I smoked my last cigarette (at least for a while–I’ll be in an absolutely non-smoking situation for a couple of months fairly soon–rather not go into more detail on that) yesterday. I smoked cloves, and found that I would cough up a fair bit of phlegm regularly, especially on days when I smoked (I smoked 1-4 cigarettes a day on weekdays, and not at all on weekends). I could’ve chosen to stop smoking a week or two later–and, in fact, was planning to–but I got sick and tired of coughing up so much phlegm. After finishing my last pack yesterday morning, I didn’t produce much phlegm the rest of that day (which was good since I was on a hot date that night). But today, from the time I woke up 2 hours ago until about a few minutes ago, I was hacking up mucous every couple minutes and sneezed several times as well. Curiously, this stopped once I started typing this post, but I figure I might as well ask the question anyway.
I’ve quit smoking before and never had this problem, but I didn’t smoke as much as I did this last bout and I also didn’t smoke as many cloves–this time it was cloves exclusively. So, SDMB doctors and smokers, what’s the deal? Oh, I’ve started sneezing again. I ought to take pictures in case I ever think of starting again. Yick!
Yes, it’s common to cough a lot of phlegm when you quit smoking, especially if you were smoking cloves before. The cells lining your airways are finally free to do their job without being poisoned every hour or so.
Stay off the cigs, substitute physical exercise instead. You’ll feel a lot better in just a week. After 6 weeks you’ll wonder how you smoked before.
First, cloves are nasty (IMO) and I never smoked them.
Second, I was a 1/2-3/4 pack a day smoker that quit several times over the 15 years that I smoked. Each time I quit I would have the symptons you mentioned. Typically they would last for about a week or two and would sometimes be accompanied by cold-like symptoms (fever). They would go away if I started smoking again during the 1-2 week period.
Finally an aside: Now that I am a non-smoker (for about 1.5 years now), I must say I get colds and flu much more easily than when I was a smoker. The coughs don’t last as long but I seem to catch things easier. Has anyone else noticed this?
Thanks for the comments–BMax, that makes a lot of sense, and I ought to be exercising anyway! I’ll start giving it a shot. Eyer8, cloves are delicious (IMO) but the extra additives and all the phlegm are nasty. Thanks for the anecdotal evidence BTW.
I forgot to note in the OP that I haven’t been having any withdrawal symptoms FWIW.
Oh, and I didn’t smoke on weekends at all, and never had this. Do you suppose my lungs “know” that this is a for-good quit and not a weekend quit?
Clove cigarettes, generally just called cloves, are cigarettes flavored with the very spice you mention. These utterly delicious delicacies are generally manufactured in Indonesia, and usually have a fancy foreign exotic-sounding name you can impress your friends with. In Indonesia, they call them “kreteks” because they (the cigarettes) make a crackling “kretek-kretek” sound when you smoke them.
This isn’t an advertisement, so I’m not linking to the company that makes the ones I used to smoke, but you can do some Googling for details.