Quit smoking a year ago - sick ever since!

Give it time. I did not start feeling better until a year in. I'm now 3 years feel great and no longer suffer from any symptoms I did when first quitting. Keith

This is happened due to too much smoking. I think smoking affected you lungs. You need to get quick advice from doctor.

I stopped smoking 9 months ago. I smoked for about 30 years. Since I stopped, I have gotten one cold after the other. When I was smoking, I may have gotten a cold a year. And I worked in health care and was exposed to all kinds of illness and remained very healthy. I did some research and as crazy as it sounds, I found out that some smoke from cigarettes does kill bacteria. I continue to have depression and anxiety. I spoke with my dr. on the theory that some of the smoke actually kills some bacteria, but he ignored the whole thing.

I haven't been smoking for 3 months already but I have been sick ever since. My laboratory tests shows I am fine but I am not. I have severe sore throat, respiratory infection and my back and my chests are very very heavy. I have this really bad dry cough but the good part after I stopped smoking is that I have not experienced allergic rhinitis anymore, I am currently in depression, gained weight and is feeling sick all the time. I hope this stops soon.

I agree, give it time. I quit 26 weeks ago. Digestion and IBS issues have finally started to subside. I have more energy than before and the food cravings are much less. Still have days where I have cravings, but I know I can push through.

If you have smokes for many years the worse thing you can do is stop or change the way you smoke.

First time I quit (when I was 26), it took me 11 months to get over loads of anxiety, severe depression, agoraphobia, fatigue, and breathing issues. Boy, when I felt better, it was amazing. Then, like an id**t, I went back to smoking. Anyway, I quit again three weeks ago, but hopefully it will be different this time. The main takeaway is this: time will eventually heal you.

How old are you now? Why did you smoke again? I mean.whats the reason when your feeling amazing after quitting for 11months then back to smoking? Pls answer because im at the same road and 7 months i did not smoke.... Pls reply...thanks

I highly recommend reading the book, The Power of Habit! I helped my greatly! Your doing great, keep it up

I recommend To eat lots and lots raw fruits and veggies, and juicing might also help to detox and enrich your body with energy necessary for recovery. God Bless!

It's been 11.5 months for me since my quit. I suffer still from continuous cold and flu every months or even every 3 weeks. MY ADVICE - check your immune system!!! Immunoglobulin IGA, IGG, IGM, IGE are the tests which will show your immune system shape. Further on your doctor if you have any issues investigate immune system more deep in running other tests, and from there you need to research and start your treatment. Read more about smoking and immune system ... People who smoke have suppressed immune response, and may develope immune system deficiency, autoimmune problems, such as hashimoto(thyroid issues) and many more. To me this is solid as a rock reason not to ever start smoking again. Your immune system is geniously designed structure, and to invade it and destroy it with your own hands is nothing but .... if I only knew this before I ever started :(

Keep going you can do it ! I have stopped after smoking for 31 years and got up one morning and said no more.
8 months have passed and i don't feel any difference health wise, I suffered for a several months with depression, anger and sadness however this is starting to subside now.
I did suffer from pain in my arms not unlike tennis elbow and could not lift properly or grasp anything with any power. Thankfully back to normal now.
All i can say to you is keep going not for other people but for yourself and if you fall get up dust yourself down and try again.

Stopped smoking in may 2016 after 35 years a packet a day. Was taken to hospital with fluid on my heart within the first week an 8 day hospital stay with no explination of why other than a 35 year smoking habit. A week later an operation to remove nodules that came back benign specialist advice go live you life. Stayed home for 2 weeks feeling lethargic with a fever loss of appetite. Now 3 months in body going crazy just diagnosed with a kidney infection peeing blood and clots, chills, loss of appetite and vomiting even after drinking just water. Asked doctor what could have caused this he could not tell me. Up most of the night wanting to pee but nothing coming vomiting. Thinking that when i was smoking i had no sickness and thought this is c**p and should start smoking again .Confused until I read your post and it makes perfect sense now. If this is just the beginning well I am in for a wild ride and can't wait until it's all over

Today I reached the one year mark. Thanks to this thread, I was able to rid this nasty habit of 10 years. Many people on this thread, such as somkefree Iqbal, and many others, inspired me and gave me hope. I sincerely thank you for your courage and unshakable determination sharing your story and setting example for all of us.

I'm 31 year old, and started smoking when I was in college. At first it was just for fun and trying to be cool, but it quickly went for 1 cig a day to 5 a day than half pack a day. During my junior year, financial misfortune took a toll on my parents and myself. Working full time and borrowing money to pay for my ever expensive college tuition and my MBA courses escalated my addiction to 1 pack a day. Cig was that extra boost to get me through hardship, then I met my wife, and quit for a year for her. However, I quickly succumed to this old habit again when stress and non-stop late night concalls from my current work place started to pile up. This time around, my addiction got me hard and fast. I went straight to almost two packs a day. Around June last year, I felt dull pain in my right shoulder blade area, so I layer off cig for a week, and it quickly went away. Then I started smoking really hard again in July, and the dull pain got back, and on top of that, I absolutely look like sh*t. I was out of shape, I constantly smell like smoke, and I absolutely buried myself at work. My daily life revolved around two things, work and cig... So I set my quit date, and I smoke one last cig with my bud from Silicon Valley on that date and jump straight to hell.

