If you know someone with COPD/cancer from smoking can I ask you some questions?

[LoftySnail]

If you know someone who smoked and was diagnosed with COPD or a smoking related cancer, can I ask?

1. What age were they when they was diagnosed?
2. How many years had they smoked for?
3. How many cigarettes a day did they roughly smoke?

I ask this question as my close friend quit smoking last year aged 30 after smoking roughly 5 per day since university and I wonder sometimes if she will be able to escape the smoking related illnesses as she gets older?

My friend seems to think because she was never a heavy smoker she has got nothing to worry about.

I smoked from age 16 to about 28, roughly 20 a day. I'm 56 now and the gp told me a long time ago that I'd be considered a non/never smoker.

My fil. has copd, he smoked VERY heavily from practically a child until he was about 60. I do think that smoking related cancer and copd requires a lifetime of smoking.

My dad died with copd.

He stopped smoking in late 40s, diagnosed late 50s, coped with just inhalers until 70s.

He never smoked cigarettes, used to have 3-5 Hamlet cigars a day.

@LoftySnail the main thing to focus on is that they have given up!!! That’s fantastic news and giving up now will VASTLY reduce their risk of COPD and cancer. I’m ex- hospice and sadly have cared for people in their late 30’s/ early 40’s dying from lung cancer, leaving young children, which is heartbreaking but it’s unusual to be diagnosed earlier than 45.most people are 50’s60’s and above for both lung cancer and COPD but there are likely genetic factors that make some people more prone . We are also luckily starting to see treatments such as immunotherapy and targeted therapies which make the future more hopeful.

I don't think it's necessarily the heaviness of smoking but it's the long term damage. There comes a time when the damage can't be reversed by quitting the fags
Of course there are smokers who live to a grand old age with nothing more than a cough, and others who have never touched a cigarette contract lung cancer, heart disease, circulation problems etc

It would be very unlikely that she's caused any lasting damage or has increased her risk. I've probably got more risk as a passive smoker, as anyone was born in the 50/60/70's.
"There comes a time when the damage can't be reversed by quitting the fags"
That isn't what my Mum was told by her consultants when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She completely recovered after radiation treatment and stopping smoking in her 70's. My sister smoked from around 9 years old. She smoked heavily and gave up around 40, no lasting damage. My DD smoked heavily from a teen and only stopped at 35 because her surgeon was shocked at the state of her lungs. She has gone back to the status of a non smoker.

My dad died from lung cancer at 94, eight months after he was diagnosed. He was a fairly heavy smoker from age 14 to 70.

Yes, my mum.

She was diagnosed at 73.
She had smoked since she was about 16.
She smoked about 15/20 a day.

The doctors gave her 6-12 weeks to live and she died 6 weeks later.

Personally, I don’t think your friend has much to worry about. Only smoking 5 a day for about 8 years? My DH smokes 5 a day. I’m not worried.

My granny has lung cancer and COPD. She never smoked a day in her life and thinks smoking is disgusting. Every day your friend doesn't smoke, the chances are reduced but they are never zero. It's the luck of the draw, realistically.

My Dad died of lung cancer aged 49. He had smoked off and on from his teens ( periods of months or years of not smoking). He gave up finally aged 45 and was diagnosed with advanced cancer age 48. The oncologist told him it could have been the first, last or any of the cigarettes in between that had caused the lethal mutation.

My best friends mum smoked from around 15/16 and got COPD in her late 30s and was dead by 59. She was a heavy smoker though, much more than 5 a day.

My own Dad was also a heavy smoker for 30 years, quit 10 years ago and is in great health in his 70’s

Poeole get COPD and lung cancer without having smoked a day in their life.

I went for a lung check yesterday. They determine your lung cancer risk based on questions. How long you smoked, how many cigarettes were key questions.
I smoked about 10 a day for about 10 years in my late teens / early 20s. Haven’t smoked now for 30+ years. My risk came out as very low.
Your friend is likely correct as long as there is no history of COPD / lung cancer in close relatives.

