New to the site

[nsd_user663_52332]

Hi everyone.

Had my last smoke on 17th September so I'm approaching 7 days. I found this site when I was looking to see if my symptoms were normal.

My chest feels so strange sort of like tickling or something & a strain on my heart. I keep feeling the need to take deep breaths. I don't see any other references to this type of thing. I'll have a look around the forums & I'll ask here if anyone else had these type of symptoms?

[nsd_user663_52331]

First of all good on you for getting to nearly 7 days. All I can say from experience, (4th quit day for me,) your body seems to do all sorts of strange things when you quit smoking. When it comes to the heart and it feeling strained I think the only thing would be to get it checked out at the doctors. The tickling in the chest, well I've got that, I'm guessing that could be all the injured parts of my lungs resurrecting and flushing out all that built up gunk. It can only be a good thing, right? And the feeling of needing to take deep breaths, again the lungs letting you know they need inflating with good clean air and not toxic smoke, give them what they need, inhale as deep as you can through your nose, hold for a few seconds and breathe our slowly through your mouth with pursed lips until there is no more air in your lungs, again take a deep breath through your nose, take it to as far as you can, hold it for a few seconds then exhale slowly through pursed lips until all the air is out of your lungs. There are some good web sites for breathing techniques. Hope this has helped.

[nsd_user663_20558]

Hi there, welcome to the site.

First of all, great decision to quit - it's all worth it I promise

I did a quick google of 'tight chest after quitting smoking' and judging by the thousands of results, you're not alone!

It would seem to be a pretty common symptom, caused by a combination of your lungs healing themselves and ridding themselves of congestion, and also quitting-related anxiety.

Breathing in steam can help to clear congestion. Breathing exercises like blossom suggested can help when you're taking short, panicky breaths. It ought to sort itself out after a couple of weeks.

However, or if the symptoms are really severe, it would definitely be advisable to see your GP just to get checked over. Also if you are having any actual chest pain then you should definitely get it checked out by a medical professional.

But overall my advice would be to ride it out, and hang tough. It will get better, and you will be so happy you stuck with the quit.

Good luck

Helen

[nsd_user663_52332]

Hi blossom & Helsbelles thanks for responding & I'm glad to know it's normal. What you said makes sense so my lungs are getting a good clearing out. The tickling has settled down today & the only symptom I have now is when taking a deep breath I get a slight pain as my lungs fill. A tight feeling like Helsbelles mentioned but it's bound to be good in the long run as it's better than a lung full of smoke.

I hope yours goes well blossom. Good luck with it

[nsd_user663_51671]

Hi Jokenball. Welcome and congrats on sticking with it so far. I'm 3 weeks in and still have the chest thing going on. I smoked for the best part of 35 years so I guess it'll take a while to sort itself out. Bloody weird that I never had a tight chest when I smoked! Actually I probably did and am now looking for rose tinted specs - sneaky addiction this.

Keep at it one day at a time.