Shortness of breath after stopping smoking

I had the SOB since Christmas and had resigned myself to being stuck with it.   I had read the board and was getting rather low. My doctor hadn't a clue.   However my radiologist noticed an extremely slight heart swelling so my Doctor prescribed water reduction  pills.   Boy do I owe that radiologist !!   I half a pill at 9am and by 2pm I can BREATHE. Yes it was that fast. I've still go to through the pills, but it WORKS.   I can actually go up the stairs, take a shower, I can even turn over in bed without SOB !   Apparently water on the heart is very difficult to see on x-ray etc. But it reduces the amount of oxygen your red blood cells can carry   I hope it helps others after all at worst you will be a little dry !

I'm 50 and smoked for 30 years, Quit a month ago. I quit with the help of chantix. Alot of clear mucus with the cough. Hope an indication lungs are not too damaged. Within a couple of weeks i noticed bouts of extreme shortness of breath which i never had before. Extremely uncomfortable and scarey...I felt like I was dying. Possible created by the chantix??? I've been to the dr. - using an inhaler, drinking defaf mint tea with honey, pineapple juice, lots of water any thing to get over this horrilbe experience of shortness of breath. I feel awful.worse not that a quit also. Going for the breath test next week.

Dear Birdbrain, I am 54. I smoked till 52. I too felt I was about to dies. No. I am living. Living better, feeling better, with no stench of tobacco around me, with freshness in me. Nothing beats that. Avoid stress, tension. Do not feel angry at anything or anyone whatever be the provocation. Try some stress reliever tablets. you will be fine, dear.

i quit smoking{used the ecig} after 50 years {2-3 packs a day},,,,,,,,thought i was going to die from not being able to breath.........inhale fine but wasn't processing....started working out and even though i had trouble breathing it helped a little......now......i was really scared and was thinking about getting an o2 tank {yep bad}.....saw ad on tv for inhaler non prescription and used it once 3 days ago and i can finally breathe its called   ASTHMANEFRIN........after 7 months of not breathing now i can........i hope i don't have to use it again{don't like taking meds}.........but i have it if needed...............this really helped........got mine at walgreens

I'm 40 and quit smoking in December and today is march 1st and for the first time in my life I'm out of breath when I walk 1 block!!! This is strange to me as for the last 2 years I have ridden my bicycle 30 miles  at a 17 MPH pace 6 days a week. I just got back from a ride of maybe a mile and I cant catch my breath. This is always a strange taste in my mouth and I'm constantly spitting up mucus and frankly I felt better while I was smoking.  So now I have dusted off my juicer and am going on a 3 week juice fast and if that does not work I'm headed to the DR again this time demanding more test. 

It seems that shortness of breath is fairly common for those of use who used to smoke and have quit.  Like the posted on the first page of this post, I too had Bronchitis and decided then to quit.  Of course, I didn't quit right away; took me a couple of days before I went cold turkey.  But I have multiple issues.  I also have bad side effects from take corticosteroids, especially Prednisone.  So after the first week, I noticed the side effects kick in that made me short of breath, but this was anxiety related.  After the anxiety passed about a week after that, I thought I was doing better until I started having tightness in my chest.  The tightness seemed to happen more at night than in the morning, but at least I wasn't having anxiety related issues anymore by then.   Week three seemed to be worse.  Tightness came on earlier each day and would last until I was able to fall asleep.  I did notice though that it seemed to be triggered as a result of coughing more during the day.  My coughs were dry, no matter how much water and orange juice I would drink.  Just couldn't get the stuff to come up.  Went in to see another doc on week 4 and he gave me Flovent.  I had bad reactions to it, even though they say that it doesn't get into your blood stream and I shouldn't have reactions (obviously docs don't correlate the issue as being in the nervous system, which does get affected when you inhale anything of any amount.. Markers anyone?).    However, despite the bad reactions, it did relieve the swelling of my Bronchial tubes and tracheal tube which allowed me to have more productive coughs.  I now cough up a lot of brown/dark colored stuff, which I know is tar from my 20+ years of smoking.  The problem is, if I have dry coughs and nothing comes up, the tightness does seem to come back.  From everything I've read, we just have to suffer through it and it will eventually go away as the tar comes out of our bodies.   Some background on me:  I'm 35.  Served 5 years in the Marine Corps.  Up until I got bronchitis, I was still going to the gym and running nearly 3 miles.  Sure, I was winded after running, but didn't take long to catch my breath.  Never had anything like this in my life with the shortness of breath, but maybe it's a blessing in disguise... our lungs are at least clearing out, as opposed to not coughing it up at all which is always a bad sign.  Going to reply with an update as soon as this goes away.  I do have to admit though, it does seem to be making progress, albeit slow.  I'm having more good days than bad.  Still have to take my Flovent for the swelling when the tightness comes on and doesn't dissipate within an hour, but those times seem to be getting fewer in-between.  I do like the exercise someone posted on the first page about bending over and doing a "Huh"... forcing the air out of your lungs like you do when you're doing one of those breathing Pulmonary Function Tests.  This seems to help to getting some of the tar up.  When I'm coughing all day, I can usually feel the tar in the trachea and bronchial tubes, but my trachea is raw, irritated, and swollen from coughing all day that I can't get anything to come up, so the bending over seems to help some.   If anyone else has any other ideas, I'd be happy to hear them. 

