Shortness of breath after stopping smoking

i am 22 years old and quit smoking 7 days ago. i have a cough that is powerful it is almost to the point of vomiting. i smoked for 4 years.

Quit smoking 6 months 2 weeks and change ago. Two months ago, I experienced the worst SOB episode I ever had, ended me up in the ER with EKGs, CXRs, CT scan of my chest(all tests clear), etc etc. Doc prescribed albuterol inhaler which helped somewhat but not really. Doc also prescribed Singulair thinking I had adult onset asthma. Peak flow meter showed I was blowing out anywhere from 550 to 700 liters of air on exhalation. Changed doctors. Now I'm taking Celexa for depression and Lorazepam for anxiety. Noticed improvement when I take the Lorazepam in the SOB. When I don't, the SOB and chest tightness/pain still there. Coughing now, coughing up sputum with specks. Not sure if this is anything similar to what you guys have experienced, but...I assume this -will- get better with time?

same here! This sucks. I quit smoking two wks ago and Ive had the worst time breathing. Ive only had breathing problems two other times in my life...BOTH were the days/wks following quitting smoking. It is very frustrating because its hard enough to give up smoking, deal with cravings,, deal with anxiety...but then to not be able to breath on top of it is like a slap in the face. So disappointing, but Im not giving up on my quit.

I am 32, and have quit for 3 weeks now too using patches and inhalator combination. Over the last four days, I have had difficulty taking a deep breath ALL DAY!! every 7th or 8th breath is a deep one, and I have to make myself yawn to take a satisfactory breath. Its only when I get to bed that it gets easier, but still a little uncomfortable. I find my breathing is easiest as soon as I wake up. Occassionally I get sharp pains in my chest and stomach. I visited my GP who just hushed me out of the door saying 15% of quitters suffer from breathing issues. I needed a second opinion as it was getting unbearable, so I went to A & E. They did an ECG and a chest X-ray and gave me some oxygen, which helped a little, but not a great deal. Both tests appear to be fine. My blood pressure is as good as always. The doctor was baffled and said, come back if its still there in a couple of weeks!!! Why aren't we warned about this before quitting smoking so that we can prepare for it!! I too feel like going back to smoking as I felt healthier then, but I won't do that. I don't want to go through all that again. There must be a solution to at least ease the breathing issues...Some of you have said its been going on for months?!?! I wonder, could some of this be psychological? Anyone?!?!?

I am having the same symptoms, I quit 2.5 months ago (after smoking a pack a day for 14 years) and after about the first week I starting having trouble breathing. It felt like every few minutes or so I needed to take a BIG breath and the only way to do it was to try and yawn or to sit up straight so that I could fully expand my chest when taking the breath. It has gotten worse and the last few days are torture, I am going to see the Doctor. I was really scared but now I am hoping that it is just something like anxiety about not smoking and I can see that others have the same symptoms. The other thing is I had a cough while I smoked and I would also wheeze about 75% of the time but I have not coughed at all since I quit which I think is weird because I am sure I have tons of crap in my lungs and I am not coughing or wheezing. I will let you know if I learn anything useful at the doctors. Stay strong and remain smoke free!!

Hello all, I too am experiencing some of these symptoms. I am 32 years old. Started smoking when I was 12. Here in the south it's not uncommon for kids to smoke so, yeah, 12. Anyway. I have quit a few times in the past. The longest being about 2 years. So, I have smoked for roughly 18 years. I have been having chest pains and shortness of breath for about a week now but if I take a deep breath, I can inhale just fine. I think it's mostly withdrawals and anxiety. Nicotine is a powerful drug, so it can take time to get over it. It's not going to happen overnight. The last long quit I had (2 yrs.), it took about 6 months before I started feeling better. I had a lot of the same symptoms then too. No drugs, just a cold turkey quit. Trying to eat better and drink water but nothing is really helping. I'm just going to have to wait it out and suffer through it. Just my $.02.

