Smoking while you are sick is prolonging your illness. If you are congested, you need to cough up the mucous in order to get better. When you smoke, the cilia in your lungs is paralyzed for at least 15 minutes.

The cilia are those little hairs that act as a filter kind of. They move and prevent foreign material from getting deep into your lungs. If they are paralyzed, it will take longer to get all of that yucky stuff out of your chest.

My doctor prescribed me some medicine to help me quit smoking.  Upon review of the drug (Bupropion, also known as Welbutrin & Zyban) I discovered that the reason I was feeling better is because this drug targets stress and is quite successful as a stop smoking medication because of it’s anti-anxiety properties.

I always knew I was stressed, but I had no idea how much difference medication meant, especially medication that didn’t affect a sober state of mind as does this Bupropion drug. I like it a lot.

My parents have been smoking way before i was even born and they still smoke, 15 years later.  They used to smoke inside the house, and then I was diagnosed with mild asthma. A few years after I decided to take control of the situation and I managed to get them to stop smoking inside the home.

The problem is, they smoke in the car.  On the way to school my mother smokes one on the way there and sometimes two on the way home with three kids in the car.   It’s such a confined space and it makes me feel so sick!  How can I get her to stop?

Try to explain the situation to her, tell her how sick it makes you feel. Ask if she could smoke before picking you up or after you get home and are out of the car.  I would even go as far as to look up some statistics on children exposed to cigarette smoke in the home & car.   This IS endangering your health, asthma or no, and it needs to be brought to her attention.

Interestingly, the inhaler works on much the same principle as the gum, but they are different in design. Nicotine inhalers are shaped like little cigarettes, and when you suck on them they release a mist of nicotine stuff into your lungs. The nasal spray is like the product you use for nasal congestion; you just pump it into your nostril and it sprays nicotine stuff up there.The advantages of these are that they work much more quickly than the gum; they can be used in any situation and whenever they are needed (within the constraints set by the package directions); and the inhaler is very much like a cigarette, so it makes a good replacement.

I’m 40 years old and I just got off Chantix stop smoking medication.  I”m getting ready to have my sixth child.  I fear death and no one in my family has died under the age of 80.  I started thinking this way after I started the Chantix and now I wonder if I’m going to wake up when I go to sleep.

There was a time in my life where right before I went to sleep I had this feeling if dread and and I didn’t know where it came from.  I would start to cry and then sleeping was hard.  It was almost like I was having a panic attack.   After a few weeks of this happening I realized I was mostly worrying about going to work in the morning.   I had a particularly difficult resident at the nursing home to deal with at work.  I had had this issue for a while, but the medication was obviously increasing my anxiety.  I read up on it and found that this is a common problem with Chantix.  Just as a warning to everyone else considering using it as a stop smoking medication!

My husband has been smoking since he was 13 and he is turning 31 next month.  What I really need is  some advice as to how expect him to behave, and how to best give him good wifey support.  I know it will be tough on him , but he is using some stop smoking medications (the patch and some pill) so hopefully that will help.

A comment from another reader:

He’s got the meds, so now just do your best to be tolerant of the outbursts he might have and know that if he says crabby things, he doesn’t really mean it.  When he’s having a good moment, I’m sure he’ll apologize.  If he doesn’t realize that he’s being so nasty, use those good moments to remind him that you’re on his side and he might want to remind himself of that the next time a withdrawal fit is coming on.

Also, help him to avoid the places and situations that he associates with smoking – bars, restaurants, etc., and encourage him to drink plenty of water, get some exercise, and just keep his mind off of the smokes in general!

Smoking is more of a psychological addiction than a physical one. If you really want to quit you must discover the reasons why you smoke and then eliminate or change these thought processes. As soon as I dealt with my psychological reasons for smoking I quit, first time and more importantly for good.

Medication is expensive, time consuming and potentially harmful. So much risk when all that is required is a bit of motivation, self belief and determination.