Well I've never smoked but recently had a reminder of the dangers of smoking.

After having a heart attack a couple of months ago I spent a week on the Cardiac Ward. There were 35 males on the ward and I was the only non-smoker.

Over the last two months I've been going through the reabilitation program, I'm at hospital twice a week for physio and support groups etc.
During all this time and all this involement with the Cardiac and Heart Disease unit I have yet to come across another person who hasn't smoked.

Lee

 

Yes Lee, thats what I found when I had my bypass 4 weeks ago.

Les

 

Hope you are getting on OK.

My Hospital has an excellent Cardiac Rehabilitation service whith two permanent dedicated nurses. I'm on a 4 stage program and currently going through stage 3.

I don't think I could have got through my recovery without this service.

Do you have something similar?

Lee

 

We have got a rehab place near us over the river so I will go there for the exercises etc.

Yes got over the worst of the effects now Lee, I can legally drive again thank goodness so that is a big plus.

I was very impressed with everything at the hospital-they could not do enough for you. However I can' t recommend the operation except that the previous problems are virtually gone now.

Hope all is going well for you too.

Les

 

on the plus(!) side tho.. thats 10 years off the END of your life, when hopefully(!) you'd have otherwise been in a rest home ****ting your pants and dying of extreme old age.

i wonder how much of those 10 years are actually attributed to smoking tho.. and how much is it that if someone smokes, chances are they don't value their health much and probably drink, eat crap, dont exercise, walk across the road without looking etc etc which compounds to get the 10 year figure.

im actually surprised the figure is as LOW as 10 years. tho its more the screwing with your fitness for the years you are alive that would worry me.

never smoked and never will.

 

It's only an average figure.

Some of the guys at Cardiac rehab in their 40's have arteries that full from smoking they can hardly walk. Others from the ward didn't make it.
Plenty of smokers on the ward in their 50's and 60's have chronic angina, walk with sticks. have oxygen masks etc.
It may take 10 years of your live but the 20 years before that you may be sat in a chair with your oxygen bottles.
It's certainly opened my eyes being involved with it for 2 months.

Lee

 

I am in process of giving up... have been for about 7 weeks now, but keep having a few relapses and finding it harder after each relapse

 

[QUOTE=milo]on the plus(!) side tho.. thats 10 years off the END of your life, when hopefully(!) you'd have otherwise been in a rest home ****ting your pants and dying of extreme old age. QUOTE]

I think (as Lee posted something similar) that the 10 yrs are knocked out of your prime of life... You get to that 'sitting in a rest home phase' earlier.

- Yes have smoked... peer pressure, liked girls who smoked etc haven't been able to smoke for many many years - wife is a doctor

Mick

 

Its quite clearly a peer thing. You just have to look at what certain types of people smoke. (Talking about teenagers here)

Mr Grungy usually smokes rollies
Mr **** smokes Benson and Hedges or JPS or similar.
Mr/Miss Chav smoke 10 L&B
and Dr Boff doesn't smoke

 

Do any of the TV ads put smokers off? Or do they think "it will never happen to me"?

 

As a smoker, you live in euphoria as if its not happening to you but you will deal with it when it comes to it.You may have a crash tomorrow n die of an accident, not smoking !
-A smoker
PS: would like to give up tho.Want to spend more time on this earth and dont want painful exit if I can avoid it

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Most smokers seem to be off the "It won't happen to me" variety. Then there are the "At least I wont end up crapping myself in an old folks home" and then the "I've had a good life" crowd, not forgetting the "I could die tommorow" sector. Of course everyone has an Aunty or Uncle that lived to 104 and smoked 40 a day.


I can asure anyone that if they were transported into the future and could see themselves going through what Leslie and myself have gone through they would stop today!!!!
And it wouldn't matter how much they enjoy a ***.

My Brother in Law is a 20 a day man. Since seeing me in hospital and speeking to those around me he is now trying to give up. He's started on the patches and I'll support him as much as I can. He has a 2 year old daughter and 5 year old son and has realised he would very much like to meet his grandchildren one day.

Cheers
Lee

 

Thanks Les. I still remember years ago finding it difficult to imagine having ever been a smoker. I'm determined to get to that point again.

 

Thanks for all your replies guys and gals - it's really interesting to hear things from your point of view. For those of you who have kicked the habit - well done! For those of you who are trying to give up at the moment, I know three VERY different people who have all successfully (despite their initial doubts) so you can all do it too!

 

I think any body could give up if they "really" wanted to. From what I have found its the people which enjoy smoking and are pressured into giving up which struggle, because they are doing it for other people rather then themselves.

 

My eldest brother is a Professor of Thoracic Medicine over in Canada. Whenever smokers at a party ask him what he does for a living and are told the above, they nearly always say "Oh, I suppose you're going to tell me to stop smoking now?" To which he invariably replies " No, please keep it up . I've got three kids to put through college.... "! Somewhat tongue in cheek obviously, but with a clear and factual message behind it.

I'm also involved at the moment is setting up an clinical trials unit for smoking associated diseases in the UK (I'm not a doc, I'm on the money side) and it's a real eye opener.

Smokers focus (or, rather, avoid focussing) on things like lung cancer, less so on heart attacks and strokes, mouth cancer,etc, but generally ignore the other incurable diseases like COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), which is the 4th leading cause of early death globally and is the only major disease group that is increasing in prevalence.

In COPD's case, the 10 year survival rate after diagnosis is just 50%, with more than 33% of patients dying due to respiratory insufficiency - basically drowning slowly on dry land....Around 90% of COPD cases are due to smoking, with smokers 10 times more likely to die from the disease than non smokers.

It usually begins to manifest itself as a productive cough , you know that one where smokers wake up , cough their brains out and then say with a wheezy grimace " I'm dying for a ***....".

There are a few genetically very lucky people who have a genetic makeup that enables their body to repair the damage done by cigarette smoke (and every smoker has a "grandad, uncle, aunt etc who's always smoked 100 capstan a day and never had a problem" etc , but they are a tiny negligible proportion of the population as a whole to the extent that it is pretty accurate to say that if you are a smoker you will get a serious disease - if you're lucky it will just impair the quality of your life significantly, but more likely it will kill you in a number of "interesting" ways

FWIW I smoked from 17 to 21, about 20 a day and the odd bit of wacky, but won't touch the stuff now.

 

You won't get a better answer to it all than that!

Les

 

Well, now there's a rumour that Labour will propose to follow the Irish example.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publi...250469,00.html

 

I have never even tried it.
When I was very young, we travelled everywhere by train. Can you imagine what it was like being a child in a hot train carraige with a strong smell of smoke mixed with diesel exhaust fumes. I think this was one of the main reasons for not even trying it.
At school, peer pressure meant that I had to suffer getting beaten up because I was strong willed enough to resist.

At the age of 22 I had to watch my mother die a very painfull death because of smoking. She had been ill for a number of years and died at the very old age of 49. She just couldn't give it up. She was bed ridden for the last four years of her life and would always be pleading with me to get her a ***. For her own sake I couldn't do it. Wellwishing friends and nieghbours obliged her however.

I used to have a girlfriend that smoked. She was probably the most atractive girl I've ever seen. It lasted four years, and it ended because of the arguements about her smoking.

Whenever I get home from the pub on a Saturday night, I remove my clothes and put them in the washing machine, and I jump in the shower. I have to do this before the smell of stale pub smoke fills the house.

I'm now in my mid forties and my life experiences have meant I would never have considered trying it at any point in my life.