:rolleyes:
You sure work hard to prove yourself right.
About 1/3 of my Danish family smokes. I used to smoke. We would visit every year at Christmas and the house was constantly filled with smoke, as it was the central gathering point for several big family gatherings during the week. We stay with my in-laws when we visit.
I quit smoking in 2002. The first visit after I quit didn’t really bother me, as I recall. The next visit, however, was absolutely torturous. For whatever reason, the smoke was burning my eyes, throat and lungs. My eyes would not stop running and were so swollen I could barely see out of them. After a few days I ended up in bed with a fever, coughing up green phlegm, and spent the rest of my holiday in that condition. I told my husband I thought I had pneumonia - he thought I was being melodramatic. Until he came down with it on the flight home and I dragged him from the airport to the walk-in clinic and the doctor confirmed my diagnosis.
I told him that I could no longer risk staying at his parents’ home when we visited, so we’d have to find a polite way to let them know we’d have to find a hotel. That was completely unacceptable to my husband, who insisted it would break his mother’s heart if we didn’t stay there. But what was I to do? It’s their house, and my father-in-law has every right to smoke in it if he pleases. And I’m certainly in no position to expect their guests not to smoke in their house!
Well my mother-in-law took that decision right out of my hands and simply declared her house a non-smoking house during our visits. Smokers could smoke outside or not smoke at all. Since she doesn’t smoke, she actually loved being able to have a week with a smoke-free house herself!
I still feel a bit guilty about basically being responsible for everyone having to smoke outside to accomodate me, but everyone does so without a single complaint. And I didn’t even have to ask! I love my family.
Is that a problem? I mean I wouldn’t want to be rude.
Will anyone who truly believes that friend **Bricker **did not intend to entice Dopers with his title’s salacious wording, with its promise of hot Republican sex, please contact me soonest, as I have some excellent investment opportunities available involving foreign investment and infrastructure.
As a rabid non-smoker, I can’t *imagine *a scenario where I would tell someone in his own home that he could not smoke.
Actually, even in *my *own home, I will tolerate smoking in my guests. (No one has ever done this.)
As a nation, Dominicans are not tolerant of smokers. People like Bricker’s SIL are the exception. Dominicans won’t object if someone lights up in an open-air setting, but some may make disapproving comments. Smoking indoors is practically unheard of.
So what was the outcome? Did the smoking continue? Did Miss Dainty Lungs leave?
I would bet that if another smoke got lit, and Ms Nonsmoker stayed to argue instead of leaving to protect her health, then her claims were bullshit.
Kind of like testing to see if someone is a witch by tossing them into a pond and trying to drown them.
As someone with asthma, depending on the brand, smoking can cause me to have an instant attack. It really is dependant on the brand, though. Some perfumes do the exact same thing. And so do some paint fumes.
That said, polite request. Dude. Seriously.
Well, I mean I’ve treated a few thousand asthmatics, and many more with heart and lung conditions, and I have ordinary old Board Certifications in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine. So I will admit: many folk, including asthmatics and lung/heart patients complain that cigarette smoking set off their condition.
It’s my (surly, cynical, casual, anecdotal) impression that the biggest complainers tend to have a personality type associated with those complaints, and not infrequently, an agenda to manage when their Condition is triggered by Smo King and his pals. Also Perfu Marie and her girlfriends, especially when Perfu Marie needs to be put in her place.
I’m gonna stick with my Pit opinion that “Medical conditions exacerbated by casual nearby smoking are largely BS.” It is not, of course, an official medical opinion that I would express outside of this sort of casual conversation, and you are probably right to complain about me laying it out there like that.
ETA: Different cigarette brands, E-Sabbath? C’mon! Don’t give me ammo like that at the end of this post…
That may be true, but you would surely concede that smoking will affect a non-smoker’s comfort level if he is not used to smelling smoke?
I am a former smoker, will have quit going on two years, and the smell of second hand smoke is absolutely repulsive.
Eh. I have severe allergies to cats, and they’re one of the things that still causes my asthma to flare up immediately and severely. But the problem isn’t that the cats are in the room now, its that the cats have been in the room and left their allergens everywhere. Locking them up once I’m there does nothing but get you a scratched door from the cats yowling to be let out.
Once upon a time, my asthma also triggered from cigarette smoke – and places steeped in cig smoke (or people steeped in cig smoke) could set me off whether or not someone was actively smoking.
However, my asthma was MY problem. If I went someplace that I knew there were cats or smokers, I’d prepare to deal with it. If I got there and only then found out about 'em, I’d suffer as long as I felt up to it, then apologize profusely and take my leave.
That is because it was not their problem, it was mine. And my responsibility to deal with it. Had I been rude to them because of my problem, it would’ve been completely understandable if they’d’ve been rude in response.
Led Zeppelin cover band name!
I am a smoker who has refrained from smoking going on 12 years now and I absolutely love the smell of second hand smoke. In fact, I will position myself downwind from smokers just to get the maximum benefit. And I’ve had four surgeries for oral cancer that “almost certainly” resulted from smoking.