Hiddukel, Sounds Like you Got a Handle On Your Issue. / Glad You Threw Down The Smokes.. Sorry to hear that your Lungs & Trachea Being RAW.. They Sure As Heck Would Be From All That Coughing. When You Mentioned 'TAR' coming up Outta Lungs, I often wonder why I Never Coughed Up Anything Since I've Quit Smoking 6 Months & 1 Day Ago Today.. I Expected To Be Coughing Up All Kinds of Crap, But So Far I've Have Not Coughed-up Anything. My Shortness of Breath I'm Told Is Anxiety Related Also..

I quit smoking a couple of years ago and I also started having breathing problems. The worse of it were times I felt I couldn't take a deep breath in. Like my lungs would do a short yawn. I took tests for asthma and had my lungs X-ray and Dr said I was pretty in good health. Later on I started having other issues. Like my eyes water and my face feels funny, alil numb and some sensation. Long story short, and this is very common...I developed anxiety. The breathing is what my Psychiatrist calls "anxiety sighing". Said they when we are stressed Xanax cleared that up, i started smkoing again after a year and every now & then I get anxiety. I have never had anxiety until a few months after I quit smoking. I had a very stressful job and smoked a lot at work and when I quit I now had to just deal with things. I want to quit again and ordered an electric cigarette with medium to low doses and this time instead of quitting cold turkey I am going to do it slowly. I am also starting Valerian root pills, it works well, I bought at Walmart for $8.99 to help me relax while I am trying to quit again along with meditation videos on Youtube & my awesome headset to practice better breathing and relaxation. I wouldnt wish anxiety on my enemies. It was awful. There are some people who develop Bronchitis or other breathing disorders. My friends wife said when she got asthma out of no where and bad bronchitis. ***Post is edited by moderator *** Web addresses not allowed***Please read our Terms of Use Meaning of sighing: health problems Sighing is generally regarded as a symptom of abnormal or dysregulated breathing since normal breathing in healthy subjects is regular or periodic (i.e., without sighing). Excessive or frequent sighing is considered a sign of panic disorder (Abelson et al, 2001; Schwartz et al, 1996; Wilhelm et al, 2001a; Wilhelm et al, 2001b), anxiety states (Lum, 1981), low back pain (Chaitow, 2004), nervous disturbance (Rechnitzer et al, 1929), dyspnea (Magarian et al, 1983), neurocirculatory asthenia (cardiovascular disease) and nervous instability in young women (White & Hahn, 1929), and respiratory neurosis (Christie, 1935). Some studies point that people with depression often suffer from excessive sighing. In comparison with normal and healthy subjects, sighing is more common in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who have depression (Robbins  et al, 2011). Hence, in most cases, frequent or excessive sighing means being under stress. However, sometimes excessive sighing and/or yawning can take place due to resetting of the respiratory center (e.g., after the meal is digested, after or even during physical exercise, and so forth). In such cases, one should hold the breath after their usual exhalation (perform the body-oxygen test) and do Buteyko reduced breathing exercise with air hunger for 1-2 minutes to stop sighing and increase brain oxygenation. Wish you all the best  xo      