Hello fellow sufferers. First of all i would like to take a moment to beg for your forgiveness since its 3:23 a.m. here in Bulgaria and my english is rather poor. Now on the subject. I havent been a smoker for so long-8 years (started when i was 12). Quit a wk ago, cause i didnt want to end up dependant on a machine. My smoking habits were never regular, although i rarely went over a pack a day, but in those rare cases ive had killer doses of 3 - 3.5 packs (stupid teen years). Lately, past 2-3 days, i've had terrible SoB, when i was smoking i would check myself regularly for heart and lung function - 2 times a week 5 mile jogs, just to make sure that the pump and the air intake were functioning properly, and never had a problem. But my last jog didnt go as well... i had to stop every 5 mins to catch my breath, and i kept having this feeling like something was stoping my chest from expanding completely. My head feels like its being centrifuged all the time, i have the apetite to eat a whale, but i refrain myself, and even though i eat as much as i did when i was smoking, i feel like vomiting the minute im done ingesting it. My history of lung disease is crappy - 3 bylobular bronchopneumonias in my childhood, which probably chewed my lungs up even before i started smoking, so im kind of freaked out if my habbit didnt poor that last drop into the allready topped out glass... im just hoping this will go away and i can be healthy again, or atleast not get any worse. Im kind of scared to see my doctor, even though its probably nothing. I know it probably sounds horrible of me, but its sort of a consolation to find out that im not an isolated case. I know u probably think im mad by now, but i had a bad episode of SoB and the first instance to go to is always google :-P (I might also have sleep apnea, cause i woke up short of breath...) Well those were my 2 cents. Keep up the fight ppl, i know we all regret getting addicted, but its about the futer, not the past.

I am a 57 year old female who quit smoking in February and have had shortness of breath and wheezing since. Sometimes I find it worse when I have just eaten. From reading this site it seems to be a common occurrence. I'll keep at it and hopefully this will correct itself.

I would go to the emergency room could be a heart attack nothing to do with quit smoking. People as young as a child die of a heart attack everyday and my partner recently died of one same type symptoms don't mess around blaming it on things other then what it really is.

Hi all, I'm smoker for 10 years and just quit smoking for 2/52 (2 weeks) it really freak me out with SOB because I never had this issue before. Went to get doctor advise 3 times in 2 week. Worrying about heart or lung issue. Lucky i pass all the test ECG and also X-ray for lung. Doctor said I had no issue with it just a bit tension. I will SOB only at 6pm-11pm and between this time, i will feel very tired. My question is 1) Is this normal reaction from Nicotine Withdrawal symptom? 2) How long I need to suffer from SOB? 3) I dont cough even after stop smoking, is it mean my phelm will not come out? 4) Should I take some anxiety medicine coz i will stay up in the midnight? And yes I agree with all, "never stop quitting smoking"

Let me share my experience and knowledge on quit smoking with you. I was smoking for over 32 years until last year,1) To some ex-smokers, including myself, SOB is a quit smoking withdrawl system, perhaps due to bronchial spasm from addjusting to lack of nicotine that you were used to.2) It took few months to get over the majority part of SOB after I quit in Apr. of last year.3) I did not cough much after quit smoking, phelm did come out a bit once a while but not much and few were black tainted.4) My doctor prescribed me for one month of mild anti-anxiety/panic attack med, and the med did help me get through that tough month after I quit. Hope that helps, congrats to your smoking quit. Keep it up!!TA

Its is reasuring to me to see that I am not alone in having troubles breathing after quitting smoking. Before I quit smoking I was doing pretty good in my excercises but obviously when I finished runs I would have to cough. After about a week or two of not smoking I felt physically much better, and even better after a month. I even started doing some serious stair workouts, but then earlier this week all off a sudden I found it really hard to breath. It has been 61 days now and when I thought would feel great I feel that I am struggling to breath and have to force myself to breath sometimes as if my body has forgotten or does not want to breath. When I do breath it does feel s if I am getting a full breath even when I take some large breaths. I also have been waking up after shortly falling asleep with the feeling that I am not breathing and it puts me in a slight panic state. Does anyone know how long this lasts? I have read others posts saying they have used Musinex, breathing techniques, and Zanax in belief that it is stress/ anxiety related, does anybody have any other suggestions?

