Quit smoking a year ago - sick ever since!

I am 48 years old, and I quit smoking 7 months ago, and have similar issues like allot of you do, trouble staying asleep, numbness, tingling in my face, and legs, and random spots, arm, hand, foot, etc. I take Tylenol PM at times, and that has really helped me stay asleep at night. Of course like most I have gained some weight as well about 15 pounds. I feel depressed and have some anxiety issues as well. I pray this goes away soon. In addition to this I was diagnosed with the “Extremely Mild Emphysema” back in April, I was told by my Family physician and Lung Specialist, that it was caught so early it can barely be seen on a CT scan, so if I quit smoking I should never have any issues, and live a long life, that was the last time I picked up a cigarette. I was a mild to moderate smoker for the last 25, never smoked over a pack, maybe half a pack a day, sometime less, I always was very active, and ate well.  I feel I was blessed to find out I was starting to have lung issues before it became a huge issue, but sometimes I feel scared inside that I may have a ticking bomb inside of me, and I pray that the emphysema does not progress, The Drs told me that they really feel I don’t have anything to worry about, my lung function test was really good, in fact my Lung specialist said, she expects my lung functions to improve even more just from quitting smoking, and everything else looked fine, but sometimes I still worry. I always wonder if there are other people out there going thru a similar situation as me?

Hi...don't let go...keep on going....

The reason behind depression after quitting is "serotonin"....go read on it

Istop

I appreciate this site and the information everyone is sharing on their experiences quitting smoking. I'm 42-quit smoking June 25th about 4.5 months ago after a 30 year pack a day habit. First three days challenging and then felt good for a few weeks in. After that palpitations, anxiety , panic attacks a flare up of arthritis in hip that I never knew I had. Now having severe anxiety before meetings and Bp is spiking. Cut out a caffeine and lowered salt intake-drink 60-80 oz of water per day but now having chest pains, panic attacks in middle of night, and a strange electrical shock that goes from my chest to my head every now and again. I am so grateful to hear that maybe some of this is from withdrawal symptoms-I have a strange sense of doom that I'm dying when I try to fall asleep at night. This is awful and I can only keep hoping I can feel normal again soon. I try to keep positive when I can and think of my 17 month old son.

Welll you are not going through anything out of normal. as you can go through the old posts and realise that everybody here went through hard times and they are mostly withdrawal ... some old fellows here who were actively giving their updates upto a year have stopped giving their updates which means they are much better now ...... but i am keen to see any of them come back and say that they are perfect again ...i think we have done some permanent damage to ourselves already which is irreversible ...but keep on smoking is more dangerous ......after completeting 19 months smoke free i cannot say i am 100% what i was when i was smoking but definately lot better then what i was in the months after quitting smoking .... keep going smoke free

Can you give us a time line of what you have gone through in months 13-19 smokefree?

I don't normally go on the web and post anything but use it mostly for research which sometimes can be bad because there are a lot of bad stories out there when it comes to health. Lets face it, if you are feeling well you are not going on the internet boasting about how great you feel unless you really have nothing else better to do in your life? I have been coming to this site for months now which has helped me a great deal with my healing process from quitting smoking in the 5 months from a 28 year nasty habit. We are all going through the same detox process but the problem here is that there are not enough good success stores posted and the few that are listed have inspired me to beat this problem. I did not want to be one of the people here still having issues 9 months to a year later, no offense.

 

I am a 45 year male who quit smoking on 6/20/13.I was not a heavy smoker 10 or less a day but is enough over a 28 year period to alter your brains chemicals from which I now realize is what has happened. I am never really sick and up until the day I quit felt great. I just did not want to smoke anymore. I hated the smell on me and my kids were getting on me to stop so I did. Within the first week I went for a complete physical with blood work and everything came back normal. A little low on vitamin D. No big deal. The fist week or so was a little rough but then for 6 weeks after smooth sailing. Wow, not bad I thought. Then one night watching TV in the den with my wife it hit me like a ton of bricks. Out of nowhere insane anxiety followed by a severe panic attack. WTF is this? Never in my life have I felt this before. I rushed to the ER thinking I was dieing. Had a full set of tests done only to come back normal? The ER doctor said it looked like a panic attack and I also had bad acid reflux. I made an appt. with a Gastroenterologist and after an endoscopy found I developed ulcers from stress. I lost 25 pounds in 3 months from not eating but stabilized after being on Prevacid during that time. Everwhere I went I heard wow you lost weight are you ok? I had to lie and say yeah I'm dieting even though I'm not close to being over weight. This played on my mind big time. My stomach healed but I was still having daily panic and anxiety. After doing much research I realized that it was my mind that I needed to heal to get back my once happy and normal life. For a few weeks the doctors put me on Lexapro (anti-depressant) and Klonopin for the panic attacks. This was a bad move as it made me feel so much worse and felt I was starting with one drug addiction to get rid of another. I quickly stopped. It took another week to get the Lexapro out of my system. That stuff was bad news for me and caused severe insomnia for 2 weeks where I did not sleep for more than an hour a night. It took a month to turn things around and I now feel 80% better and back to sleeping 6 hours or so a night.

