Quit smoking a year ago - sick ever since!

healthnfitnessguy wrote:

jayjay1979 wrote:

I was 30 at the end of July and made a promise to my partner that i'd quit before i was 30. Cigarettes and alcohol have always gone hand in hand with me all through my 20's and i started drinking and smoking more and more. So on the 13th July after getting ill from being very rundown i quit both cold turkey...ouch!!

Ugh, that's quite a feat! I wish you a lot of luck though. You will do well quitting. After three months, you'll be compeltely in the clear. Just be careful. Since the two behaviors are the same in your head, if you do one again, you'll end up doing both again. I really applaud your efforts though. I know you are gonna do great!

GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!

I feel like I am getting screwed brutally after I quit smoking...Its been like 15 odd days and I am determined not to to smoke again ever. I am 29 years old and been smoking from last 9-10 years, almost a pack everyday, then some as****e who I thought was cool introduced me to weed and it was a different world. I started smoking that on almost regular basis, but last one year I have gone mad and started smoking weed joints as normal cigarettes on daily basis, almost 4-7 rolls every day.

15 days back I realized that what the f**k I am doing and decided to quit it for good. I never got sick before and never visited doctor, but after quitting smoke of all kinds

I FEEL SICK, can't sleep in night like my heart is racing and I feel like having an heart attack, I can hear my heart beat in my brain, my head is spinning, my throat is burning and now I have acidity as well, I burp all the time . My hands are shaking and even I feel pain in my arms...WTF and yeah I am shouting on TV, my girl friend, my mom and almost everything that I see moving.

ADVISE????

Neil wrote:

healthnfitnessguy wrote:

jayjay1979 wrote:

I was 30 at the end of July and made a promise to my partner that i'd quit before i was 30. Cigarettes and alcohol have always gone hand in hand with me all through my 20's and i started drinking and smoking more and more. So on the 13th July after getting ill from being very rundown i quit both cold turkey...ouch!!

Ugh, that's quite a feat! I wish you a lot of luck though. You will do well quitting. After three months, you'll be compeltely in the clear. Just be careful. Since the two behaviors are the same in your head, if you do one again, you'll end up doing both again. I really applaud your efforts though. I know you are gonna do great!

GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!

I feel like I am getting screwed brutally after I quit smoking...Its been like 15 odd days and I am determined not to to smoke again ever. I am 29 years old and been smoking from last 9-10 years, almost a pack everyday, then some as****e who I thought was cool introduced me to weed and it was a different world. I started smoking that on almost regular basis, but last one year I have gone mad and started smoking weed joints as normal cigarettes on daily basis, almost 4-7 rolls every day.

15 days back I realized that what the f**k I am doing and decided to quit it for good. I never got sick before and never visited doctor, but after quitting smoke of all kinds

I FEEL SICK, can't sleep in night like my heart is racing and I feel like having an heart attack, I can hear my heart beat in my brain, my head is spinning, my throat is burning and now I have acidity as well, I burp all the time . My hands are shaking and even I feel pain in my arms...WTF and yeah I am shouting on TV, my girl friend, my mom and almost everything that I see moving.

ADVISE????

I quit smoking pot and cigarettes at the same time 4 months ago; I smoked for 35 years.

I/you did/will feel extremely tired the first 2 or 3 weeks and not just any tired it’s the “I’m so tired I can’t get off the couch” kind of tired. Sick in your stomach and bowels, gas like you’ve never had before, metal taste in the mouth, bleeding gums, body aches and skin aches, hives, sleeping no more than 3 hours a night if you can sleep at all, bottom of feet pain, headaches, sore throat and the “I just feel like c**p” c**p. Oh, and did I mention the shortness of breath? I find it to be the worst of the worst feeling. This does not include the many sickness’s going around that you will pick up out of the blue, just when you are feeling better, bam, sick again.

However, it does/ it will get better. After about month 3 you start to see some improvement. Sleeping better, less all around aches and pains; still a problem with breathing, but better, I do feel a bit more energy.

Don’t let what I have stated detour your quest to be a non-smoker, it’s nothing but a “heads-up” on what to expect. As the past posts will attest, most of us found all the ailments to be a surprise we didn’t have half a clue what to expect and more than myself were thinking we were out of our non-smoker minds. The warning on the cigarette packs should state the facts of detox and damage that it does. Can’t smoke forever and all smokers will have to quit or dry trying, and that’s just a simple fact.

