Dear fellow fighters for freedom,
I am only a newby but proud of my 8 days of being smoke-free. I went to the doctor recently who diagnosed me with tonsillitis. I felt shivery, aches and pains all over, weak and had a sore throat. I am on antibiotics and am feeling almost fully better today. I am self employed and so unfortunately had to do a couple of hours work eventhough it was the last thing I wanted to do. I have spent the last two days in bed other than those necessary working aberrations. The symptoms of tonsillitis as described above are what I expected and am dealing with by warmth, rest and antibiotics, however I also experienced horrible constriction pains in my chest. I felt as if, all the tar, that I had built up in my lungs over the 20 years of smoking, was rebelling by squeezing my lungs until it was sometimes hard to breath. I also have been getting these awful pains at the top of my stomach (just below my rib cage in the middle) which made me feel like I had just been winded and needed to take deep breaths to control. They tended to attack when I was active rather that resting. Could this be related to going through the process of quitting smoking? Did anyone else ever experience these symptoms? Either way I know they will pass and I am not concerned enough about them to go to the doctor again. In a way I like to view them as signs that my body is readjusting itself to more oxygen and learning to function without the poisonous toxins involved with inhaling nicotine constantly. One of the Posters(whose names slips my mind) had made an analogy previously about the time it took to quit smoking, which was, that, on average, it is about the same time it would take for a broken leg to heal. I like that analogy because you can then view the withdrawal symptoms as being part of the healing process. Any thoughts? Anyone?
Regards,
BOD
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B] 1/17/2007
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 8
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 205
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] �64
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 1 [B]Hrs:[/B] 4 [B]Mins:[/B] 51 [B]Seconds:[/B] 20