I went from 2 packs a day to zelch...

First two weeks - no problem, feels great I finally quit.
2 to 4 weeks - dull pain on right shoulder blade came back, and out of no where, my heart beat went really fast, my hands were tingling, and I felt like I was about to pass out
1 to 2 months - dull pain continued, fast heart beat, felt sudden rush like I was about to pass out. Started coughing. During this time, I started googling symptoms, and everything points to cancer. I remember one night, I could sleep, and looked at my wife, and I was weeping.... I was so scared.
3 to 4 months - dull pain went away, but I started coughing so hard, I felt I was going to cough my lungs out. I started having sudden hot flashes, felt like I constantly have fever. My hand was sweaty, my nose, neck feels hot. I couldn't stay in a closed conference room, I had multiple panic attacks. Around late October, My team was being escalated my the customer in a meeting, and right after that, I felt I couldn't breath, I thought I had a fever, and even my boss noticed it and he insists on took a day off. I drove home and felt I was about to die. The next day, I checked myself into the clinic. My doctor does not believe there were anything wrong with me, I believe it was all withdrawal, so he ordered a same day chest X-ray for me to put me at ease. X- Ray came back clean. At this point, I had really bad insomnia already. On my birthday in November, my wife's cousin and her family came to visit us from LA. To celebrate my birthday, we all went to an really nice steak house in Houston. As soon as I step into the restaurant seeing the crowds, I got dizzy. What made the matter worse was I got a call during dinner from my upper management wanting to discuss a presentation I did, my Axiety shoot straight through the roof, and I puked, and end up had to drove home early. I went back to my doctor again, this time we did EKG, blood work, and everything came back normal. Also during this time, both my left and right chest hurts. Sharp piercing pain felt like something is poking inside my lungs and Radom chest spasm. I also couldn't poop.
5 to 6 months- as I assumed a new position representing supply chain globally at my current job late last year, I was scheduled to travel to China I early December, right after thanksginving. On thanksgiving day, felt the same rush and fever like feeling plus light headed and vomiting, I checked my self into a ER, the nurse practitioner asked about my symptoms, and half way through, she was like, "wait... You recently quit smoking And I guess you thought you had cancer, right?" She reassured me I didn't have cancer after all the test came back normal. At this point, I was so confused, anc didn't know what to do anymore, I couldn't concentrate at work at anything, I was losing weight losing sleep, losing my sanity.... The following Monday, I walked into a Pulmonologist office, and begged them to squueze me in. I described every sumptoms I had, and he said all these were all possible symptoms of post cig withdrawal. I also told him that I had a lot of mucus, I coughed up mug out with dark brown Lilly dots, and I had chest pain, and I told him I was at my breaking point. He didn't say too much, but he asked me about my job, and asked me if I was depressed. Then he went on and explained to me that there were two type of people who are addicted to cig, first type was social smoker, and the second type was people like myself who didn't develop stress coping mechanism growing up, and dealt with stress relying on nicotine consumption, and unfortunately the second type tends to have the hardest time dealing with quitting smoking. He siad that he would never prescribe me any anti depression medication nor any other medication, because he said that I was till young, and I need to fight it and don't trade one addiction with another. He immediately ordered me a ct scan. He expedited my order with my insurance company and I got my scan on Friday morning the same week, and he called me Friday 6:05 to let me know my chest ct came back normal. I called my boss 3 days before I scheduled to fly to China, and told him about what I'm going through. And he told me to cancel the trip and he will explain to the upper management. During these months, my blood pressure shoots above 160. I could poop at this point, but diarrhea.
7-8 months- things started to turn around. My chest pain became less severe and were gone with minor discomfort by the end of 8th months. I still experienced some hot flashes and rush, but it also died down during this time. I had pimple on my chest, right armpit, and not sure if this were related to smoking or because I cough too hard in the earlier months and torn my underarm muscle, I had pain in my underarm to a point, I couldn't drive (I drove stick). And this gave me another episode I thought I had cancer.
9-10 month - chest pain was gone, no more mucus, no more coughing, only minor coughing and cough some really thick yellowed mucous after playing basketball every Saturday at company outing. Underarm muscle feels extremely sore, and at some angle, it hurts. No more feverish hot flashes and rush. Blood pressure Went back to normal. Pooping regularly. Went back to see my Pulmonologist, and did lin capacity test and oxygen test. Lin capacity at 97%, oxygen level at 100%. During this time I also did accupuncture, it further helped me detox and helped with my sleep.
11 to 12 month- started gaining weight despite exercising, blood pressure normal, able to sleep normally, poop normally, no moor coughing up junk after basketball game, and on th pe 12 months, my underarm muscle healed, no more pain. Feels normal, but still need to work on my lung capacity.

I hope my experience would help those brave souls currently in this hellish journey. Support for family and friend is extremely important during this time, if not for my wife, family and friends at work and outside of work, I couldn't make this far. Exercise and eatting healthy definitely works wonder. For those with religious belief, seek spiritual support for the church, temples, mosque. Myself is a Buddhist, and my friends from my Buddhist organization supported me the whole way. Lastly, believe in yourself, believe in your body. You will surmount this challenge, you will defeat this demon, and you will "WIN!"

Wmnmny

Wow! Just wow bro. This discribes me also.. Im at 8month now.. Thanks for posting your journey...