It's the little niggly things that get you...

[nsd_user663_61059]

Right so, I am on month 6 now - But I thought I would share my experiences with the new quitters, as personally I was a little bit of a hypochondriac after I quit - Especially since, for 90% of my life (I am 29 years old) I have had no medical problems at all, and on average get the sniffles maybe twice a year! So, this is my experience of quitting.

So after the first week or so, I kept getting very slight head aches and neck aches. They were not anything to go to the doctors for, as they were just little niggly pains, so nothing major. This still sort of happens every so often. As the weeks go on, I started to notice a general feeling of being a bit ''un well'' but nothing to seek medical advice about. I also started to cough up some questionable looking flemmy type stuff. They say you cough up black tar after you quit, so I guess this was it. It wasn't black though and there wasn't a lot of it, more brown in colour really.

Now the only good thing here is that although i felt un well or ''icky'' most of the time, I still felt healthier, in a weird way - so we need to keep this in mind.

After 2 months or so, i started to get bad dizzy spells, maybe twice a week, so not often. They would last around 40 seconds, then I'd feel a bit sicky for 20 minutes, and then I would be fine. In the early weeks, a runny nose for me was pretty common too.

I would also get a very fuzzy and foggy head. Sort of like I couldn't focus on anything...

So, even after 5 months, sometimes I still feel a little odd. Point is, you're going to get lots of things happen to you that seem odd and out of the ordinary, but this is only because your brain and body are used to functioning with all the chemicals laced in the ciggies, and once you take those chemicals away, your body then has to adjust to function without them. It's similar to how alcoholics need alcohol to just ''function'' - It's because the body is so used to it, it's not an alien substance anymore so the body thinks your removing something it needs to work. So this is why your brain and body just goes bat **** crazy on you because of all the stuff you taken away from it.

I am sure everyone is different with their symptoms and length of symptoms though.

= )

[nsd_user663_60964]

Good post, Sean- it really is worth flagging up that most of us experience at least some physical symptoms when we quit (and that they can go on for some time). My MIL (who quit when she was 82 bless her! :D) often says that she wishes someone had told her she would feel worse before she started to feel better- at least she would have known what to expect.

Personally, I had cold after cold during the first 5 months and whilst they didn't settle on my chest and go on for weeks (as colds had tended to do prior to my quit) it was beginning to get on my nerves. Thankfully, I came out the other side eventually (as we all do). My GP says it takes up to a year for your body to properly reconfigure after quitting and when you factor in the length of time that some of us at least smoked (over 30 years in my case :o) it's no wonder that it's a while before everything settles down.

I suppose the thing to remember is that it is all part of your body healing and whilst no-one enjoys constant colds/insomnia/headaches/indegestion/constipation/bleeding gums and all the other negative quitting side-effects, it's a small price to pay for all the wonderful, marvellous, life-enhancing positives of quitting and personally, I would have gone through twice as much to feel as fantastic as I do now.

[nsd_user663_59644]

I can so empathise, I still have a bad throat, and little aches and pains, all due to the withdrawal of nicotine, but it's so worth it.

Great post, your doing so very well

[nsd_user663_63277]

No real side effects at the moment but I remember when I quit before after a month I got all the mucus and felt ill... wonder if this will happen again this time