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wayne9867 
Group: Members
Posts: 587
Joined: Feb. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 10:02 am |
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Well had my last smoke 2 months ago. Would like to say that food taste better, I breath easier, I can hike hills easier, and that there is always a rainbow.
However the reality is I feel like crap. I get winded more easily than I did before, wake up every morning coughing my head off, and wheezing like I have asthma. I am sure part of this is allergies, but not all if it is. I think part of it is simply my lungs clearing and healing. So for those who have quit how long does this crap last. Also wonder if there is anything I can do to speed this clearing process. Any Vitamins, supplements etc.
I got a 16 mile 4000 foot elevation gain hike in 2 weeks and it is going to kick my a$$ the way I feel now. Starting to think I should have waited until I completed that hike to stop.
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| Post Number: 2
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eggs
That's sofa King assume
Group: Members
Posts: 4235
Joined: Nov. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:00 am |
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I quite in like 1986 I think. I was always active biking or running back then but not backpacking. If you are not doing any cardio to get you breathing up it may take longer.
Like grandpa used to say get out on the freeway and blow the carbon out of the engine when he had his 63 Bel Air.
The up combing hike may make you feel better
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Eggs
Home of the egg
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| Post Number: 3
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Tigger
Woods Pouncer
Group: Members
Posts: 10502
Joined: Apr. 2005
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:05 am |
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I started to turn the corner around two months, felt really good and like a kid at three months. After about nine months I could literally run up a mountain.
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If I'm going to be lost, in the woods is where I want to be...
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| Post Number: 4
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spindle
Group: Members
Posts: 22197
Joined: Dec. 2003
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:11 am |
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It comes on suddenly. I don't remember how long it took but one day I woke up and felt really good.
I started running the same day I quit though, to combat the discomfort with more discomfort. That was 14 years ago.
These days I start hacking up goo on day 2 of every hike. All the extra breathing unclogs the depths, I think. Can't possibly be a bad thing.
Push through, keep going. You'll heal and it will all be worth it. 
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| Post Number: 5
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Autoeng
Group: Members
Posts: 115
Joined: Jan. 2011
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:12 am |
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I would suggest a visit to your doctor to rule out anything that is hindering your recovery. I smoked for 30 years and when I quit I didn't have any symptoms like you described but every person is different.
It did take about me about 3 months before I noticed the changes (sense of smell, taste, felt better).
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| Post Number: 6
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High_Sierra_Fan
Group: Members
Posts: 39560
Joined: Aug. 2005
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:57 am |
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Get checked by a doctor, those aren't nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Though depending on the underlying reasons for why you quit they may be the follow on to all the years of abuse your lungs took, true.
But yah know? They'll probably last a lot shorter time than the chemotherapy for lung cancer would have, or emphysema. So all the best for having stopped smoking.
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| Post Number: 7
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Echo
Group: Members
Posts: 6378
Joined: May 2008
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 12:00 pm |
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Maybe you do have asthma? I was just reading that a lot of adults go undiagnosed because at a certain point everyone starts thinking the breathlessness is something else, allergies, cardiac trouble etc.
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If Light is in your heart, you will find your way Home. (Rumi)
The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth. Chinese proverb
http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/
http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/
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| Post Number: 8
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| Post Number: 9
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wayne9867
Group: Members
Posts: 587
Joined: Feb. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 1:37 pm |
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Guess I was just whining about not seeing a quick return on the effort. Thanks for all the support you guys are wonderful. Not to worry not going to pick the habit back up. Thinking of going to Pickle Gulch to celebrate a year smoke free, meet some of you good folks, and bust my Fourteener cherry. (Well I have been to the top of Pikes Peak but I drove so guessing that don't count.)
To those that suggest seeing the doctor you have a good point. I might do that yet however at my last physical 4 months ago everything was good. Doctor said even with my smoking my lungs were clear and chest x-rays were good.
I really was not a heavy smoker 3 to 5 cigarettes a day. Guess that is way the stopping has not been to hard. From what I have been reading this annoying cough is not the nicotine but the lungs clearing junk. Sounds like I am just going to have to deal with it for a bit. I am sure that fall allergies here in the mid-west are not helping either.
Thanks again for the support and encouragement. Will have to post you all a digital post card from Red River Gorge this weekend and from the Smoky Mt. two weekends after that.
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| Post Number: 10
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SCKuhn
Group: Members
Posts: 55
Joined: Jan. 2012
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 1:58 pm |
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Don't forget the chemistry side of smoking - Nicotine (and other junk in smoke) acts as a vasodilator... makes you bronchial tubes open up.... that's why folks with emphysema/COPD feel better AFTER a smoke! 
Give it time.... you'll turn the corner soon!
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| Post Number: 11
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| Post Number: 13
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Chuck D
Group: Members
Posts: 7359
Joined: Feb. 2002
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 5:44 pm |
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How long does the mental part (the short temper, meaness, etc) last?
My wife quit about 25 years ago and is still a tad on the mean side.
