COPD

[livingwith]

Hi my name is Dave i’m 41 years old and i have COPD i started smoking at the age of 6 years old!! Now i’m trying to stop im using chantix.
My breathing is really bad even when i walk i get breathless and fells like im goona die!! scary i want people to know if i quit smoking i know ill fell better also live longer!! Thanks and take care of your selfs
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[jennyj1979]

You can do it Dave... My father has end stage lung disease/copd. He has been fighting this for 10 years. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and do your best to quit. My father has been on oxygen and he still smoked... I know VERY dangerous. I have to say though.. if my father can quit.. anyone can... he started smoking at a young age just like you.. the only problem is he didn't quit until a doctor told him he was going to die if he didn't.

Keep your head up..

You will be in my thoughts!!

[tmflanigan]

YOU CAN DO IT, DAVE! YOU HAVE TO QUIT, DAVE! I don't even know how you are able to continue smoking if you have COPD so badly that you can hardly walk. I too have it very bad where I even have to sit down to take a shower. I smoked for over 30 years and quit cold turkey the day I went into the hospital for a severe exacerbation. I was so out of breath that I couldn't even think of smoking again and the smell of it was enough to kill me. Even now, 5 years after quitting, I've become hyper-reactive to smoke of almost any kind (BBQ, candles, etc.). I am not really that religious and I don't know you, but, for what it's worth, I did really pray to quit smoking and that was before I went into the hospital. It was the 18th of November and I kept on saying that I really wanted to quit for the Great American Smoke Out Day (or whatever it's called) that was on the 22nd. I prayed to God to give me strength to quit because I really didn't think that I could stop. Well, I woke up on the 18th, lit up and became so out of breath (hindsight now tells me that I was becoming more and more breathless prior to), I couldn't even stand up straight and felt like I couldn't catch my breath. I was barely able to drive myself to the ER and left my car in a red zone 'cause I really thought I was going to die. They rushed me in and put me on a nebulizer and stabilized me. I was beginning to feel better and was kind of bored (I could never sit still back then - always had to be moving or doing and now I can only walk about 40 feet without resting to catch my breath). An aide came in to check on me, so I asked if she could bring me a magazine or something as I sat there and waited to be admitted. She said they didn't really have mags in ER, but she'd try to find something. Guess what she brought back? Christian Woman's magazine! Guess what was on the front cover? A woman in her 40's (which I was) with a caption of something like "How I know I need to quit smoking but it's too hard" or something like that. It was unbelievable! I thought right then and there that God was answering my prayers. Maybe not the way I would have liked him to, but he must have given me the strength because quitting was really easy...I never had a craving. I even thought it was strange how easy it was. I had been in the hospital many times before and always went off and had a cigarette or lit up the minute I was discharged. I wasn't one who could quit and start again like some of my friends...I had always smoked. It taught me a lot that day, and reconfirmed that there is a God (or a being, angel, higher spirit or whatever you choose to believe), but prayer really helps. Ironically, I had another health problem that doctors just did not know how to treat back then and I also prayed to for a cure because it was very painful (at the same time that I was praying and again, keep in mind that back then I really wasn't into praying much even though I went to church when I was a kid). As it turns out, the steroids that they gave me, which I had never been on before, helped with the other medical problem, which doctors now confirm work, but back then, there wasn't anything according to doctors (and I went to almost 20 to find answers and lots of research). So, my best advise is to pray. I mean a deep, powerful, sincere, honest from the heart prayer between you and God. Good luck to you....I'm praying for you. Do it before smoking takes your last breath away!