gods honest truth, he said that's Ok, it will help relax you, and your breathing, but to only smoke the Menthyl cigs,,, I came away with an inhaler and some cream for my face hands ext,ext,, this was the new cream for excema called Betnovate very strong steroid,,
I felt really pleased with myself, told mum and dad it was ok! The doctor has given me the ok.
I put my cream on regularly I wanted rid of the excema! It was along time before it was discovered that you should use it sparingly, and never on your face.
This cream thins your skin very badly and caused premature ageing, plus the effects of smoking didn't help.
I didn't have another asthma attack for four years,,I had just met my husband,,I went into a full blown attack,,,frightened the life out of him.. But he was a good un. We are still together.
I said every year I will give up when they reach £5, but my dad dying of cancer five years ago, convinced me that I have got to stop...it wasn't easy it took several attempts. Patches, gum, and years ago a mouth wash, that was absolutely vile (silver something)
Anyone still trying, keep strong you will make it, take one day at a time say 'today I won't smoke'
I noticed that quite a few on this site are in their sixties when being diagnosed,I am (63) hopefully with more and more not taking up smoking this disease will be in the past...
Oh how I remember the menthol cigs, thats all I ever smoked. I tried regal-club and various other brands but the menthol did it for me. I remember someone saying they wern't real fags and could not do ant dammage, did we ever read the contents on the side? it wasn't until the horrid pictures were printed on the front that I really statred to wonder. HOW STUPID WAS I. I never had any health or breathing problems until I stopped, I guess the bad things in the fags masked a lot.
My story started giving up In October 2008 using Champix for two months. I had given up completely by the end of October. During March in 2009 I was amazed at how breathless I had become when shovelling snow (very heavy snowfalls) and I had to stop after 10 minutes. Two weeks later I had a heart attack and then a triple bypass during which my lungs collapsed. Great things these fags aren't they.
It wasn't until 2011 that I got a diagnosis of COPD in spite of trying to get a test done for the previous two years. The rest is history.
Im so disgusted with myself,2 years ago i had a lung reduction and the day after my op i was up and about,2 days later i could walk from 1 end to the other with no difficulty at all,i asked if i could go home and the answer was yes but dont overdo it but i did as most women do especialy when you live on your own.Then a friend (or so i thought) came to see me and i tried to stop her coming in as my son,grandaughter and my greatgrandson were in the garden talking,my friend pushed me out of the way so hard that i fell backwards onto the radiator and hit the floor.I made a massive mistake by not telling anyone but when i did tell my son he went over to see her and she denied it.Ive been going downhill ever since as she started to threaten me if she saw me in the kitchen window,now she stands in her bedroom window staring at me.I even let her back into my home to see if it would help me but then she tried to cause trouble for me with one of my friends by saying i had been calling her which wasn't true and i only found out about it when she refused to talk to me when i saw her. I have had several attempts to give up smoking and almost managed it for a couple of weeks but now i feel that i have let myself and the doctor down
was diagnosed with emphysema 4 days ago and yes a smoker i have tried to stop many times i did it once but my mum died i was ok until two days later when my dad passed too that was it started again i new in my hart i had emphysema due to the way i was breathless and the constent cough and whizz i decide on wensday afternoon to stop just before i got my results. so now on day 5 of no smoking have fell off once and had two drags wish i had none but i will keep trying to stop no mater what ...
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