Shortness of breath after stopping smoking

I've got really bad sob and I've used no quit aids :(

Lose some weight and your sob will go away. Its magic.

Just quit smoking two days ago myself. The doctor recommended to me that I try deep breathing because you are breathing deeply to inhale your cigarette smoke. Take a full deep breath in through your nose until your stomach is pushed out then breath out slowly through your mouth until your stomach is back in.    This might not work for everyone but it seems to work very well for me. Also try drinking 2-3 extra glasses of water each day or any time you may have a craving. This helps me as well.   Good luck everyone! 

Just FYI this is not a valid post. I have shortness of breath and it has absolutely nothing to do with my weight- I weigh 130 and I am 5'6".... please don't be judgmental like this.

Deep breathing. In through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. It works for me! Good luck :)

Hi my name is Tommy , and im 23, i smoked weed and cigarets often in the form of joint, and in the last days of february i just quited smoking "cigs" and just weed , but after a week i just get terrible ill , over a secund and i have SOB , whit phanic atacks and exaity and the and depression, whit the feeling of doomd and nightmares . As physical simtoms tingling feeling in my leags and eaches araund my chest and lots of kind of pains, thight chest i was at my doctor and i had x-ra and avril possible stuff bat all whas fine . nou almost 3 monts alapst and i still feel shit but a litle better. The black, and braun stuff still coming up(discusting). I live in hungary and here no one whas ever heard of SOB , so its a great relif knowing that im not the only whit this shit. If this shit goes away i will never smoke anithing again!!!, Over prox 3 monts my tingling legs feeling is gone and, my simptoms is not so hard but still shit.

1 week after stopping and I am sob. coughing till i see stars. Not getting anything up. Drinking LOTS of water. Do not take symbicort or any corticosteroid, on top of it eating your bones up you get fluoride poisoned. I am sure it is something to do with the  drugs the government is putting in the ciggs. for fire safety.  Hopefully it will clear up in months to years. I am going to take lots of vitamin c and drink a lot of distilled water.  Hope everyone gets better! ADV

I wanted to reply to this post as all of the post online are so helpful especially when you can't get a good read from your doctor.  I smoked for 20 something years and have quit almost 3 months now.  never had breathing problems until after 2 months of quiting. I freaked myself out so much by reading everything google had to say about this that I went and had an EKG and a chest xray done.  Xray was clear and EKG was fine as well.   I go to my regular doctor this week to see what the next step is.  I want to believe this is normal of after quiting smoking. There are other tests that can be run but I hate waiting for test results as it drives me crazy.  Maybe it is just part of quiting.  

Cilia are hair-like structures used by some cells to move themselves or other things. In the body, cilia are responsible for moving tar and other crap out of the lungs the word is latin for eyelash. they move back and forth like a wave sweeping.

This is just my opion on the cause of sob. When you start smoking your lungs stops producing mucus, are either the tar in cigs block the pours that secrets mucus. do you remember coughing up plem when you smoked, I dont. thats what causes cancer and lots of other lung problems, your lungs get blacker and blacker. But this dont effect everone. when you stop smoking your lungs go into overdrive, producing tons of mucus to expell the crap, and that blocks the exchange vessel in the lungs. causing sob. just my 2 cents.

I did a reseach paper years ago on natural native american indian medicine and burning sage and tobbaco was supposed to be a good anticongestent and relive lung tightness. I cant find anything on this now but i distinctly remember reading this. iv always supposed that is why smokers cough so much in the morning with the first cigerette of the day perhaps this side effect of nicotine has caused your body to become dependent like people who abuse constipation medication, id try subsitituting a different anticongestion med and slowly wean yourself off of that.  

You know, I can't tell you all how happy I am to hear your experiences, despite how terrible they may be. I quit smoking two weeks ago (1/2 - 1 pack a day smoker for 4 years; only 22) and the shortness of breath, pounding heart, severe anxiety, and general feelings of dysphoria had me believing there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with me. In fact, I still think I might be hypothyroid and had blood taken just yesterday to test for this, but I have no doubt the majority of my symptoms are from withdrawal and detox. Reading your stories has definitely alleviated much of the anxiety I've experienced and I just wanted to thank you, all of you, for the outstanding courage it took to put down the death sticks and deal with the consequences of doing so. More than once I've considered puffing up again just to try and feel better, and having this page as a resources has helped me refrain from doing so. Keep fighting the good fight, and may health and prosperity find you all.

Well, today is 19 June 2013. I have not touched a smoke in just over 6 months now. If you read my post on page 25, you will see my whole story there...Yes, the SOB is still here, but it has it's moments...It can hit me once a day, then nothing for a few days. Today was a pretty bad SOB again... Almost collapsed at work!I just hope that it will soon stop as I am now tired of it! :'( I have noticed a lot of people mentioning about coughing up mucus and the likes. I never did this both while I was smoking and after I had stopped! This is weird... Surely I should be coughing stuff up?!?!?! Anybody else like this?

Yes Dean, everyone here on this board of threads have this problem, but hang in there lots of people dont have the same system we are all different. you are right at the end of your sob days.

Thanks for that... Let's hope it just goes away soon... :)