Did stopping smoking break me?

April 24, 2007 12:07 PM

Stopping smoking seems to have broken my body.

Today is day 32 sans cigs(if interested, you can read about my experiences in this askme thread. Easy squeezy.

Now, I'm having some big problems. My throat constantly feels like it is being squeezed shut. I have a huge lump in my throat. Swallowing is tough. Breathing can be difficult (tight throat/sometimes I can't breathe in all the way). It's really frustrating and scary at times.

I was coughing up lungmonkeys for a few days in the first week, but nothing since.

There has also been tightness in my chest, but it feels more muscular than anything.

My doc says I have GERD, and put me on Prilosec (which hasn't done anything other than disrupt mah innards). I've been on it for 2 weeks; there has been no abatement. I feel so broken. I'm fat and out of shape already - this makes it feel worse.

Is any of this normal? The stopping smoking part was really easy and I have no urge to smoke, but I feel significantly worse now. Any advice would be appreciated.

posted by Cat Pie Hurts to Health & Fitness (20 answers total)

Drink water -- lots of water. All the time. Maybe with a lime in in it.
IANAD, but I did quit smoking eight months ago. I don't know why quitting smoking would make a person dehydrated -- you'd think it would be the other way -- but it did me.

And cheez, call your doctor back -- they like to know if what they prescribe hasn't helped after two weeks.
posted by Methylviolet at 12:15 PM on April 24, 2007

Response by poster: I've been drinking about 1.5 gallons/day.
My doc is on vacation until tomorrow (I already emailed her :)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 12:20 PM on April 24, 2007

I have GERD and I've taken 3 different medications for it, including Prilosec. Prilosec didn't work for me and doctors love to prescribe it because it's cheap. I had to fight to get Protonix instead, which while more expensive, actually works for me. I would ask to try another proton pump inhibitor, or whatever that class of drugs is called. (The other one that worked for me as well was Prevacid)
posted by disaster77 at 12:23 PM on April 24, 2007

IANAD, but those symptoms sound suspiciously like what I experienced just before being diagnosed with asthma.
posted by drezdn at 12:28 PM on April 24, 2007

When I quit smoking, my body felt like absolute hell for quite a while. I don't think I felt fully normal for six months.

The biggest helps for me were water and daily exercise.

Good luck, and I swear you'll be glad you did this someday.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 12:30 PM on April 24, 2007

My GERD was caused by stress, had the symptoms that you describe and was rather frightful. Not until the stress ceased did it stop (literally a year later). In the interim, I only found relief from newer medication like Axid. It is an H2 blocker and there's a couple in that class, I would recommend trying them out. Nothing else helped for me at least, expect to pay ~$80/mo for this -- though prices may come down.

I'm surprised you weren't scoped, I thought they scoped immediately due to liability (esophageal cancer is both deadly and has similar symptoms).

I'd also recommend seeing if you can get on any sort of anti-anxiety medications. I didn't feel stressed, during the summer when my work load collapsed to nothing, so did the GERD.

Two week window is what it is suppose to take for many heartburn medications to kick in (especially the H2) and it may take up to 3 months (!) for you to get back to normal as your esophagus heals itself.
posted by geoff. at 12:30 PM on April 24, 2007

I can't offer an opinion about the GERD, but yeah, my body spent about three months actively falling apart followed by two years of passively falling apart when I quit.

It gets better.
posted by lekvar at 12:32 PM on April 24, 2007

I mean to say that H2 blockers do not work and PPIs do. It was not Axid ... it was Aciphex. It is expensive and it works. I totally screwed that up.
posted by geoff. at 12:32 PM on April 24, 2007

Yes, this sometimes happens. Also, it can take a couple weeks being on Prilosec or another proton-pump-inhibitor before you really feel the benefit (ie until your esophagus makes progress in healing). Also some people can take awhile to get accustomed to such medication (note the side effects in the packaging). Mine was changed 4 different times and each time I felt really awful for 3-4 weeks. Stress, too, can cause such pains (or, rather, when your doctor can't find an obvious reason for them s/he will say "it's probably just stress--you should exercise more"). Your symptoms may be caused by a combination.
posted by Martin E. at 12:39 PM on April 24, 2007

Here's a link to an article at Salon describing someone who went through a similar ordeal after quitting:

Screw you for not smoking

In it, a doctor tells the author that while the cigarettes were killing her, they were also killing any pathogens that may have otherwise made her sick.

It's an interesting read, although I did not care for the author's tone.
posted by AaRdVarK at 12:48 PM on April 24, 2007

I have bad anxiety, and still smoke, and I get what you describe frequently. It comes and goes, but it's usually stress related. Perhaps ask about anti-anxiety meds? I have been on one recently and it has helped. (FYI, I take Straterra for my ADD, which is also an anxiolytic)
posted by nursegracer at 12:57 PM on April 24, 2007

Stopping smoking has increased your anxiety level, whether you "feel" it or not.

Your increased anxiety level has triggered your gastric reflux.

Your gastric reflux is not responding/has not had enough time to respond to the medicine.

Doc can help. Talk to her tomorrow. Ask for the next step up from Prilosec.

Good luck. 5 years from now you'll still be glad you quit.
posted by Ynoxas at 1:52 PM on April 24, 2007

My mom suddenly developed severe allergies and mild asthma after quitting. She'd never had either one prior to this.