My dad. 40-60 a day (not unusual in the 70s and 80s). Quite in the early 90s, but worked for a while in a heavy passive smoking environment. Diagnosed with lung cancer related to smoking 12 years later. Had to have part of a lung removed and chemo. He was 56. Now 75, but with much worse health overall than he would have had because of the cancer (the chemo thinned the walls of his main arteries/ and heart, this caused heart failure about 5 years after he stopped treatment).

Just to note, he smoked from around 14 until his mid-40s.

My mum diagnosed in her early 50s. Died ten years later. Heavy smoker. Smoked from being a teen. Didn’t ever fully stop. Her mum died from it. My dad has it but stable.

My friends dad has copd from being a miner. Non smoker. Stable and in his 70s.

I’ve never smoked. I hate it. But grew up in a an 80s smokey household that caused loads of lung issues and ‘Asthma’ when i moved out at 19 i’ve never had any issues since but developing something because of it is in the back of my mind.

But he did have a smoking related cancer, caused by passive smoking. He used to play brass instruments in clubs regularly (obviously substantially before the smoking ban).

Oh indeed, that is what they attributed it to in the end. My point being that the amount of cigarettes a person has or has not smoked in their life doesn’t necessarily determine their likelihood of getting lung cancer, as per OP’s query.

My mum has COPD, she is 78 and still smoking. She was diagnosed about ten years ago. She has been smoking since she was 12. It doesn't affect her a great deal - she's had a blue badge for a few years now due to mobility issues caused by a broken heel bone and spinal surgery for a disc prolapse. We'll never know if she could still sprint 100m despite the state of her lungs.

btw she has no plans to stop smoking

Started smoking at 15. Smoked high tar, untipped cigarettes very healvily until 80 years old. Had symptoms of COPD form early 70s but not diagnosed until 82 and dies of COPD and lung cancer at 85.

What are you going to do with the information? Are you planning to smugly tell your friend that she might still die of smoking-related causes even though she’s packed up?

Just congratulate her and stop banging on about it, whatever damage is done cannot be reversed.

Not quite true. Being exposed to large amounts of smoke, either through passive smoking in enclosed spaces (clubs and pubs before the smoking ban) or regularly smoking directly increases your likelihood of getting smoking-related cancers.

Friend's dad - Aged 78 when diagnosed, smoked about between 10 & 20 a day for years and years but packed up 12 years before diagnosis.

But chemo worked and is now cancer free.

But each story is different op x

family member
died early 70s of cancer

was only smoking recreationally, i.e. once a week at the pub after work but worked in a dusty job (construction). first symtoms around 40 ish

There are types of lung cancer which occurs in non smokers who come from non smoking homes where there is a particular mutation.

The good news is that they are more sensitive to treatment.

Even smokers lung cancer has better treatments available and people are living well longer due to this and screening

Really varies. My uncle is mid 60s and smokes probably 50 a day, diagnosed with COPD maybe 3 years ago. My dad smoked from 14-40ish, had a heart attack (survived) 8 years ago and has no smoking related illnesses now. My grandfather smoked cigars and lived til 92, no smoking illnesses. Grandmother (other side of the family) smoked all her life and died of oesophageal cancer at 97, but until she was about 94 she was still fully functional. Didn’t James Brokenshire the MP die from lung cancer having never smoked?

Well yes, as does smoking itself, but as has been shown on this thread none of it is a foregone conclusion. I’ve never smoked, hate it, but sometimes think back to when I worked in a pub to put myself through uni before the smoking ban and what it might have done to my lungs… but as per the OP and her friend, none of us can reliably guesstimate as to the likelihood that she will have a smoking related affliction in later life. My aunt is in her 70s and has COPD and was a major smoker, my mum’s best friend died of lung cancer and never picked up a cigarette, he died in his late 50s. Thought this was the whole point of the thread?