I smoked 2 packs a day for 25yrs, I am a 37 year old female and just had a hysterectomy because of cervical cancer which was probably brought on by cig. smoking. I had chest pain for the last few months, tired and hard time breathing...to all of you that are having these issues go to your doctor and ask about c.o.p.d. I started getting b12 shots after I quit smoking, when your anemic because of smoking you can get chest pains and have a hard time breathing, so ask to be tested for anemia also. I was also told that you can have anxiety attacks after quiting smoking because of nicotene withdrawls. Hope this helps. I also take a vit. supplement and extra vit. c, it repairs tissues.

I'm 35, I quit smoking almost 9 months ago after having smoked a pack a day for 15 years. Basically, I only initially quit cold turkey because I was having a wisdom tooth pulled, and since I had far too many sick days to never use, I decided I would get the tooth pulled, then use 5 sicks days over two weekends - so I would be free from the stress of work for nine days while I quit. I basically just laid in bed all day, watched a little tv, slept a lot! I've been smoke free since. Anyway, 4 months ago after having gotten a strep infection (the first time I had a fever being sick since childhood), I noticed my heart beat when going to bed. So I casually mentioned it to my doctor, she hooked me up to a ECG and then came back in and said she wanted me to go to the hospital, because I may be having a heart attack. Well, needless to say, I wasn't sure I was having a heart attack, so she made me wait until a cardiologist checked the ecg, and he said there was nothing there to get excited about - and I was free to go home. But as a precaution, since I was a smoker, my primary doctor wanted me to have a stress test and 24 holter monitor done. So I was really nervous about this since truthfully, I haven't been exercising in 10 years - though I'm only 160 lbs, and never felt the need. Anyway, I was nervous at the test, but was able to reach 100% of my stress target heart rate - 193bpm. That was the hardest run of my life! The 24 holter monitor also came back clear even though I had chest flutters during the monitor which I became convinced was my heart. Nope. That was negative as well. So then, I go back to primary doctor - and get this - she hooks me up to ecg again, and again I'm 'having' another heart attack - she wants me to go to the ER ASAP. Again, I'm like sure sure, and I just go home instead. She then calls me after an hour and asks why I'm not in the ER. I'm like I don't wanna go! So she convinces me to go, they hook up their ECG, they do the blood enzyme tests for heart damage/arterial damage, a chest x-ray, and yes, everything is negative. My primary doctor then referred me to a cardiologist since I was having Tachardyia (fast heart beat apprx 138bpm) during the ecg at her office (yea, cuz I was nervous she would say I was having a heart attack). Anyway, because of the seriousness of this nature, I went to two Cardiologists, one says everything is fine, its just anxiety, try to take it easy. A very minute chance it could be a clogged artery - if I want, go spend $500 for a heart scan for piece of mind. The second cardiologist I told about the shortness of breath I had recently experienced (a few days ago). He says the same, probably just anxiety as the stress test was clear. But because of the 138bpm on the one ecg, he wants to listen to my chest . So he does and hears a murmur and gets all serious, and orders a deep scan echocardiogram. Don't ask, supposedly shows more of the heart tissue. Anyway, I got nervous again thinking it may a diseased heart valve, and as it turns out - YEP, nothing was wrong at all. In fact my heart was great. I still get the shortness of breath from time to time, and quite frankly, my mother had asthma in middle age, and I'm allergic to cat danders, so I'm sure some of this places a larger part. So now, when I get these breathing episodes that are most likely panic attacks, I am more calm and I don't get so tired from the fit that I am groggy the next day. One thing is 90% sure, it's not my heart or valves (could be a narrowed artery, but the cardiologists don't see a sign of that from stress test, ecg or echos). Sometimes, you just get freaked out, and that's ok. BTW, the nostril breathing exercise mentioned earlier in this thread is actually very good.

My husband quit smoking a year ago. He started having SOB about 6 months after quitting. He has had all the medical tests possible including a coronary angiography today. All the test have come back negative with the exception of sleep apnea. Which is a good sign however he is still sick with the SOB and also has peripheral edema. Due to the SOB and sleep apnea he can not sleep lying down so he sleeps in a recliner. I sure hope that these condition do stop soon. All those who have responded with SOB has it gone away and how long did it take?? ?