Help with quit smoking flare please??

Hey everyone...I am on Day 2 of quitting smoking and the flare has started.  The last time I started smoking again it was to stop a bad flare....and I remained flare free for a year and a half until I tried to quit again this week.  I know there are others on this forum that smoke....or used to smoke....any advice?  For those that quit and stayed quit, did you find anything that helped in place of the carbon monoxide from smoking?  I know they are working on a treatment using carbon monoxide....wish they would hurry up!

pb4 - I have read in some of your posts that you smoke a very small number of cigarettes per day to help control your UC.  My question to you is how do you keep it from escalating to smoking more??  My intention when I started after my last flare was to smoke only a little bit....and then it was a little bit more and a little bit more.  If I could keep it to a "treatment" dose (lol), it wouldn't bother me to stay a smoker.

Thanks for any input. 

It's actually not the nicotine, it's the carbon monoxide that helps UC. I'm on a nicotine patch right now to help me quit.

Yeah....ironic, isn't it?? Here's an article I just found on Medical News Today.....FYI:

Doctors have long known that smokers rarely suffer from a common form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) called ulcerative colitis, but they didn't know why. A new study in the December 19 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine might help explain this apparent resistance. Scott Plevy and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh now show that carbon monoxide (CO), a component of cigarette smoke, helps shut down the intestinal inflammation that causes ulcerative colitis.

CO is best known as a toxic air pollutant, but small amounts of this gas are also produced in the human body as a normal by-product of metabolism, suggesting that the effects of CO must not be all bad. High dose CO gas is lethal, because it robs the body of life-sustaining oxygen. It is this asphyxiant property of CO that has earned it a bad reputation. But recent scientific studies have shown that CO -- at least at low concentrations -- has a redeeming quality: it acts as an anti-inflammatory agent.

Thanks Hak....I'm glad to know your flare didn't last too long. I am scared I would be facing months of hell. I'm going to try my best to get off them for good. Congrats on your quit! :)

Ok so if I wrap my butt cheeks around my car exhaust it should clear up my UC?

I started smoking when I was about 16 and would smoke a pack in 2-3 days. I quit at around 24 but I still social smoke here & there. When i'm not flaring I will smoke every time I go out for drinks wich would be maybe once or twice a week. I've learned to control smoking for how much I want to do it and since I've been flaring I've been smoking 2 or 3 cigs a day. When my flare ends (hopefully soon) I won't smoke till I can have drinks again. Not sure how I've been so lucky to not become addicted to cigs after all these years but I have..

coprhead said...
Has anyone quit for a year or more and had very bad flare up that wouldn't respond to meds then started back smoking and flare responded?

Yes, that is what happened to me.  I smoked for about 15 years, quit for about a year and a half, had a flare that resulted in being diagnosed and starting meds - started smoking again about 2 months after that and was in remission with a week.  It's a classic "darned if you do, darned if you don't" story.  ;)

coprhead said...
Has anyone quit for a year or more and had very bad flare up that wouldn't respond to meds then started back smoking and flare responded?

This is exactly what happened to me. I smoked for a few years regularly and quit cold turkey one day. I flared up shortly after and it lasted over a year and wouldn't respond to anything. This is also when I ended up steroid (prednisone) dependent because the flare would not go away and got much worse when weened down past 20mg. I actually lost 30lbs and weighed only 100lbs at 5'8" during this time. But then one day, because of stress or whatever else, I started smoking again. Within two months (after a year+ flare) I was in remission and not on meds.

I did end up quitting again last year and then started back up after my UC reared its ugly head, but the cigarettes not only have not helped my flare this time, but they actually frequently make my symptoms worse. And so I could just quit and say forget it but I'm almost afraid I'll get even worse than I am now and I don't think I could handle that.

Hello all. I just recently stumbled upon the smoking link and UC. I had never had any issues with UC and didn't even know what it was. I was floored to find out that quitting smoking may have had something to do with it. The only reason I quit was for my health and my wife and kids. I smoked since I was 15 and quit at 32.

I am just starting to get really down with this UC thing because it seems that I will never kick it. I have been on Colazal for 2 months and Colocort for the past 2 1/2 weeks with no improvement. I started taking Prednisone (30mg) 5 days ago and it seemed that it may have started to have some influence until tonight I passed a good bit of blood and mucus.

I am almost to the point of going to buy a pack of smokes. My only fear is that I won't be able to put them down again. I used the help of medication to quit this last time and I have been without one for over 2 years. I was able to start running and participated in about 6 5k's during 2008.

Any ideas?

I know this is a sensitive topic and one with many varying opinions....for me personally, I've decided to stick with smoking. Hopefully this flare I set off by quitting for a couple days will be short lived.....

Mitzo, you asked why I considered quitting in the first place - it would have to be the health risks. I'm not one to worry too much what other people think of me, so social stigma is out! ;) Perhaps this is short-sighted on my part - at the moment I choose to keep my UC under control (which it has been for a year and a half until now) now in exchange for possible smoking-related health issues down the road. I may change my stance on that in time and give it another go at quitting but for now I'm going to focus on feeling good today since that's all I'm guaranteed anyway! :) In reality, tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that are a crap shoot at best regardless. Again - my opinion, I know many that would argue that logic.

Thanks for everyone's responses to my post today.

I cant belive that so many people have had the smokin/UC sitituation. I did not have any signs of UC till about 3months after I quit smokin. I have debating on whether I would go and buy a pack or two and give that a try. If that works for me it will be worth the risks lster on in life. I quit the first time because I did not want my kids to pick up that bad habit from me. 

Good for you, Tony. I agree that going back to (or continuing) smoking is not without it's own risks and negative impact on day to day life. Lung cancer is horrible and I'm sure the suffering much, much worse than anything I can imagine. Certainly worse than anything I've experienced. On the other hand, I doubt colon cancer any much better (which I understand years of active/untreated UC increases one's risk for). I think there is no right and wrong answer to this - it's a personal choice that one has to make knowing all the factors unique to one's own situation and perspective.

I hope you continue to feel better. Congrats on quitting smoking as well! :)

Hi

I come out of remission this week after 4 years and 7 weeks into giving up smoking. I too was told about smoking being better for colitis, however after talking with my doctor yesterday, she said do you remember when you used to smoke- did you get colitis???

so you get colitis when you smoke, you get it when you when you dont smoke. I personally think that the shock from comming completely off ciggerettes and stress involved in giving up may be the cause for a new flare up.

Im certainly not going to start smoking again! (i hope not anyway!!)