We speculated that she'd had allergies all along, but that the cigarettes were suppressing her immune system's response (allergies being an overreaction of the immune system). Her doctor basically just shrugged her shoulders and told her to take benadryl, which was terribly inefficient. She finally went to an ENT who got her on better anti-allergy meds and allergy shots. She's been doing steadily better since then.

Not sure if that helps, but I mention it because the closing-throat feeling and the coughing could both be a combination of asthma and allergies.
posted by treepour at 2:36 PM on April 24, 2007

Think of nicotine as a laxative for your lung cilia. Now that your bronchi aren't getting their daily dose of Ex-Lax, the shit's backing up like a Porta-John at Max Yasgur's farm.

In time, a lot of this may correct itself.

Get in touch with your doctor.
posted by docpops at 4:04 PM on April 24, 2007

> The biggest helps for me were water and daily exercise.

While, in the long-term, daily exercise is going to improve your situation quicker, do not start in on anything like a rigorous exercise regimen in your current condition. It could exacerbate your symptoms and be potentially dangerous. That probably goes without saying, but just in case....

In general, exercise needs to be tempered with sanity if you've been a long-time smoker. Even when you're back on your feet from your immediate ailments, your return to physical activity (if you choose to make a concerted return) needs to be gradual, as long-term smoking is quite hard on your heart and lungs, and the added shock of rigorous activity to those systems can potentially be deadly.

Good luck with your recovery! It will be better in the long run.
posted by Brak at 5:10 PM on April 24, 2007

No idea about GERD or anxiety, but what you're experiencing sounds normal to me.

I gave up smoking in August 1998, having smoked for 13 years. I was smoking 20 - 25 a day at the time. About an hour after I'd finished a pack, I just decided I wasn't going to buy any more and that was it. Cold turkey. No cutting down, no gum, no patches, nothing.

I was fine for the first month or so, and then I had similar symptoms to what you describe - my breathing felt constricted and painful. My whole chest felt it was being squeezed. I was always out of breath and very wheezy and used a Ventolin inhaler frequently for relief. I can't remember exactly how long I felt like that, but it would have been AT LEAST 2 weeks, possible a month or more.

Some other people I've spoken to had similar issues when quitting. I think it's just your body adapting itself to life without all the toxins it had become accustomed to.
Personally, I'd go get a massage/body work from someone that does Myofascial Release and get some work on my upper body, including pecs, sternum & intercostals. I'd also hop into the powdered vitamin C and maybe a B complex.

Just think about how much better you'll feel when this passes, and the joy of actually really appreciating the aromas & tastes of your food & drinks.
posted by goshling at 5:57 PM on April 24, 2007

Congratulations on quitting!

If your doc is treating your GERD and not paying enough attention to your pulmonary/respiratory symptoms, ask for a referral to a pulmonologist.

Some of the symptoms you describe are components of GERD. Interestingly, many people with asthma have GERD as a comorbid. Seems the inflammation happening in the lungs can affect the esophagus as well since everything in the chest cavity is in such close proximity.

Have you tried making diet and lifestyle changes to attempt to treat the GERD as well? It's documented that avoiding trigger foods/substances like citrus, chocolate, caffeine, carbonation and others can help GERD symptoms. It can also help to not eat within three hours of laying down, laying on your left side and elevating the head of your bed. Another change is losing weight.

Medication to treat GERD may take a while to work. And not all PPIs will work the same in every body. For instance, Prevacid and Nexium work very well for me. Protonix does not.

You may want to get an endoscopy as well so you can have your esophagus evaluated and at least get a baseline. It's painless (you are sedated and quite loopy) and you get to take the day off! It takes about 15 minutes and the doctor can take any samples needed for biopsy right there. You even get pictures of what your esophagus looks like.

There are some illnesses where smoking is the primary risk factor (COPD for example). I would be concerned enough about this and your symptoms to go see a pulmonologist, and get a GI workup on your acid reflux.

Good luck and again, congratulations on quitting. You have accomplished something quite monumental!

(IANAD)
posted by FergieBelle at 6:01 AM on April 25, 2007

So you've gotten over most of the physical withdrawal, now you have to get over the mental/psychological part that's causing you stress and hypochondriasis.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:18 AM on April 25, 2007

The situation you describe sounds ridiculously familiar. After more than a decade of smoking, my boyfriend quit for good this February—and since the beginning of March, he's been ravaged by a continuing bout of tonsillitis/mono/concomitant infection that generally seems to stem from a compromised immune system.

Just a data point to add to the mix...dunno about causal attributions thereof, but it's certainly interesting!
posted by limeonaire at 11:15 AM on April 25, 2007

Ditto on what most of the other quitters are saying. I went cold turkey 7 years ago after 18+ years of 1 to 2 packs a day. Contrary to my expectation of being pretty much in the clear after a month or two, it took at least 6 months before I stopped feeling as if there was something wrong with my body 24-7. I had almost constant low-level flu-like symptoms, fatigue, periodic dizziness and tremors, sinus infections and a strange indefinable sense of ill health in my throat and chest. Exercise also just made me feel bad for quite a while. It all eventually went away and now I feel generally fantastic. I'm not saying you don't have any of the other issues that have been suggested here, but don't underestimate what nicotine withdrawal can put you through. And don't think that quitting wasn't worthwhile! It's a great decision and I expect you'll really enjoy the payoff in the long run.
posted by newmoistness at 2:37 PM on April 25, 2007