Shortness of breath after stopping smoking

We're just about in the same boat. 25 yrs 1-pack-a-day of smoking, 4 months-3-days quit. I've had the shortness of breath for sure, but it just causes me to take a deep breath for every 15-20 breaths. I've been putting an addition on my house for the past 2-yrs, so I guess that is keeping me active enough (and breathing cold air - Indiana) to keep me from slipping into major problems. I don't always want to work on it, but the combination of wanting it to be done, and staying active probably helps. I've not been to E-room or doctors yet, but thinking of going for a breathing test using a spirometer. Three years ago I apparently failed a breathing test while applying for a job. They kept telling me to breathe harder, but I couldn't get any more air out of my lungs. All signs were pointing toward the fact that I needed to stop smoking. I wrote the first and shortest message above about the cig manufacturers adding bronchodilators to cigs to make you breathe better and mask the effects of smoking. I didn't know this until I quit and got the shortness of breath. I feel fairly normal now, much better than the 2nd month, but people are saying it gets worse in the 4th & 5th month. The terrible thing is that I still crave the stupid things!!

It does take time so just hang in there. I'm on 20 months and feel pretty good now but it took a good year or so to feel some what normal again. There were months that were so bad I though I would need to pack it in. I've been to the ER 3x and had every test you can think of. All have come back fine. I think most of these issues were from anxiety. Try to limit the Xanax or you will find yourself going through another withdrawal you don't need. Keith

How are you doing now? I smoked a pack a day for 27 years and been quit for 4 months. I am scared to death that I'm going to get something like you had to go through. I had the SOB during the third week up until about the third month, but I feel alot better now, although I'm not sure what normal is after smoking so long. I get winded earlier than I used to, but I'm 50 years old now as opposed to 23 too. So which is it? Or maybe a little bit of both? I'm usually fairly active with working outside on my property, cutting wood, mowing 3 acres with a 4ft walk-behind commercial mower on hills, building an addition onto my house, etc. There is always something that needs done, but I'll never get it all done. I don't have the stamina that I used to have, get winded easier, get tired earlier. The bronchodilators that they're putting in cigs makes me sick. Why couldn't they just leave cigs alone with just tobacco? Many have died, not from the tobacco in cigs, but from everything else!! I thoroughly enjoyed smoking, we are all NICOTINE ADDICTS just like ALCOHOLICS. They are one drink away from falling off the wagon, and we are just one smoke away from being a nicotine junkie. It's interesting to compare cigarettes with alcohol. They are both legal to buy and use, except one of them you can buy, excessively use, and then drive a car while you're doing it - all legally!! That's why smoking cigarettes is so much more dangerous than drinking alcohol, because you can do it way more often, even on breaks at work and then go right back to work. Imagine having a casual drink at work!! If I had realized long ago that it only takes one smoke just like an alcoholic, I would have probably been successful earlier. An alcoholic can never enjoy a casual drink again, just like we can never have a casual cigarette again, lest we fall off the wagon and become an actively feeding addict all over again. We will be addicts for the rest of our lives just like alcoholics, and so for the rest of our lives, we will be just one smoke away.

I am going into my 12th month smoke free in one more week and I smoked exactly the same number of years as you (27). I have been using inhalers to get by, I went 3 days without using anything this week but I became wheezy and short of breath on the 4th day and had to take the inhaler again. I think being in the house with the heat going all the time during the winter dries me out and affects my breathing. I am much better than I was in the first three months of quitting but still not back to feeling perfect, like I did when I smoked. Without the Advair and albuterol I think I would be in trouble. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I coughed out a ton of stuff out of my lungs over this past year. That has slowed down a lot now, but still happens once in awhile. I never coughed at all when I smoked. And I agree with you....the bronchodilators they put in cigarettes are terrible. I never knew about them either. In the beginning I could barely walk up 15 steps without hyperventilating when I reached the top. I thought I was going to die for sure any day.

Wow! I can't believe how much you've been through. I need to know a few things so that I can make a guesstimate as to the amount of damage I've done to myself and what I can expect to go through in my recovery. Please respond with the details about yourself as I am doing now. I will be 50 in April, I've smoked a pack a day for 27 years, I've been quit for 4 months, I don't currently and have never worked out, I am 6ft 1in and 225 lbs, I've gained only 5 pounds since I quit. So far I've not coughed up any black/green/yellow phlegm or had any major coughing events. I did go through a period of SOB for about a month or a month and a half, but I'm not sure if I'm back to what could be called normal or not because its been so long since I've experienced normal. That's why I'm considering going to a doctor and getting the breathing test done with the spirometer to officially determine where my lung function is compared to the standard. It should be a fair test since I've been quit for 4 months. The bronchodilators is bullsh** in smokes. As I mentioned above, I thoroughly enjoyed smoking, but now they're 1/3 something besides tobacco. That's where the problem is. I guess it's just one more of the many things you can't do as you get older. Like I mentioned above, if I had made the comparison to an alcoholic in my mind years ago with the thought that the alchy can't have another drink - EVER, I would have known on previous quit attempts that I, as a nic addict, couldn't have another smoke - EVER. Then maybe I would've quit earlier.

