congrats for your 5 days.........good to hear your breathing has improved.

Ashley, Health Educator

I had to find a forum to post on because Im so happy with how much my breathing has improved here on day 5. Its hard to answer the question how long did I smoke for? Do I just count this time, almost 3 years. Or do I have to include the last time I quit 16 years ago and smoked for 20 years. That 13 years of being a non smoker has to count for something. I don't remember how bad I felt the last time I quit but this time my breathing was getting pretty bad. In less than three years of starting again I could not lay down without wheezing. Every night it would drive me nuts the wheezing. In the last month or so I was waking up a lot at night and not be able to breath good. I would have to sit up for a little while before I could lay back down and go back to sleep. In the mornings I was having to stretch out my lungs. I couldn't take a deep breath without coughing, they felt so tight. I have set so many quit dates over the last few years but never made it past a day or two. I couldn't believe how hard it was again. I thought it would be easier because I did it before. But it seems to have been harder. It really was just getting past that first couple of days. Right now day 5 I feel pretty good. I think Im going to stay with it. There are so many reasons why I want to but if for nothing else because of how good my lungs feel right now after only 5 days. Im not wheezing anymore. I woke up this morning and took several really deep breaths and it felt good. Just this past Sunday morning I was standing over the stove breathing in steam with eucalyptus oil in it trying to open up my airways. It was getting a little scary. The only reason I didn't make a dr appt. is because I just recently had a physical and lung scan and it looked good. So I just wanted to post because because I feel so good and wanted to share with someone, with everyone. :) How did I finally get past those first couple days. well I quit on work days, days I was busy, and that helped. It also helped that my breathing was scaring me. I used gum and still am. I read a lot of quit smoking stuff and watched quit smoking stuff on youtube. My recently quit smoking friend has been texting me support. One trick I learned and used last time that really seems to get me through particularly tough cravings is: I hold my fingers to my lips as if there is a cigarette there and take really deep breaths while taping my lips with the two cigarette holding fingers. sounds really funny but it helps. A couple times I even close my eyes and imagine Im really taking a puff and blowing the smoke back out. And I get over it. It felt good to write all this and if someone reads it I hope it helps. :)