General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

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Joel

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

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12/18/04 06:28

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General warning about getting colds or flu after quitting

All recent quitters need to be aware of two things thta can happen when getting cold or flu near the time that they quit smoking. First, a cold may be more annoying than normal. If anyone gets a cold within a few months of a quit, it is often a really uncomfortable one. The reason being not only are you producing excessive mucous from the infection itself, but since your Cilia are still in the process of cleaning out of the built up mucous that has been accumulated over the years and decades that never had a chance of coming out before, the amount of congestion and the symptoms can really make a person miserable.

Also, with nerve cells that have now regenerated throughout your whole respiratory tract functioning normally, you can feel pain and irritation that were dulled when you were a smoker. It may have taken you a little longer as a smoker to even know when you were getting sick. With impaired nerve cells you may not have felt earlier symptoms, or if you did you may not have been able to differentiate what was just an effect of smoking too much or of actually having some sort of infection. With nerve cells back in place you are likely not going to be overly tempted to smoke for the concept of pouring hot irritating smoke on an already irritated throat is generally not a pleasant thought.

Where you do have to be careful and aware is that when your cold starts to dissipate, you might get stronger than normal thoughts for cigarettes. For while you likely cut back on cigarette consumption when you were a smoker with a cold, when you started to get better you would have to make up for lost time, or more accurately, for lower than normal nicotine levels since you had instinctively cut cigarettes down to a bare minimum in those times. This makes the first time getting well a potentially powerful trigger. Just be aware of the fact and it will help you to minimize the effect. Then know that over your lifetime, your colds will probably be less frequent, resolve quicker and be less severe as long as you always remember to never take another puff!

Last Edited By: FreedomNicotine 04/14/09 02:32. Edited 1 time.

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orcainnm

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#1

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12/18/04 08:27

Thanks for the info Joel. Being 10 weeks into my quit the last month has been one cold after another. My work as a builder exposes me to a high level of dust and fumes which my lungs simply can't tolerate now that they are beginning to clear.

I've been searching for information to help with the situation but am finding nothing.

Even an estimate of how long to expect this condition to last would be helpful.

Do you know of any informative links?

Tim

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Rickrob53 Gold

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#2

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02/04/05 02:44

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GrumpyOMrsS (Gold)

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#3

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02/16/05 06:33

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BillW Gold

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#4

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02/16/05 07:18

Hi......

Just a wierd comment on Joel's observations above. While I would cut back on smoking with a cold, especially a cold with a bad cough.... I would still try to smoke enough to stop the coughing. Since smoking suppresses coughing, I saw those few cigarettes as a very perverse form of cough medicine. For me, that made the "Got A Cold" trigger a little more intense, until I realized just how insane it was......

BillW free and healing for Three years, one week. 33091 cigarettes not smoked, saving $6,452.87. Life saved: 16 weeks, 2 days, 21 hours, 35 minutes.

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LEHarris52

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#5

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02/16/05 08:49

The cool thing I've noticed over the last "almost" year is that I just am not getting those colds anymore. I used to count on a "summer cold" and a "winter cold" every year, with a cough that lasted a long time after. I think I might have gotten my one and only cold since quitting smoking a few weeks ago, but it was so mild, I'm not even sure it was a cold. Just another FANTASTIC benefit to being a Quitter!!

Laura in KY

hmmm.......I seem to have lost my quit counter for the moment, but I do know it will be one year next Tuesday!

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GrumpyOMrsS (Gold)

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#6

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04/08/05 09:54

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elrandou

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#7

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04/21/05 02:49

What amazes me the most in this extraordinary site is that I find the answers to every single case and issue that may concern both smoking and quitting!! It is three days now that I caught a terrible cold. "Normally" (I mean when I was smoking) I used to catch cold twice a year: first around November and once more around May. But this time my throat feels so irritated and I have such pain when I swallow, I have never felt so badly before! And it was a very unpleasant surprise for me, because I thought that since I quit, sickness will be easier to deal with! So, I came here to seek for comfort and … I found the explanation for what is happening to me! And that is much more important and helping . When you know what and why is happening, you can fight it more effectively. Needless to say, I'm very proud to not even think about smoking!

Thanks Joel, your post helped me a lot!

Lena, (sneezing, coughing, aching but determined to NTAP, NTAP, NTAP!!!)

almost 16 days smoke-free, 312 cigs not smoked, 34,94 € saved, 1day 2:00 life saved

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kattatonic1 gold4

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#8

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04/21/05 07:54

Learning all this was HUGE for me! The sickness triggers were my most annoying.

When I needed to learn, Freedom was a united team of pedagogues! For those who are new to this topic, check this link out:

Nicotine is not medicine / Triggers when I'm sick

And guess what! That was my very last trigger!! Woohoo!!