I am 46 smoked almost a pack a day and smoked for 27 years. Lower amounts in the beginning. I Quit on August 20th 2013 and my problems started in November 2013 -- I am also 6 1" I weighed 180 when I quit but am now 200. I put on 20 pounds since quitting. I have been on Prednisone (steroids) and also the advair inhaler has a steroid in it. Previously I have never been past 180 in all my life. -------------------------------------------------- I quit using an e cigarette which could very well have caused all my problems. I still don't know if I caught some kind of infection or what the cause to my extreme decline was. I used the e cig for three months and was perfectly fine. On the third month is when my major breathing trouble started. The coughing and the tar coming out in globs. The e cig vapor may have loosened up all the tar that was in my lungs ?? I don't know but it was pure HELL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You sound much better than I did at 4 months. I could barely walk 10 feet without gasping for breath for months. I went through hundreds of dollars worth of over the counter remedies to try and fix myself. Some helped a little but it wasn't until I got an antibiotic and the Prednisone that I started to feel a little bit better. I went through six rounds of antibiotics. Two rounds of Prednisone tapers and then finally ended up with Asmanex first, then Advair the steroid inhalers. Summertime was much easier on my symptoms. I felt much better than I did in the winter. As soon as winter started again the coughing tar came back and I had to start taking the meds again. It seemed like the more tar I coughed up the better I could breathe. I still cough once in awhile now but can barely cough out anything. The color has changed from constant brown muck to clear.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My brother who smoked longer than me also quit 2 years before me and had no problems at all.

Well I've read this enough I should add my story. I'm a 27 yr old infantry soldier with the Canadian army. I love been smoking pretty heavey for 8 years. I quit a 25 days ago and have the same problem, random sob. but yet I can run 5 km easy....weirdness

Well, it sounds like our pasts are almost identical with the exception of the E-cig. I quit cold turkey with no help. I wonder if the E-cig had anything to do with it? I believe they are now saying that what comes out of the end of it is not just vapor. We could probably fill in the blank with alot of things, but I have no idea what all is in it. You're in my prayers man! I just can't believe all the problems you've had. I'm not saying it's been easy for me, but I've had no doctor visits or any over the counter help. The SOB got pretty scary early on, I guess because I expected to feel better - not worse. I believe it now when people say they feel better smoking than not. I just hope the message gets out there to more unsuspecting people that the bronchodilators in the cigs cover up the symptoms of how bad your lungs are getting and at some point it's going to be too late to be able to have any kind of decent recovery. I suggest that everyone who smokes should stop at least once a year for three weeks - NO CHEATING!! If you cheat, you will be reintroducing the bronchodilator back into your lungs increasing the size of your bronchi ales and you'll not get a real assessment of where you are in your lung capacity degradation. It's real scary when you wake up one day after quitting for 2-1/2 weeks and have about half the lung capacity you had before. I think it would allow many smokers to see first hand how bad their situation is and how short their life expectancy has become - even in their own opinions. I just think there's alot of people out there that think they're OK because they don't have any breathing problems while they're smoking. I'd say it took a pretty sadistic S.O.B. (not shortness of breath) to purposely add bronchodilators to the cigarette recipe in order to keep smokers smoking well beyond the time when they would have otherwise quit, due to the fact that their symptoms have been concealed by the bronchodilators. It's hard to believe money can drive the killing of millions of people. Good luck man, and as I said above, you're in my prayers!

Yeah I wish I hadn't had the e cigarette use to throw me off on pinpointing my exact cause. I did seem to breathe much better when first starting the e -cig but I went down hill quickly in month 3. I think that's when my cilia started to grow back and break things up. It was a really dry cough to start and then it felt like my lungs were dry as leather and stiff. I immediately stopped the e-cig and did everything I could do to get myself better. Now I'm around 60% better. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I went from being what I thought was incredibly strong and healthy while I smoked, to a hyperventilating mess right after quitting...LOL makes no sense. And if the e-cigarette damaged me this much in 3 months of usage then....there's going to be a lot of dying e cig users cropping up really soon!!! I believe it was the real cigs and my tar breaking up/cilia coming alive and lung tissue trying to repair now that it doesn't have all the chemicals keeping it numb and wide open. Either way I am glad I quit, sorry I waited so long to do it and I hope I can get back to 100% normal feeling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway...thanks for the prayers and good luck to you as well. Stay QUIT!

