So I’m using the patch, and it works just fine, (I’m not even sure I need the patch). I just can’t stand the hacking and coughing. I woke up three times last night. I’m afraid the people in my apartment building are getting annoyed too. They don’t warn people about this before they stop smoking!! Forget about telling me about the crazy dreams I’ll have while wearing this thing; That’s a COOL side-effect!
Try warning me that I’ll be coughing until my head is killing me and my lungs will be worn out.
Would this call for a cough suppressant? If the cilia theory is accurate then it sounds like the coughing is “productive” and needs to be done. But if I were you, I’d probably take a suppressant at least at night time, because lack of sleep causes the most horrid grumpiness and urges to backslide might increase.
Think of each cough as bringing you one step closer to sparkly-clean lungs, and in the meantime, try drinking tea sweetened with honey and spiked with one or two teaspoons of lemon juice.
A humidifier might help…perhaps? For at night, anyway. Or Vicks on your chest? (Note: I’ve never understood how Vicks on your chest can help ANYthing but some people swear by it.)
The coughing will go away eventually. The only coughing I experienced when I quit was in the morning for a couple of days to evacuate that crap lying in my lungs.
My rule on cough suppressants when I have a cold is not to use them during the day, but to take them before bed - I need to sleep more than I need to clear crap out at night.
Are you wearing patches while you sleep? Wow, the nutty dreams and lack of good sleep I had when I occasionally forgot to remove a patch would have me batty before long. Also, that can’t be good for dealing with nicotine dependence, can it? You’re now continuing to feed your body nicotine during a time when previously it got a break. That seems counterproductive.
ETA: Here’s another thing they don’t tell you: Your sense of smell will shortly come back, and until you become used to that, you will be amazed at how much grocery stores stink…
That’s the most surprising thing, even if you are aware that it will happen, the kickback you get from your senses of smell and taste, and that smoking dulled.
I quit before too. It was stupid getting back into it. I had a cough like this, but I thought I just had a cold. I can’t wait to be done with this cough. I woke up a few times last night. No matter what, I feel flem in my throat, even right after clearing it. I just have to ignore it unless I get too congested. Otherwise there would be no stop to my coughing.
I have a friend who ended up in the ER after he quit smoking because he was drowning in the stuff he was hacking up. (He’s fine now, and has stayed quit!)
You’ll never smell quite liked you used to. Time has irrevocably changed your body chemistry, and the odor molecules you emit will never be exactly the same.
As for taste, your tissues are older, and wouldn’t taste the same way they did when you were young and more recently milk-fed either.
In some past thread about this same subject, a Doper posted that his post-stop-smoking coughing came to a head while he was out riding his bicycle. He had to stop and cough and cough for several minutes and coughed up a nasty wad of gook. As soon as he had rid himself of that, the coughing ended.
After reading that, I firmly believe in the theory that your cilia are trying to catch up with years of accumulated crud in your lungs that they haven’t been able to clear until now.