You’re young; your body will adjust faster than someone my age at 54. So don’t yell at your Mom or Girlfriend or to the TV; yell at the cigarette makers, they are the culprits, the bad guys, the creeps that have you suffering right now.

Good Luck.

PS; quitting pot was easy when you are short of breath.

More bad news.....

It is my understanding there will be months of this, plus some, as in, panic attacks, rapid heartbeat and the good ole "The World is coming to an End" doomsday feelings. Not something I'm looking forward to but got to face just the same; it's the price for freedom from smoking.

And...I've saved lots of money on both sides (pot and cigarettes); that's a big plus. 

Kudos to us all for braving the detox of cigarettes!

Bad news.After 6 months of quitting I had stressful times and I smoked a few cigarettes.There have been days where I did smoke only 1 or 2 cigarettes in the past weeks and felt no desire to smoke more. Now I'm smoking nearly 10 a day and if I won't stop I'll back to one pack a day.I can't believe how stupid I am,suffering for so many months of withdrawal and I started to feel better after 5 months of quitting now I have to go through withdrawal again...

Istvan, dont beat yourself up. I quit smoking (again) last Monday. Immediately I got bronchitis which actually made it easier for me to not smoke I did give in on day 6 after a big fight with my husband. I ran out of the house and bought a pack of cigarettes. I smoked almost a half pack that night. I remember thinking that I failed. But then another thought came to me...instead of beating myself up i can decide that I am not a failure and that I can take this thing day by day. Tomorrow is another day that i can choose not to smoke. So that is what i did. What im finding is that taking long deep breaths helps calm my nerves. It almost feels like taking a drag from a cigarette. Try to breathe in and out deeply until the craving passes. Im so glad i found this site because we can all use support. I had no idea that the body goes through such a detoxification process that you become physically ill. That is what im going through right now. I didnt get sick until i quit smoking. Now im on antibiotics for bronchitis. But honestly i feel better. My skin looks younger and brighter and everything tastes so delcious! Now i just have to stop wanting to eat so much good food. But a few extra pounds is better than extra cancer. Good luck everybdy.

Finding this thread and reading some of these posts has helped me greatly. I have smoked for 15 years and during that time I quit three times counting now, the first time I lasted two years and the second time I lasted a year. What made me go back the first two times was drinking and being around my friends who smoked so it was just a way to further enhance the mood as I genuinely liked smoking (I know idiotic). But the first two times I quit I felt little to no withdraw symptoms, the worst it got was for about a week after quitting I would be really irritable. This time however was a whole new animal and after about a month and a half in I had slight anxiety that would just not go away and then about 2 months in the anxiety turned severe. I could barely function at all at work and could not sleep at night. I have never had anxiety like this before so I started to panic even more as I thought I was going crazy or had some kind of major illness. But after about seven days of this (felt like a life time) it slowly started to go away and be replaced by exhaustion and depression of the same degree. All I could think of was very negative thoughts and had doomsday feelings and I lost all interest in the things that I enjoyed doing before quitting. I found this thread as I scoured the internet to find answers to the way I was feeling and boy did just reading through and seeing familiar experiences and circumstances in this thread help. It also made me feel bad for the people that have to put up with this kind of sh1t when we are all just trying to do the right thing in quitting. Keep in mind that just because you have quit in the past and not suffered through the same things, that does not mean you will get lucky every time. I'm about three months in as I write this and I still have mild anxiety and depression but I can manage it at this point. I Also have weird head pains like pressure and the ''swimming feeling'' similar to having a hangover and a weird out of balance feeling that I can't clearly describe. In conclusion I will never smoke another cigarette in my life and these symptoms are a HUGE motivator to stay away from bad habits and start living healthier. Stay strong every one and remember you WILL start to feel better in time stick with it! And don't forget that nicotine is considered to be one of the most addictive substances on earth so its only natural that your body and mind will go through hell when it is deprived of it. Keep on believing in yourselves and you will beat this! 