My vote for the very rudest behavior goes to the person who ordered the owner? occupant? of the house to stop smoking. But I have had problems graciously accepting orders for years. My vote of approval goes to the smoker who called her on it. It’s exactly what I would have done in my smoking days. A request would have resulted in far different behavior from me.
Alright. So you’re one of those (few, I hope) MDs who apparently don’t buy that secondhand smoke triggers asthma attacks and exacerbations of other medical problems (to any significant extent, anyway) - and that people who develop symptoms are complainers with an “agenda”.
Of course, as a pathologist with a much more limited firsthand interaction with patients, I don’t have the biases you’ve developed via anecdotes or a comparable “surly, cynical” attitude. In addition to my clinical anecdotes (based in part on the experiences of my wife, who has had asthma attacks caused by secondhand smoke), I merely keep up with the medical literature and the conclusions of researchers who’ve gone beyond anecdote to actual science:
“Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke…Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children…Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers. Because their bodies are developing, infants and young children are especially vulnerable to the poisons in secondhand smoke…Among infants and children, secondhand smoke cause bronchitis and pneumonia, and increases the risk of ear infections.
Secondhand smoke exposure can cause children who already have asthma to experience more frequent and severe attacks…Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer…Concentrations of many cancer-causing and toxic chemicals are higher in secondhand smoke than in the smoke inhaled by smokers.
Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can have immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of a heart attack.…Short exposures to secondhand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of a heart attack.
Secondhand smoke contains many chemicals that can quickly irritate and damage the lining of the airways. Even brief exposure can result in upper airway changes in healthy persons and can lead to more frequent and more asthma attacks in children who already have asthma.”
I’ve bolded some key passages. References aplenty at that site for doubters.
More evidence on asthma in adults. Tons more data out there on other facets of secondhand smoke and disease.
It’s disheartening to see a primary care physician with so little knowledge and so much negative attitude on a subject of importance to many patients with chronic cardiorespiratory illnesses.
I do not have asthma, nor allergies yet if anyone smokes near me, I cannot breathe well at all.
When little, my parent smoked all the time.
Well, not to speak for the guy–he’s usually pretty clear about his positions–but I think he’s not saying that environmental smoke doesn’t trigger attacks in asthma patients, but rather that more often than not people who are complaining about smoke and making medical excuses to guilt smokers into stubbing out are full of shit. That is, the medical conditions which are exacerbated by ambient smoke aren’t nearly as common as the number of medical complaints to smokers would suggest.
I don’t know if I necessarily agree, but that’s my read of what he’s saying.
I figure they have different fields and different versions of tobacco. Or maybe it’s psychological. I don’t think so, but maybe. Nineteen out of twenty times, provided it’s not ‘trapped in a car with heavy smoker’, I’m uncomfortable, and trying to be upwind, and not exerting myself, but fine. (No, I don’t make a big deal of it. I just stand somewhere.) But that one time, I get a whiff, and something in it just triggers coughing and wheezing and the lack of oxygen coming in. I’m assuming it’s a specific brand, but the rarity of the occurance in modern NY means that the few times it does happen, I really don’t think about asking about the brand till afterwards. Might be an additive.
Again, there’s some damn kind of perfume that does it to me. I’m not sure what it is, either, it’s an equally rare occurance. As in, one person wore it in ten years and when I sent an e-mail to ask really politely, they changed it.
Checking in on the cultural side - I don’t know how wide a circle this is true for, but I live in the Inner West of Sydney. Smoking indoors is almost unheard of in my social circle - even among pack-a-day-plus types.
It could be that this stems from the fact that most people of my age (early thirties) or younger have spent a lot of time in share houses or renting, and leaving a rented place smelling of smoke is pretty much all the landlord needs to keep the entire bond and put whoever’s name was on the lease on the rental blacklist.
This applies for smoking anything, too - if you want to do some dope you do it out in the back-yard or on the balcony. I was stunned a couple of months ago when I walked in on some friends doing ice. Not because they were smoking meth, but because they were doing it inside.
It turned out that they were doing it inside because their landlord who lived downstairs was also at the party and while he’d happily hit a bucket bong with them down in the courtyard, he drew the line at anything harder.
Every friggin’ year we go to Jim’s aunt’s house for Christmas Eve, and every friggin’ year there are from two to eight smokers who spend the entire night smoking in the house (the hosts are two of the smokers). There are also three people with asthma, two people who have had cancer, three young children, and at least one person (me) who gets nauseated by cigarette smoke. We’ve never said anything to the smokers about how much we hate their smoking because it is their house, but I’m >thisclose< to just not going in the future because I don’t want to spend the evening sick, and then come home and have to take a shower before bed and have to wash all of our clothes that were worn there (including our winter parkas that don’t wash well). My sympathies are with Scoldy, with the caveat that she should have asked nicely instead of demanding. Being around smokers truly sucks.
So don’t go.
Seriously, how silly is it to bitch about smokers smoking in their own home, when you *choose *to go there despite nausea, asthma, cancer, and precious devloping childlungs?
Perhaps some of the nonsmokers should step up to host Christmas Eve. Problem solved!