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Lung repair question.

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  • 22-03-2012 12:26am
    #1
    gtrizy
    Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭


    Ok so i'm nearly 6 months off the fags and was a smoker before the 6 months for maybe 6ish years and I was wondering do your lung ever really fully repair or even semi repair from the damage inflicted by smoking?


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    #2
    username123
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,484 ✭✭✭username123


    I was with my GP yesterday and asked her the same question.

    She said if you are young enough it can happen. It all depends on the level of damage done by smoking, but a lot of it is at the microscopic level so its hard to tell.

    But she said as far as medicine is concerned, if youre young (she referred to me as young and Im nearly 40!), and you havent had any obvious problems from smoking so far, that a few years after quitting, a doctor wouldnt know youd been a smoker.


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    #3
    gtrizy
    Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭gtrizy


    username123 wrote: »
    I was with my GP yesterday and asked her the same question.

    She said if you are young enough it can happen. It all depends on the level of damage done by smoking, but a lot of it is at the microscopic level so its hard to tell.

    But she said as far as medicine is concerned, if youre young (she referred to me as young and Im nearly 40!), and you havent had any obvious problems from smoking so far, that a few years after quitting, a doctor wouldnt know youd been a smoker.

    Very informative, thanks man! Good news for me so I guess as I never had any problems with my chest from smoking and as for being 'young' I guess I'm ok at the age of 22 :P


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    #4
    username123
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,484 ✭✭✭username123


    gtrizy wrote: »
    Very informative, thanks man! Good news for me so I guess as I never had any problems with my chest from smoking and as for being 'young' I guess I'm ok at the age of 22 :P

    I think we can safely say youre going to fully recover then!!

    I remember a good few years ago seeing a different GP in the local practice and me sort of pretending I was about to give up (as you do) and him saying that if you quit by 35ish you are young enough to be able to get away without having done any lasting harm to yourself - then he sort of came to and said 'dont ever tell anyone that, otherwise no one would quit til they are 35!!!'

    In your own case its important to look at the bigger picture, you are 22 now, you smoked for 5 or 6 years, even right now thats only a quarter of your life, but if you live a statistically normal life expectancy, to 75-80 years of age - the percentage you spent smoking goes down dramatically to it only being 7% or so of your time smoking - which is very low. Added to that, at a younger age people are more active, have a better immune and healing system, probably are not in the habit of being 60 a day smokers, and youve got a great recipe for it not being a big deal when you look back over your life.

    Well done, wish Id quit at 22 - think I was only getting really into it then lol!


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    #5
    JoeB-
    Registered Users Posts: 689 ✭✭✭JoeB-


    Yes, lungs do recover, a lot but not completely. Your risk of virtually everything except lung cancer will reduce to that of a never smoker within 15 years of stopping,.. but your risk of lung cancer never reduces back to that of a never smoker.

    Lung cancer was effectively unheard of before smoking, i.e hundreds of years ago it didn't exist as a disease. So it seems that all modern lung cancers are caused by smoking, but perhaps also by industrial pollution,.. (chemicals into rivers and food sources etc, also traffic pollution)


    This link
    http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/Tobacco_History21.html
    gives nice info on smoking for the last 400 or 500 years.. keep in mind that tobacco is an American plant,, and it didn't exist in Europe (or the middle east, the bible etc) before America was discovered. (around 1500)


    This site
    http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au
    gives loads of info about smoking,. including tricks the manufacturers use to trap young people, and to make smoking seem attractive.

    The Australians expect smoking to have stopped completely in Australia by 2030,.. that's incredible I think but it shows the way the world is moving. Imagine a completely smoke free country.



    I support the complete banning of tobacco and nicotine... I don't understand why our government doesn't do it. Look at the lengths we went to to prevent 1000 road deaths per year.. and 20,000 die from smoking every year in Ireland.


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