I quit smoking 10 days ago. No Chantix. Just cold turkey. I am experiencing terrible SOB. It feels like mucus is stuck in my throat and wont come up. From what I have been reading, SOB is a normal side effect of quitting. Chantix or not.

WAY TO GO..! CONGRADTS..! CHANTIX CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS TO SOME PEOPLE.. SOB SEEMS TO BE COMMON IN MANY PEOPLE WHOM HAVE RECENTLY QUIT SMOKING. I, MYSELF AM JUST OVER 6 MONTHS SMOKE FREE, I TOO HAVE HAD ALOT OF SOB SINCE.. MY DOCTOR ADVISES ME THAT IT'S ANXIETY PEACE....

TEST TRYING TO POST

I am a 39 year old woman who has smoked on and off for since I was 16. I am on day 78 of my thousandth quit. This time around I am experiencing SOB, sharp pains in my heart, panic attacks, discomfort when laying on my side-feels like a dull pressure. During my panic attacks I can quickly go from being worried about my breathing to wondering if I'm dying. During these bouts of panic I try to be rational and very aware of the breaths inhaled and exhaled. Sometimes I can get myself calmed down but other times I do have to take something my doctor prescribed to feel less stressed. I think it's similar to valium, not sure never taken valium. I don't like taking any medication so I use is sparingly. I can honestly say that when some of my panic attacks spiral out of control I really do need something to calm me down. Otherwise I sit trying to yawn to get a satisfying breath of air which I never end up getting. I am currently getting a very dry cough. My throat feels like something is in it, but nothing every comes up. A friend recently suggested mint/herbal tea which has helped in soothing the dryness. I have also been taking a spoonful of honey with cinnamon sprinkled over it which also is very soothing. Another way that I am keeping myself busy is exercise, at least 4/5 days a week. I have been doing everything from Kickboxing, riding my bike, jogging, treadmill at home. Anything that makes my heart pump harder and forces me to breath deep. After all these years I have trained my lungs to take long drags of a cigarette instead of healthy uncontaminated air. Don't get me wrong I have always exercised in some form through out my life. I would say I have become a little more obsessive about it lately. I wish everyone who is trying to combat this ugly nicodemon all the luck, mojo, enthusiasm and drive you need. When I think of all the energy I put into smoking, walking somewhere to stand/sit, emptying ash trays, driving to the store, using perfume, mints, mouth wash, it is pathetic. No need to dwell on the passed I am looking forward and spending my future as a non-smoker.

congrats of quitting the the nasty habit, before the shortness of breath becomes permanent damage from smoking. You have a chance.....Just think your lungs have a chance.  

ok, now its been about 1 1/2 now cigs, cough, weezing, sob, seem to have almost completely disappear, cought once or twice a day, but today there was a tiny bit of blood of spit up? Is this from all the coughing ect? Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks for your input, birdbrain

I've been sick for the last 3 months and have been to the doctor 4 times, today will be the fifth time.  I started with the flu, then it stunned into a sinus thing, then it turned into bronchitis and never went away. The last 2 apps they gave me albuterol inhaler treat vapor treatments to use with a nebulizer. Those only help for a short while, maybe half an hour...? They also gave me Prednisone, a steroid, and an combivent inhaler. The inhaler works better than albuterol, but only lasts a little bit longer. The Prednisone is the only thing that works for opening my airways. I did quit smoking and I'm currently on day 10. I've never felt worse. I think I'm over the actual nicotine part of it. It wasn't that bad since it just hurts to breathe, I don't even want to smoke. I'm going back in to dr today, hopefully they give me more prednisone or a longer treatment.