Quit smoking and asthma got worse ! ! :(?

Question

I am 36 and quit smoking about a month ago. Right after I quit my asthma went out of control. I have had asthma sense I was 12 and it was only out of control once and only for a day. My asthma has been out of control for a month now my doctor put me on a lot of stuff Alupent (didn’t work) Advair ( allergic to) Atrovent ( didn’t work) Prednisone (didn’t do much) and now albuterol which is not really working at all. I go through a bottle a week. I do not have insurance so I used Primatene mist for years and it worked great but now it seems to cause my asthma to get worse. My albuterol makes me cough like crazy when I try to use it but I do have an asthma cough. I don’t wheeze I cough always have. I have had chest x-rays (clear) EKG (perfect). My doctor put me on an antibiotic just in case but nothing changed. I do not have bronchitis. Has anyone else ever had this happen?

Ps. I will never go back to smoking ever... The cough is a dry cough no gunk

ebike/vm colorado

I know it is really bad but if I don’t then I blow about 210 to a 190 on the PFM. If I stop using the rescue inhaler I end up in the ER!

Right now my Doc has me on Azmacort also but after 3 weeks it does not seem to be changing anything

Yes this all started right after I quit smoking before that I was using my inhaler only about 2 to 3 times a week and that was with over the counter Inhalers

I haven’t eaten anything new but we did move at about the same time

As for asthma triggers I tried once but gave up because at the time it seemed to be a lot of thing from exercise to pet to dust and pollen…

I quit about two and a half years ago and only started back up again after my mom died in April of this year and the last time I quit I was sick for a month but there where no changes in my asthma for the worse after a month my asthma all but went away.

Answer 1

This is extremely common. I have asthma as well and when I quit smoking I got pneumonia for the first time in my life. You see, once the cilia in your in your bronchial passages, that have been plugged up with tar and all the other pollution you've been putting in there, get moving they have a lot of work to do to clean out the mess you've been leaving all these years. And some inflammation results and your body has to try to deal with this. So your body is rejecting all this stuff, tissues are getting inflamed, and excess mucous is one of the results. Hence the worsening of your asthma.

If you are able to find it, I highly recommend a product called Bell Allergy Relief, which is something meant to help with asthma. It provides very effective relief in situations where the puffers are hard to use or do not provide the needed relief.

If you can't find that product, then find or make a combination of the following ingredients: extracts of rosemarinic acid, basil, sage, mint, perilla, lobelia, quercetin, and rosemary.

Another supplement that can help you build up strong lungs is the cordyceps mushroom, which you can find in supplements in any health food store. This would not give immediate relief for the asthma like the above herbal combination, but it would help your lungs improve their oxygen uptake capacity over time.

Congratulations on quitting smoking! I know what a challenge it is; it's been 5 years for me now and I'm so glad I did even though the initial pneumonia had me wondering if I should just keep smoking. Hang in there. You can do it and your lungs will thank you in the end!!!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

This won't sound very comforting, but it is a normal reaction of the lungs when someone quits smoking. There is a lot of junk that has to come out (accumulated tars on lung tissue, etc.) and coughing is how it happens. Unfortunately, your situation is complicated by asthma, which I am sure is aggravated by the coughing.

Maybe ask your doctor for a good expectorant cough syrup. It might help. It loosens the congestion and surrounds it with fluid...don't ask me how it works, I'm not a chemist...and might ease the irritation of coughing a bit.

Don't go back to smoking. You are on the road to recovery, even though it doesn't seem like it right now.

Answer 4

It doesn't get better for awhile. For each month you smoked you have several months before you reap the benefits from not smoking. A year of smoking reduces 7 years of life, but quitting early enough to actually reverse this. If you have asthma it may just be acting up and it is not related to smoking.

Answer 5

With asthma, as with other chronic conditions, there are good disruptions and there are bad disruptions. Having lost my mom to squamous-cell lung cancer, pneumonia and peripheral arterial disease in March, I have to say that quitting smoking is a good disruption. Especially if you hadn't smoked for as long as Mom did (she probably started in 1955, and she quit in 1983 when Dad had a heart attack).

I'm not sure whether cigarettes are bronchoconstrictors or bronchodilators. . . .

Google search: cigarette bronchoconstrictor

Cigarette smoke induces bronchoconstrictor hyperresponsiveness to ...
Cigarette smoke induces bronchoconstrictor hyperresponsiveness to substance P and inactivates airway neutral endopeptidase in the guinea pig. ...
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=329734&tools=bot - Similar pages

Okay, so it's a bronchoconstrictor. At any rate, the simple explanation is that your lungs know something has changed and they haven't quite adapted to the change yet. If you're tempted to start smoking again, go see a pulmonologist (lung doctor) and explain that you have quit recently and are considering starting smoking again. I think you'll find out what the medical profession thinks about that! :-)

Answer 6

1 can of albuterol in a week, That is a big problem.

What are you blowing on your peak flow meter?

Lay off the "rescue inhaler" unless you are blowing less than 50% of normal. No peak flow meter? get one!

Increase in symptoms in last 30 days, when you quit smoking?

did you eat anything different- common for folks quitting smoking- could be a food allergy.

In many parts of the US the indoor air just got drier due to the onset of cold air; this could also be a cause. Check furnace filters. Get a humidifier for your bedroom and try that. (keep it real clean). Have you ever done your check for Asthma triggers? very Dry air is one for me. did you take any nicotine patch or gum for quitting smoking? any drug interactions?

See what Target and Walmart have on their new generic prescription $4 program, ask the Dr if you can try some of that.

hope some of this gives you a clue.

Answer 7

what nicotine does in the lungs is sort of paralyze the cillia, they are the little hairlike cells that move mucus and any contaminants in the lungs up where they (the contaminates) can be expectorated (coughed up and out). when you stopped smoking ( bless you), these guys went into overtime trying to get rid of the gunk that is in there (wish i could put it in better terms, but the truth is the truth). so you will cough a lot more until you're
lungs are clear. what i don't understand is why your Dr. is letting you use asthma meds. none of what you have said that should
have been prescribed, will not help with a cough. for right now i would say a expectorant (will help getting the stuff up out of the lungs), and at night, something like NyQuil. hope you get better.

Answer 8

smoking burns away the hairs (i think they're called cilia) that line your respiratory tubes (i think they're called bronchii). these hairs are what filter all the crud out of your lungs and work the mucus and phlegm up to your throat, but don't work while you smoke. immediately after giving up smoking, they grow back and start to work again, bringing all the gunk up that has sat in your lungs. this clogs your airways for a good few weeks after you give up and triggers asthma attacks. if you're 36 you probably have a whole lot of gunk, so it might be a couple of months before you start breathing clear again. meantime, ventolin puffers are good to relieve quitting-smoking-related asthma symptoms. don't take this as gospel, i'm not a doctor, just talking from my own experience..

Answer 9

i know the feeling all too well. i too used to smoke with my asthma. and i quit cold turkey(i am also glad that i did). it's been a year now. but when i first quit i too had out of control asthma for about 3 weeks. i talked to my doctor and tried the Zyrtec(i think that's how it is spelt)its a high level antihistamine, makes ya sleepy,only take it at bedtime. also try the Flo vent, inhaled steroid,as recommended. keep the albuterol as a rescue. and continue with the primateen for those little spurts.
talk to your doctor. i found that it worked best for me and my asthma

Answer 10

Your asthma was just getting ready to kill you. Good thing you stopped smoking when you did or you'd be writing this while dead.