 

The 3 things I changed was to at least eat a healthy breakfast and a diet that consisted of more fruits. Exercise on the stationary bike for 30 minutes daily with deep breathing practice at night before going to bed. This really helps and takes practice. Lastly, vitamins. Smoking really depletes your bodies vitamins and you need to replenish these. The most important vitamin I take the last month that has stopped my anxiety and panic dead in it's tracks is something called Inositol in a powered form from Jarrows which I picked up from Amazon. Read about this stuff you will be amazed. It detoxes the liver and creates serotonin. Studies have show this to work better than anti-depressants. You need to play with the grams to find which works. This stuff only cause me a little gas which went away after a few days once my body got use to it. I take 6 grams daily broken up 3x a day. Like I said, I feel like a new person compared to where I was a month or so ago. I now see the light at the end of the tunnel and now know it will not take a year of suffering. Here is my daily intake.

 

1) Fist thing in the morning I take 2 1/4 teaspoons of Inositol powder mixed in a cup of water. Then have a banana to get something in my stomach. Get measuring spoons at home store that sells cooking supplies.

2) Go to work and have oatmeal and eat whites and yogurt. After eating I take 5000ui of vitamin D, 1 vitamin B stress complex which has 500mg of vitamin C and some other minerals made by Natures Made. I also take 2000mg of fish oil mood support made by Country Life which has shown to help with depression. Most of use will run into this after quitting.

3) Late afternoon another 2 scoops of the Inositol. For lunch and diner anything goes I could eat a salad if I feel like being healthy or pizza or whatever I'm in the mood for. I can't be a complete health nut this is not who I am.

4) At night I will hit the exercise bike with light weight lifting after. Before bed I take another 2 scoops of Inositol and practice the Deep Breathing in bed to relax. Sometimes I throw on the headphones and listen to some relaxing meditation music just to calm the wondering mind. 

 

I try to stick to this routine daily as much as possible. I also forgot, I starting taking daily walks which helps clear the mind as well. If you notice, what I'm saying is the key to all this is to heal your mind. I now realize that a healthy brain will control how you feel and can heal many things you are going through. Please stay focused and you will beat this I promise try not to think about it and focus on getting back to a normal life what ever that might be for you? Peace, Love and Happiness.

Look into suplements such as Inositol which I find for me stopped the anxiety and panic attacks. Some people rave about 5-htp. Remember to get a good amount of vitamin d, b and c. Fish oil is very good as well. Within a few days of taking Inositol I was free of anxiety and panic attacks. It may not work for you but it's worth a shot since living with anxiety is the worst.

disturbed glucose level, uric acid level, pain in the neck, irritation

i also smoked for forty years and feel like c**p. i am over three months now and i have never coughed is that normal?

I'm 5 months in now after 28 years of smoking and have no coughed up anything so who knows. Sometimes I try to force things up but nothing.

thanks I read your post above and had the exact same panic experience in the middle of the night several months after.-I quite June 25 and the month of luly month was smooth sailing-normal bp/felt great now a variety of issues but I have to believe Iwill feel normal again soon! too am realizing I need to heal my mind and may have always had anxiety issues that were masked by smoking. I don't want to take prescriptions so I will try natural method first. I will look into Inositol. I'm hoping that these palpitations/irregular heartbeats go away and my BP levels out

I am on 4.5 months and barely coughed -have sinus infections now but no coughing..I found it weird too..Interested to hear if others are having this issue....i smoked for 30 years.

Yes check the Inositol out. At least your son is young and does not have to see you go through this. I have a 15 and 13 year old boys and after seeing the many panic attacks I had months ago I can assure you they will never pick up a cigarette. Thank Gog all that and the anxiety is past me. There was a post in the begining that said Life with out cigarettes is just that Life. It should not have caused all these issues. This is why doctors are so dumbfounded when you go to them with all these symptoms because quitting should not open up a can of worms for us.

Hey guys, I've posted in this thread in the past.  I had some serious nicotine withdrawl issues: digestive problems, heart arrythmia, anxiety being among the worst.  I personaly know people who had no problems, and also know people who had it worse than me.

I'm coming up on 18 months cigarette free after smoking a pack a day for almost 20 years.  It wasn't until month 9 that I started feeling better.  It wasn't until month 12 that I felt as good as I did as a smoker.  Now, at almost a year and a half nicotine free, I'm happy to say I feel better (mentally and physically) than I ever did as a smoker.  It takes time.

Best of luck everyone.

Good on your bababoey.... i have crossed 20 months but cannot say i am perfect . i think you did lot of exercise which is missing at my end.....anyways good to knwo that u r feeling better