Wonder how Ralph is doing. I've read this whole board about 3 times lol

I quit but not with Chantix...I was a smoker for over 40 years and one day I stopped and smoked a cigarette at the store, I walked around the store and got SOB, I finsihed shopping and threw my cigarettes into the trash bin with my lighter. It has been 4.5 months since I quit. I get SOB, pain in my ches, arms, neck and my back. This is a burning type of pin, it stays for awhile but then subsides. It is scary I take Spriva inhalor and Symbicort twice a day. I have been diagnosed with COPD. I have good days wth no problems, then I have bad days where I can't walk to the mail box with SOB and the pain I mentioned above. I take oral meds for anxiety once a day. I am waiting, it has been 4.5 months for me to start to feeling better. I love being a non smoker. I felt better when I smoked but the chemicals in the cigarette was a broncodialator. So I did not realize how bad they were to me until I stopped

Mark3040, Your story is like so many others. I quit as well, into my 4th month, but only then made the discovery of the SOB and the bronchodilator chemicals they put into cigs. I couldn't believe that I did not know about it just like the vast majority of smokers out there. I enjoyed smoking, but if I knew the bronchodilators were in them, I'm sure I would've done the quit for three weeks each year to at least have a sanity check. I'm just fortunate that I decided to quit just due to gurgling when I laid down to go to sleep, and the fact that I was always tired and didn't have any stamina when working on the projects I have going on at home. I think the activity that I carry on at home has probably helped me. We cut and burn wood for heat (about 10 ricks/yr), mow 3 hilly acres with a 4 ft commercial walk-behind mower all summer (heart attack waiting to happen!), plus almost doubling the size of the house with an addition for the past two years. It's your life - It's great that you quit - but just remember, you can NEVER have a casual cig - its like an alcoholic having just one drink!!

The e-cig in your case is what really makes me think about my case. If you used the e-cig for three months and then had problems, maybe it worked like mineral spirits on grease! What if it loosened up all the tar & gunk that was in your lungs and you coughed it all out. You might be healthier than the rest of us due to the e-cig acting like a lung cleanser!! I've heard there is formaldehyde in the vapor. I wonder what formaldehyde would do to a cig smoke stain on a surface outside the body in an experimental environment. If that is the case, maybe you've stumbled onto a lung cleanse that, if administered at the correct rate, could loosen the gunk in the lungs of ex-smokers at a slower rate so that it would not be incapacitating, and the gunk could be expelled gradually with coughing? It tempts me to want to try the e-cig just to see what it does to me in comparison to you. Did your brother use the e-cig when he quit? You mentioned that he smoked longer than you but then he quit also. It'd be great to have clean lungs, but they'd have to function properly afterwards too obviously!!

Yes my brother used the e cig for close to two years without any problems at all. He is 4 years younger than me but he started smoking when he was 13. I didn't start until I was 18 and he is the one who gave me my first real cigarette and he is also the one who told me about the e cig and which one to get....lol He is a bad influence and I'm the older brother. He quit the e cig and was smoke free totally when I started the e cig. His best friend who turned him on to the e cig has smoked the e cig for 4 years now and is still using it with no problems. I guess some people get lucky and have no problems ?? ------ The only difference between us is while they smoked they coughed and spit a lot especially in the mornings. I on the other hand never coughed when I smoked nor spit. I woke up every morning just fine and never had to cough up a lung to get going. So my thinking is...they were clearing out regularly and I wasn't, so I had buildup I guess ?? Getting lots of exercise is supposed to help bigtime and I am trying to do as much as I can before I get extremely winded. Shoveling snow and using the snow blower has been rough but I push it to the limit. I have to take a lot of breaks and it sounds like I'm dying. Just a year ago I was out running 20 year olds playing football. Whatever it was with the e cig I don't know ?? There are too many people on this thread that never used an e cig that have the same problem and I don't know if the effects of the e cig would last an entire year ?? I have not had a puff of an e cig since March 3rd 2014

the SOB is from you needing to learn how to deep breath since that is what you are doing with every puff of a smoke. This is why it does not happen when you are doing your running.