Hello All,

 

Its beena month and trust me first 20 odd days were phathetic but now I feel good..there are urges but I dont think about it and now I am a non smoker....I got all my medical trsts done and thank GOD everything was normal and thats it..I m a non smoker now. I was ill, I got fever, couldn't sleep in night but now I sleep like a baby, a better lover to my women and a better son and better employee. LIFE IS GOOD HERE....and I will be saving some $900 + weed cost in an year and she already is makin plans...lol women eh...All I can say to guys f**k the Cigs and QUIT today

Just an update: I posted on this forum about ten months ago... I was 2 months into my quit at that time. I am now 13 days away from marking my first year smoke free (smoke a pack a day for 25 years). I am 40 years old. When I quit and went through hell I read this forum and everything else I could find to reassure myself and I am hoping that my update will reassure someone else.
After quitting I suffered severe dizziness (lasted for about 8 weeks), ear problems (bloked and aching), horrible post nasal drip and throat clearing, morning cough, hightened emotionality (my own term), excessive worry, digestive problems, re-occuring diareah..... and...... even began coughing up small amounts of blood in my phlegm (daily). It was the blood in my phlegm that really did a number on me psychologically speaking. It was nothing short of terrifying. Within the first 6 months after quitting I had constant doctor visits, specialist consults', I had a broncoscopy, Chest CT, Brain CT (dizziness), blood tests (on two occassions) and chest x-rays. I stopped eating gluten, I lost 25% of my starting body weight and honestly thought I was going to die. Started to improve between 6 and 8 months after quitting.
BUT...... I am now great. All the weird symptoms have gone (slowly) and without any real answers as to why they appeared. I am sure I had anxiety and I am sure it contributed to many of my symptoms.... but I will never know how or why. All that matters is that I have stayed off the cigarettes and I HAVE now got my health back and my sanity. If you are still suffering my message is hang in there, exercise, try to eat well, see your doctor if anything really scares you and just take it one day at a time (easier said than done). There really IS light at the end of the tunnel but tremendous patience and strength is required.
Quitting was the hardest thing I have ever done and this past year was the worst of my life but the evil of smoking is now gone and I am so happy about that.
Stay strong everyone. You WILL make it, you WILL feel better.
Andy

I am so relieved to see this thread. I have literally been worrying myself sick. I have been worrying all my friends, my girlfriend, and my parents.

I am 29 years old, and I smoked about a pack a day since I was 15. Always reds or lights, too. Memorial day, my sisters, who have quit thanks to e-cigs, gifted a Revolver Ion model to me, and I immediately began using it. Within two days, I crumpled up my last pack with 2 lights in it and threw them away! I was so happy and proud of myself. And after a while, I began using the e-cig less and less, and after reading this, I'm scared to even get CLOSE to nicotene again.

A week after that, I had an odd episode with some cheap vodka and ended up sick as a dog 5-6 times for a few days. That pretty much swore me off alcohol. Haven't touched it since. Not even a beer.

Then the week after that, I had a pretty intense Kinect Advemtures session that lasted about 5 hours, and I was sweating all over the place! But, man, I felt great. THEN I woke up the next morning and I had vertigo so bad that I couldn't even walk. This began to horrify me, and I started panicking to the point where I almost made myself vomit a couple times.

I ended up in bed for the next couple days, and when my fear about another vertigo attack was relented enough to let me out of bed, I was super-sensitive to everything my body was feeling. Every chest pain equaled heart attack. Every floater in my vision equaled a brain tumor. Every stomach ache was an ulcer.

Up to present day. Now I have this...cloudiness. I wouldn't describe it as loss of concentration or anything, more like a sheet of wax paper between my brain and the outside world. Now I can't eat much, seeing as it's summer, and quickly approaching 100 degree weather in Toledo where I live, and I know that has to be affecting me. I've been trying to eat, but I can't get more than a slice of dry toast down during the hot part of the day. When it's later, and near bedtime, I can eat anything I want. But I'm having the pencil thin stools that everyone is describing, and the diarrhea, and the trembles, and the panic attacks, but no trouble sleeping or staying asleep, and no issues with the typical symptoms of cigarette cessation, like the overeating, or the weight gain.

I feel like the e-cig kept the nicotene DT's away for a while, but then once I cut back on the e-cig, now I feel like utter c**p. And it crossed my mind that to start smoking again might relieve my symptoms, but then I look at my three kids, and I can't do it. I'll feel like this as long as I need to, as long as it cuts back on the odds that they will see me die of cancer someday.

I was beginning to feel like this is just how my life was going to be. I felt like my life was just going to be an endless string of crazy anxiety that wouldn't ever stop. Even up until today, the days just seem to be getting harder. I wake up feeling fine, but after an hour or two, I start to feel that haziness mixed with a touch of light-headedness and then if I'm not careful, that will get the panic train rolling all day until my gf gets home from work at 4am and calms me down. She quit after close to 20 years, and had almost no DTs or withdrawal symptoms to speak of. Makes me jealous!!

