What They Don\’t Tell You About Quitting

After being a smoker for close to 20 years, my last cigarette was smoked on August 2nd of this year. I didn\'t go cold turkey (I lack will power) ... I used patches. It\'s been over 3 months now and I haven\'t felt the perks of quitting. My doctor did tell me, due to smoking as much as I did for as long as I did, it could take up to a year to notice changes. Not long after quitting I had a bought of feeling like I couldn\'t breath. Several nights I couldn\'t sleep due to waking up gasping for air every couple of minutes. Then my heart just felt like it was racing or pounding out of my chest! Then I went to the ER when I had the breathing trouble and palpitations together. After a lot of testing I found out my heart, thyroid, and lungs are apparently fine. So what\'s wrong with me? I\'m happy to say I haven\'t had the shortness of breath symptoms for about a month now and I don\'t feel the palpitations quite as often. But this wasn\'t the end of my health problem mysteries.

We are a little over 9 weeks into the school year and my 2 children have passed sickness back and forth about 4 times now. Normally I don\'t catch what they have... until this year! I\'ve been down about 2 out of the 4 times and now am battling a brutal sinus infection! It\'s not a case of self pitty BUT... anyone who has recently tried to quit smoking and succeeded will ask... WHY AM I FEELING SO HORRID??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?? I\'ve also had the acne of a 14 year old for over a month now. Not to mention greasy hair and a really flaky scalp. And depression (i thought I was literally going crazy at one point in time), and fatigue and who knows what all else!

This morning, as my nasal glob was being hacked from my throat, all I could taste was cigarette. Well now, this is very strange! So, I started thinking could this all be linked to me quitting smoking? I couldn\'t really be feeling lousy because I started to do something good for my body.. could I? I hopped online and ran a search about this. I found an article from a lady who went through many of the same things I did. I was so relieved to find out I\'m not crazy! Apparently turning your body back into a normal one can be a very difficult process. There were a lot of other people who posted letters to her article who also went through bad health stages. The good news is most of them said it does get better if you wait it out. THEN you get to enjoy the perks of quitting.

I wanted to write this article because this is what they don\'t tell you about quitting smoking! By they, I mean the countless amount of articles, ads, doctors, organizations and even ex smokers who tell you \"the effects of quitting now\". They, however, don\'t give you all the effects. It would have been much easier to cope and a lot less scary had someone just told me this type of thing COULD happen to me. Not everyone WILL experience awful health problems after quitting. Yet there are enough people that it happens to. Enough people that this should be made known to the people who want to quit. Prepare them for this! I was actually starting to think about starting smoking again just to see if I would feel any better. Until I found that article and that people who haven\'t smoked in years said they had these problems too but, they went away in time. I feel so much more ready to deal with everything now that I know I\'m not alone. Now that I know I\'m not falling apart. Now that I know it\'s just my body\'s way of getting back to healthy. My head and face feel like they\'re in a vice right now but, knowing that it\'s only temporary makes it a lot easier to live with. I don\'t know what exactly causes these ill effects other than your body changing and pushing out toxins and just working really hard to repair itself. I just hope by writing this I can help someone else realize they are NOT crazy or alone and that yes, it takes a lot more time than \"they\" tell us to start feeling really well. You may have to even feel really unwell first.

Lisa Greco is a 31 year old mother of two.

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