Kay (Gold)

Celebrating 16 months of Freedom in 2 days!

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Joel

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#9

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06/21/05 02:59

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Joel

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#10

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11/10/05 04:53

Where you do have to be careful and aware is that when your cold starts to dissipate, you might get stronger than normal thoughts for cigarettes. For while you likely cut back on cigarette consumption when you were a smoker with a cold, when you started to get better you would have to make up for lost time, or more accurately, for lower than normal nicotine levels since you had instinctively cut cigarettes down to a bare minimum in those times. This makes the first time getting well a potentially powerful trigger. Just be aware of the fact and it will help you to minimize the effect. Then know that over your lifetime, your colds will probably be less frequent, resolve quicker and be less severe as long as you always remember to never take another puff!

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Kristen Goldx3

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#11

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01/10/06 04:47

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Prettihart

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#12

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01/10/06 05:22

This post was "right on time". I'm going on 9 days and got a cold about 4 days ago. My lungs are really "burning". I never did cut down when I was sick, only making the duration and severity of my cold worse, and worse than that I have asthma. So...thanks for the post. I do have to admit I'm a bit bummed cause I was looking forward to things easing up a little after day 14. But its not worth going through this quit process again.

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phoebe

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#13

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01/13/06 03:00

Stay Strong. Everybody gets sick sometimes. You are doing great, keep up the good work and pretty soon those lungs will be good as new.

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Starshinegrl Gold

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#14

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02/03/06 01:08

I remember my first terrible cold

after having stopped using nicotine, which made me remember this string.

Bringing you a nice hot cup of tea and sending all of you who are a bit under the weather, but still nicotine free, at the moment a "Feel better soon".

Gitte

434 days and a bit

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LeoEx Smoker

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#15

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02/03/06 01:32

Hey Oldbies,

I read somewhere on the site about the point that BillW raises above - sorry I'm a newbie and I can't remember where this was! It's a post about cigarettes having brochodilators in them (I think) so that we smoke more/ingest more nicotine or something... and that's why smoking, bizarrely, helps when you have asthma.

Does someone know where that post/article is?

My Dad used to say that when he was a kid, when he had an asthma attack he'd sneak outside and have a cigarette, and it would be better. He thought it was counter-intuitive but swore by it. I found the same with asthma attacks in my 20's. The first time I realised why that was so was when I read this website.

Amazing eh. My Dad found that out practically all those years ago, but never knew why.

Cheers,

Leonie

Leo - Free and Healing for One Month, One Day, 8 Hours and 54 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 3 Days and 22 Hours, by avoiding the use of 1133 nicotine delivery devices that would have cost me $499.18.

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Joel

General warning about getting a cold or flu after quitting

#16

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02/03/06 03:36

From the string "You Were a Lot Healthier Before You quit Smoking!":

From: Joel

Sent: 6/24/2003 2:24 PM

This post brings up such an important point to work with your health care providers in the event that something seems wrong after quitting. For some people things may just happen at some point in time after quitting that were going to happen whether they had quit smoking or not. In a few other people, conditions that may have actually existed when they were smoking and were being masked may now present noticeable symptoms for the first time .

Either way, there are likely treatments available for these conditions if they just get properly diagnosed. What it so ironic is how a people can be afraid to go to a doctor for risk that he or she may prescribe a medication for a problem that smoking was "treating" and now the patient is afraid of the side effects of the new medication.

Well in the case of the bronchodialators you had said you found out were in cigarettes, the prescribed medication may be the same as ones found in smoke, but now not being accompanied by the thousands of other chemicals, poisons and cancer causing agents that they were delivered simultaneously with your cigarettes. Everyone should know for a fact that there is no drug that is ever going to be prescribed that carries a one in two chance of being fatal--and cigarettes do carry that risk.

Life goes on after quitting. Most people do in fact get healthier and don't develop such reactions from quitting. But there are people who do have masked problems or problems that were being treated by medications already that may require dose adjustments after quitting. This is because your body eventually returns to normal after quitting.

Normal doesn't mean what it was like the day before you quit, normal means returning to a state that your body was designed to be in before you ever took up smoking--with aging thrown in. No one knows what that normal state is until they get there--and for some people normal is a state where they have some chemical imbalances or conditions that may require medical intervention. It can be very uncomfortable or even dangerous to ignore such conditions and just write them off to not smoking.

So again, for those of you who quit and feel great, know that this is a common reaction and you should be grateful that things have gone the way they have. For those of you who have discovered problems, know too that this is possible but there are likely therapies of one sort or another to make these problems better and you should not put up with sustained suffering any longer than necessary. Both groups should know that they are healthier since they quit for the mere fact that they did quit and will likely stay healthier, smell better, have more control over their life, and likely live happier and longer as long as they always remember to never take another puff!

Joel