Quit smoking a year ago - sick ever since!

It's so good to know that I am not the only one going crazy. My worst symptom is acid reflux. I am in pain all the time on my right upper abdomen. I have had tests after tests that show nothing is wrong. Can this really be one of the withdrawal symptoms? It's been 4 months now since I stopped and the pain started almost immediately after I stopped. I am tired of taking meds.

Yes. Happened to me major acid reflux. I lost 25 pounds because I was sick all the time. It went away after 3 or 4 months of eating very bland foods and a lot of chicken rice soup from the Chinese store. The best part was the weight drop because I could afford to lose a few not that I'm over weight. I stopped taking the acid pills since it really had no affect. It's amazing the changes that happen when quitting. I am back to normal with everything and on my 16th month but did take about a year to start feeling better. Hang in there.

I know it has been a while since you posted this, but I have only recently been researching this, as my 35 year old son quit smoking 18 months ago and has been dog sick since. I finally took him to a homeopathic doctor who prescribed him tobacco drops. NOT NICOTINE. Just tobacco. It is supposedly to help balance him. Within 4 days he was feeling SOOOOOO much better and within 2 weeks he said he felt normal again for the first time in a long time. The dr said he only needs to take it for about 6 weeks and all should be back to normal. We are only at the 3 week stage but looking forward to life feeling great again.

Hi! I'm curious how long your hives lasted when they were fairly regular. I have been getting hives on and off for the last two months since I quit.

Your body is in a state of loss when you quit smoking. Only because it didn't function normally for a long time when you were smoking. But after some time, you will notice the good effect of leaving your smoking habit. You will become calmer and healthier without the worries of having cancer. You may also try some exercises and observe a healthy diet.

I gave up smoking two years ago after much nagging from my husband over so many years as he is a non smoker. I had smoked for 25 years. The constant moaning plus the smoking ban all put pressure on me to stop although i still enjoyed smoking. To be honest it was costing me a fortune and i resented how much i was spending on cigarettes. I gave up because i felt bullied into it not just by other half but the laws that were changing it. Everyday the first thing i would do on waking would be have a coffee and a cig. I felt it kept mw going but now after two years i feel worse. I lack energy all the time. Ive gained weight. Basically i think health service may not have to deal with so many smoke related problems but i think raise a new issue with weight related health probs. due to quitters eating to replace it.ok im not overweight but i now feel bloated and i admit i used smoking to control my weight in the past.Im gradually creeping up in dress size which in itself depresses me.I got a buzz from smoking and i felt it boosted my metabolism as i was always on the go then.i feel lethargic now, cant jump out of bed like before. I used to wake up craving nicotine so get up but now i tend to lay in bed.I felt that once i quit id lost part of my identity, i was a smoker thats how i identified myself. You need something to replace that habit. Usually it is replaced by eating more instead.The fact that i have saved on money by giving up now makes it harder to return to it as i dont know how i afforded it before. I was smoking 30 a day.Im used to having the extra cash now.I feel like ive lost part of me though. The days when i smoked i was slimmer, more driven and now feel im turning into fat middleaged woman with no go.Im tempted to start again, like i want to be that person again. I never realised the psychological side of quitting. I have been to doctors many times since i stopped smoking re my constant tiredness and depression and cannot find anything wrong with me physically.

I know how you feel. I quit 16 months ago. Still waiting to feel better than I did when I was a smoker. I guess in the long run it will be better? I watched my mother who quit too late not being able to breath and it was not a nice site to see. I don't want to get to that point. I went through that depression phase. I also developed anxiety which I never had before. It's slowly improving but I guess will take time since I smoked for 28 years. good luck

Hi All, I am a newbie to this site and read some very good, supportive and encouraging answers from folks here. I am a male 35 yrs old who recently quit smoking (abt 70 days ago) after smoking for 10 yrs almost a pack a day. Now, even after these many days I feel I have lack of balance, dizziness, anxiety which comes and goes, headaches and lack of energy, I just wanna know if its normal and if other people also went through the same cycle of detoxification. Thanks for reading!

You can not pinpoint how long it will take to get back to normal. I'm at 17 months and still not 100% but I smoked for 28 years. Hopefully yours will be quick since you only smoked 10 years. Just roll with symptoms they will get better with time. Get rest, eat healthy and exercise will help move things along. Good luck.

Hi all, i quit 9 months ago a pack a day for 7 yrs. When i quit i was fine for a month but later fell sick. I had all the terrible sypmtoms in the world,dizziness,fatigo,fatige,racing heart,pounding heart,loss of appetite,weight loss,dehydration,breathing difficulty,shortness of breath,panic attack,sore throat,stomach pain to name a few. It was the worst time of my life! Funny what ciggarettes does to your system. Cigarette was my life,i enjoyed it and suffered for it. I went thru hell! Amazingly in month 9 my strength returned and i am now very okay. I feel much better than my old self. Am so happy to get my health back and free of cancer sticks. I failed to mention that i visited hospitals 35 times and saw 16 doctors during my troubles. I did all the test in the world,ekg,ecg more than 8 different times,stress test, 15 xrays and lots of blood work. All showed nothing significant. So if you are still suffering hang in there,it does truely get better. If you give up you will kill yourself untimely die a painful death from cancer and the rest. I have been through everything so i know what am talking about. Cheers.

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A little background: 27 y/o male, just quit a 13 year, >1/2 pack a day habit 36 days ago.

I decided to quit 2 weeks in after a bout of tonsilitis and a lingering cough. It just seemed irresponsible to continue to coat my lungs with tar when I had a cough that wouldn't go away. After the intense cravings on day 2, my first two and half weeks flew by with ease; incomparable to my first few attempts at quitting, I was wondering why I had put this off to begin with. I woke up with great gusto and more energy than I had before. Life was going great.

Then came the horrible anxiety and health worries. The cough that I used as a catalyst for my quit never went away. 4 weeks after my initial tonsilitis symptoms and 2 zpak regimens prescribedn by my doctor, I was still coughing up a lung. Neeedless to say, I was more than slightly worried. However, I had a 2 week Eurasia trip that week and I decided to get a full rundown by my doctor after I came back. Bad idea. I landed in Milan and my cough went into overdrive. A day later, I felt my superclavicular lymph nodes on both my right and left sides swell up and after some Googling, I had resigned to the thought that I had done enough damage to my lungs and I had lung cancer. Streaks of blood in the morning with my phlegm. Feeling lethargic and constantly fatigued, loss of appetite and total disinterest in the activities. Unexplainable shoulder and back pain along with sharp chest pains. Insomnia and weight loss (a loss 5 pounds in a week when I weighed myself in Prague). Needless to say, I ended my trip early and came back home. My doctor was out until Sunday so I went to see my ENT. She felt the lymph nodes and sent me for a sonogram of my neck and took throat cultures. My anxiety got the best of me and I checked myself into a hospital, bracing myself for the news.

After a battery of tests (X-Rays, CT Scan, complete bloodwork), the ER Doctor came back to tell me I had hemoptysis (blood in phlegm) and bronchitis and prescribed me antibiotics (again) to try to bring down the swelling in my lymph nodes. Needless to say, the health scare put me in my place and I can say I feel much better. Waking up slightly fatigued now, still dealing with a slight infection but I think I can say that my anxiety, for the most part, has disappeared along with my health worries.

Funny what anxiety can bring out in us.

Almost exactly the same situation and symptoms as me. It is simply horrible. However, do not forget that cigarettes are why we are going through this. I have no doubt that soon we will get over this and reep the rewards.

Me totally also

Thank u for validating what I am going thru!!!