HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Ex-smokers and occurrence of UC

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 11/25/2007 4:42 PM (GMT 0)
I used to smoke (on and off, about 10 cigs a day for 10 years) and was diagnosed with UC just a few months after I quit smoking.  I've read about ex-smokers developing UC once they quit, and know that there have been some UC studies/treatments done with nicotine supplements as well as some discussion regarding carbon monoxide (or dioxide?). 

Are there any ex-smokers on the forum who have actually benefitted from any of these treatments? 

P.S.  I'm NOT recommending anyone to even think of taking up smoking as a solution to UC. 

I am not going to smoke again as I feel that there is a solution somewhere out there for UC and I don't want to deal with the potential risk of getting lung cancer/emphysema and whatever else smoking can do to you.  Though I recently heard from an ex-smoker who had mild UC for a while, then smoked cigs for a month, and has been symptom-free for several months, I also read a post recently from someone who tried smoking again to 'cure' UC and it didn't work for him and actually made the D much worse. So he's now dealing with more severe UC symptoms AND is again addicted to smoking.

 

Posted 11/25/2007 5:56 PM (GMT 0)
I was a heavy smoker for years. My diagnosis came about four years after I quit. I'm so glad I don't smoke, and I'd never take the risk of exposing myself to nicotine knowingly. I was able to quit on the first try, and I have no desire to get hooked again. Weird, though, that seems to be the only known benefit of smoking.
Posted 11/25/2007 6:21 PM (GMT 0)
I'm a smoker and it didn't keep me from getting UC, unfortunately. The one good thing smoking could have done for me...oh well.
Posted 11/25/2007 7:25 PM (GMT 0)
I smoked for 11 years then quit once, gained weight and that may have been also when I was diagnosed with UC not totally sure then started again due to stress. My UC was not as bad after I started up again. I then quit again and have gotten worse UC wise and fatter unfortunately. I have been experimenting with a nicotine patch right now. I don't really feel a difference UC wise but I am going to finish out this two week pack and see what happens. I'v heard of people using them when they are flaring. Who knows.
Posted 11/25/2007 9:21 PM (GMT 0)
I smoked as a teenager and a bit into my early 20's. Never a heavy smoker. I got UC at 34...so, I wouldn't attribute it to quitting smoking. I'm born from and grew up with smoking parents.

q
Posted 11/25/2007 10:26 PM (GMT 0)
I quit smoking when I was 25 at my 3 year old son's request.... and got diagnosed with U/C at 44.... Now my son is a smoker and he's the one who got me to quit when he was 3!!
Posted 11/25/2007 11:45 PM (GMT 0)
I was dx'd around when I started smoking less........I was smoking about a pack a day and went to about half that and now I smoke occasionally (a pack a month or less). I have heard stuff about a possible relation........just my story.
Posted 11/26/2007 12:19 AM (GMT 0)
I was a smoker, but was diagnosed while I was still smoking. Funny tho, that was the first question my GI asked me. I have heard, and he has told me, of nicotine treatments, but has never suggested I do it. I've been smoke free for 2 years now and I still have flare ups, but not nearly as bad as when I was first diagnosed.
Posted 11/26/2007 8:57 PM (GMT 0)
Felt fine till I quit smoking..
Posted 11/26/2007 11:49 PM (GMT 0)
Now that I think about it... I went to a symposium on IBD in Sacramento, CA when I first got diagnosed. They said that something like 75 percent of people who are diagnosed with U/C or Crohn's are ex smokers... Interesting.....
Posted 11/27/2007 1:42 AM (GMT 0)

I smoked for about 5 yrs. in my early 20's.  about a pack in a 24 hr. time span.  I quit when I was 24.  I was diagnosed with UC in April of this year and am now 36 years old.  Had started smoking occasionally on again and off again about 3 years ago.  Don't smoke at all now. 

My dr. told me that people who smoke don't get UC.  HA!!!  Not sure where he is getting his info.

Posted 11/27/2007 2:07 AM (GMT 0)
Uh, yeah, your doctor is obviously wrong....unfortunately for me (and you!).
Posted 11/27/2007 5:37 AM (GMT 0)
I was diagnosed when I was fifteen and NOT a smoker. But most of the adults in the family were.
I started smoking at about 21 to lose weight and I did. My UC was always in flare from about 15 to my mid 30s.....going from mild to severe but no real remission. But in my 30s the flares were getting more mild. Then I quit smoking and had a terrible flare that lasted for months.
Finally got normal...well normal for me, anyway.
Fifteen years later I started smoking again. I know....stupid and crazy. But after about ten years I quit again and after having the mildest years of my UC, when I quit I flared again badly but only for a month. Been a non smoker for about five years and my UC is back to being mild all the time.

I wondered if the smoking cessation had intensified my flares but never asked my doc about it. Then I thought I was probably crazy for thinking the smoking cessation was connected until I came here and read so many had similar reactions.
Posted 11/27/2007 6:39 PM (GMT 0)
I smoked for many years and my symptoms all began 3 weeks after quitting.  I kept thinking I was getting gas and stomach problems from the nicotine inhalers I was using to quit, but once I stopped those, things only got progressively worse.  So, IMO, it wasn't the nicotine but something else in the cigarettes that was keeping me in remission or the inhalers would have helped.

✚ New Topic ✚ Reply