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Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,
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| Post Number: 14
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oldnolder
Group: Members
Posts: 1744
Joined: Jun. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 6:06 pm |
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Next Feb will be 30 years and my wife would say I'm still short tempered.
Good luck with the quiting Wayne it will get better. Now that getting older stuff will present lots of issues as the years go on. I am leaving tomorrow on a 6 day backpack trip and I will be 65 before halloween.
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| Post Number: 15
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| Post Number: 16
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WBrim
Group: Members
Posts: 240
Joined: Feb. 2011
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 10:03 pm |
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14 years for me and its one of the best decisions I ever made. Going to run my second marathon this weekend.
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| Post Number: 17
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tRoLLin_mOtOr
Strategery
Group: Members
Posts: 946
Joined: Feb. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 02 2012, 11:30 pm |
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Congratulations! It's been about a year and a half for me. I probably actually hiked and backpacked more frequently when I was a smoker than I do now (due mostly to job issues, available time, etc.)
As a smoker most of my difficulty in hiking was becoming winded, out of breath, etc. Now, I never notice any breathing related issues, but my performance limitations are related to my lower overall hiking conditioning.
Most of the things you are describing went into the background after several months of non-smoking. My overall health is much better. Previously I used to get every bug going around and was always sick. Now I seem to have the ability to avoid getting sick, or at least not nearly as often or as severely.
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It is better to travel well than to arrive
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CenAZwalker
Group: Members
Posts: 96
Joined: Jul. 2012
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Posted on: Oct. 03 2012, 5:53 pm |
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Good job on the quitting.
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| Post Number: 21
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eyebp
Moderator
Group: Members
Posts: 9628
Joined: Dec. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 03 2012, 7:01 pm |
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(wayne9867 @ Oct. 03 2012, 9:53 am)
QUOTE
(eyebp @ Oct. 02 2012, 5:32 pm)
QUOTE And saying you should have waited is BS. You are healing if you realize it or not. Your right as much as I hate to admit it. How long you been off them now. Know you stopped not to long ago.
The 20th will be 6 months. I feel freaking fantastic.
Congrats, man!
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Of all the ridiculous things to micromanage. Even for a lunatic megalomaniac.
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| Post Number: 22
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City Man
Group: Members
Posts: 6490
Joined: Dec. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 03 2012, 7:10 pm |
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I still have not had a tobacco smoke since getting back from PG. I had already stopped smoking for almost a year and then started smoking about three months before PG. One of the reasons it was a lot easier this time.
You will truly feel the difference with in one to three months after stopping. Best to you.
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It never hurts to do good – Eek the Cat
The quest for adventure is a never ending pursuit, an all consuming way to live life, it is a deep feeling that will never go away, embrace that feeling and have fun with your adventures.
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| Post Number: 23
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RebeccaD
Double Arch, Arches N.P.
Group: Members
Posts: 9864
Joined: Jul. 2004
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Posted on: Oct. 03 2012, 7:55 pm |
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Hey, good work, Cityman. Stick with it!
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Bits of writerly thoughts and random short fiction found at
The Ninja Librarian Blog
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| Post Number: 24
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| Post Number: 25
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big_load
Group: Members
Posts: 21831
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Oct. 03 2012, 9:52 pm |
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Congratulations to the quitters! (That didn't sound quite right, did it?)
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| Post Number: 26
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| Post Number: 27
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eyebp
Moderator
Group: Members
Posts: 9628
Joined: Dec. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 6:48 am |
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This picture wouldn't exist had I not quit smoking.
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Of all the ridiculous things to micromanage. Even for a lunatic megalomaniac.
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| Post Number: 28
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wayne9867
Group: Members
Posts: 587
Joined: Feb. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 9:57 am |
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In the last couple of days overall starting to breath easier. The coughing now seems to me more just when I first get up in the morning. Looks like I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
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| Post Number: 29
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RebeccaD
Double Arch, Arches N.P.
Group: Members
Posts: 9864
Joined: Jul. 2004
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 10:19 am |
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Yay! Hang in there Wayne--you'll not regret it.
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Bits of writerly thoughts and random short fiction found at
The Ninja Librarian Blog
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| Post Number: 30
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sarbar
Hiker Trash
Group: Members
Posts: 16479
Joined: Sep. 2004
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 5:27 pm |
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I quit smoking in spring of 1997. Found out I was pregnant with my oldest son, had one last smoke and threw my pack away.
But here is a good one - about 3 years after I quit I took a friend and her daughter out to the Hoh rain forest in the Olympics, She was still a smoker (and is to this day). Smoked 1-2 packs a day. It was fall and chilly, where the air is sharp and clear. She started hacking, coughing and so on. Looks at me and whines "this fresh mountain air is killing me". Lol.....yeah.
You'll get over it. It doesn't happen magically overnight. But as many have said, one day you wake up and the world is different.
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Trail Cooking, Recipes, Gear and Beyond:
Trail Cooking & Freezer Bag Cooking
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Survival Skills 101 • Eat Better