I realize that the cigarettes have been poisoning my mind for 15 years, and that while I was enjoying the simple act of smoking a cigarette, I guess I never realized what was happening on the inside. I feel out of whack. I feel like I should meditate. But I'm scared. It seems so easy to forget what I've done to my body with smoking. I read that the habit of "cyberdiagnosing" is quite a concern among non-smokers, and I attribute that to a good share of my worries, but I also know that my worries are what got me online looking for diagnoses in the first place.

I'm so thankful that I've found this thread. It's a horrible thing to go through, but I have to find a way to remind myself that this is temporary. Everything is temporary, and this too shall pass. But, man. When you're in the grips of it, it seems like FOREVER. But I will NEVER go back to smoking. Never. I knew that the tobacco companies were okay with killing us with cancer, but to know that THEY own the cessation programs, and that this is the stuff they don't publicize makes me even angrier. I never knew that this would be a long hard road out of hell. I knew it was going to be hard mentally, but physically?? I had no idea.

Thanks all for airing out these issues. Reading this is the best I've felt in weeks. My stomach is calming down, and this is a time for celebration and happiness. I have beaten something that most people never beat. I am so proud of all of you for beating the odds, and I know it sounds trite, but HANG IN THERE. Your body is getting back to what it is supposed to be. Levels will have to re-balance, and so will lots of other things. Mentally, I feel like I could tear down a building with my bare hands, but physically, I just want to lie down Lol It is good to know that this won't last forever. And even if it DOES last a year or two, it's a lot better than the alternative. This is such a relief, to know that every single thing that I have let snowball into giant killer snowmen has been felt by other quitters who may not have been as lucky as me to stumble upon this thread 20 pages long.

If you are reading this, and you are a new non-smoker, DON'T GIVE UP. DON'T START AGAIN. This will pass. Everything is temporary. Have faith in YOURSELF. Have faith in science, and your own body. You are all beautiful and I love you, even though I don't know you. Thank you so much for freeing me from my own mental oppression.

To hell with cigarettes.

She's asking for advice in order to improve her life and you're just being a penis, go away

I sadly yet gladly enjoyed reading the experiences of many people on this topic. 

Finally! found a form with people that have prolonged symptoms like I have, after
quitting smoking. All the experts said they would be gone in 2-3 weeks well its been 4
month with out a cigarette after 45 years of smoking over a pack a day, (this is a sentence
from ricardo84) and I still have mild anxiety and depression but I can manage it at this
point. I Also have weird head pains like pressure and the ''swimming feeling'' similar to
having a hangover and a weird out of balance feeling that I can't clearly describe.. This
describes my symptoms exactly, there are other but not as bad.  Now the 4th month was
not as bad as month 2,  I can see some improvement, in conclusion this is not going to be
a few weeks ordeal as they would like you to believe. I am doing 1 day at a time for 1
year if my body do’s not adjust by then it will never.  

I am the same way... 35 days now & I crazy, crying all the time, intense back pain, tingling, burning in the limbs, restless legs. Ugh I just want to go back to "feeling better" which means smoking but I keep thinking about my dad with COPD on oxygen, beating cancer by having half a lung taken out... Then I say KEEP WITH IT- it's got to get better right!?? I hope so... Staying strong & looking for a psychiatrist!

Went to a Pharmacist I know the other day and ask her about the headaches and what I could take for them, I was surprised when she told me nothing if I could tolerate it for another couple of months they should be almost gone. It is like a hangover from drinking, but you smoked for 45 years its going to take a lot longer to get rid of the hangover. You know? I have had a hangover from drinking and
partying all night, the symptoms are very very similar. The Doctor and RN that I have been seeing about the headaches and quitting
smoking never gave me a real answer and told me to take advil or tylenol for the headache. Just going to hang in there 1 day at a time. I have never said that I was never going to smoke again, I just say “I am not going to smoke today”.
Day 128 with out a cigarette

Wow, this is exactly what I'm going through now. Your timeline is spot on to what I've been having.



5 months quit. 40ish Smoked a day since i was 14, am 28 now.



It was over a year ago but if you do notice this, did everything get better? I've just been diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety) but it's blatantly just the side effects of smoking.





What i have experienced -



- Shortness of Breath

- Acid Reflux / GERD

- Bloated severely

- Anxiety / Panic Attacks

- Foggy Brain

- Depression

- Pulpertations

- Feeling like having a heart attack (sweating/pain in chest/arms etc)

- Suddenly scared of flying (i never used to be)

- Blocked Nose

- Dry Mouth and Nose

- Breath smelling horrible, a strange taste, metallic maybe.