Smoking vs Pred

If I smoke and it helps, or take Pred and it helps, which is the lesser of two evils?

I was thinking like 5 cigs a day versus tapering pred consistently throughout the year. I see it the way you mentioned as well.

Well, it's kind of a roll of the dice but I vote for light smoking because people can live into their 90's and even 100's being lifetime smokers. Pred is pretty much a 100% guarantee of problems if you take it everyday, not to mention you might kill the mailman or your next door neighbor and wind up in prison for the rest of your life.

I know flares and some of the drugs can hamper running too! I can run 5k no problem smoking but couldnt in a flare thats for sure either. I know 5k is nothing compared to a marathon though.

Cool, kinda thought you needed real cigs, guess thats not the case.

I bet there's a lot more light smokers than there is long term prednisone users living a better quality of life...just my opinion.

I've never been so sick in my life as I was when I was taking pred. Got diabetes, dropped 60 pounds in thee months, had to stop in the middle of a flight of stairs to rest, and just felt awful.

Started taking Nicorett lozenges and tapered off the pred and got better. Do you need to ask which I'd choose? Granted I was on a pretty high dose (60 mg/day) and was essentially unsupervised (ended up firing that GI), but still it wasn't touching the flare and the nicotine knocked it out in a week.

Some do good with nicotine replacements such as lozenges, patches, e-cig... But other only do good with the cigarettes. Nicotine helps but the carbon monoxide also helps according to some studies.

I have stopped smoking almost 2 years ago. I have been flaring (mostly mildly) since then with a little period of remission of about 2 months.

When I smoked I had "baby" flares and I would be in remission in about 2 to 4 weeks with the meds. As I'm also in pre-menopause stage I can't blame it all on the "not smoking", but it looks like it.

I made the choice to remain a non-smoker because I really was coughing a lot when I smoked. And if I smoke it is a pack a day. I'm effraid I would not be able to control my self to smoke 5 cigarettes a day.

But if my flares were bad enough to take Pred on a regular basis, I sure would reconsider smoking again.

I would have never stopped smoking If I was only smoking 5 cigarettes a day. Because, all my previous attempts to stop smoking resulted in flares.

In French we say "too much is not better than not enough". So keep reasonable with the smoking and the running. Running marathons is not necessarily super good for your body in my point of view (don't know just a point of view) But running 5 to 10 Kilometers 3 to 6 times a week is very healthy.

I would try nicotine in other forms. As I posted earlier, nicotine patches have helped my UC tremendously, though I was never a smoker. I feel nicotine is > pred, but cigarettes contain many other chemicals besides nicotine. Good luck!

I dont completely agree if its light smoking compared to on and off different meds all the time personally. But glad to hear your take on it.

What isn't bad? Too much of anything is worse, not enough of some things is worse and even with balance of everything as regularly as possible is good especially of you get quality of life which I would assume is most everyone's goal but it's likely very rare many people have a lot of balance. Even life-long non-smokers and what have you aren't necessarily going to live a long quality life.

Marauder93 said...

Benny Stringer said...
I dont completely agree if its light smoking compared to on and off different meds all the time personally. But glad to hear your take on it.

Well its an empirical fact that smoking is more toxic and hazardous than any meds used for UC... I mean you gotta do what you gotta do, but dont fool yourself into thinking that smoking is a safer alternative to traditional medicine.

I dont agree that light smoking is worse at all. But thats just my take on it.

Marauder93 said...

Benny Stringer said...

Marauder93 said...

Benny Stringer said...
I dont completely agree if its light smoking compared to on and off different meds all the time personally. But glad to hear your take on it.

Well its an empirical fact that smoking is more toxic and hazardous than any meds used for UC... I mean you gotta do what you gotta do, but dont fool yourself into thinking that smoking is a safer alternative to traditional medicine.

I dont agree that light smoking is worse at all. But thats just my take on it.

Ok, I wont try to convince you otherwise then.

:)