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.

My mum started smoking in her teens. Heavy smoker 20 a day. Developed copd in her fifties. Got breast cancer in her early sixties. Recovered after mastectomy. Spent five years cancer free. A year later discovered she had two separate tumours on her lung and oesophagus. Spent a year having treatment. Discovered the lung cancer had spread to her brain and was terminal. She died 6 months after her 70th birthday.

I started smoking at 17, around 10 a day. Quit at 30. (About five years before mums cancer)

I spoke to a stop smoking clinic. One of their facts is that ten years after quitting your chances of developing cancer are that of a non smoker.

My dad had COPD and never smoked a cigarette in his life. I’d think 5 a day and quite when young wouldn’t likely lead to COPD but no-one can know.

61
Gave up 15 years earlier
Died within a month of diagnosis. He was fit and healthy.

I read that a year of smoking causes 150 mutations in the lung DNA. Damage may already be done, that's why it's vital teenagers never start.

This.

It's the mutuations to the cells. Its very scary to think even a handful of cigarettes could ultimately kill you.

But she’s stopped now? Of course it would be better if she’d never smoked. But better to stop as early as possible. Ultimately, what’s done is done. She can’t go back in time and change the past, what are you hoping to achieve by presenting her with all this anecdotal evidence?

Poor Roy. You’re right he wasn’t a smoker, but had spent many years as an entertainer in clubs, and ingested vast amounts of secondhand smoke whilst playing his trumpet 🎺.

1. What age were they when they was diagnosed? 60
2. How many years had they smoked for? 16years - age 14 to 30
3. How many cigarettes a day did they roughly smoke? - 20 cigarettes a day (1 Pack)

They were diagnosed in May and died in October of lung cancer, 30 years after quitting and being a nonsmoker.

There are alot of cases of people with COPD that never smoked,

I am one, diagnosed with COPD at age 14 due to chronic bronchitis complicated by severe asthma. Never smoked and grew up in a nonsmoking home.

Yep he did, poor man he was brilliant to the end.

Hi, OP -

5 packs or 5 cigarettes a day? Quite a difference.

The good news is that either way your friend quit young. 5 ciggies a day for 10-14 years is obviously not great, but is less than two packs a week. That’s very light smoking and provided she doesn’t resume your friend is, statistically, in pretty good shape I think. For example, the Lung Cancer Predictor at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York (a famous American cancer hospital) doesn’t even go that low. (It is also for older people)

5 packs a day is obviously a different story. In that case, just be very happy your friend has stopped.

But COPD and lung cancer are both far from unknown even amongst people who have never or essentially never smoked. Assuming your friend was a light smoker and smoking isn’t a great cause for worry, she could still be unlucky. It never makes sense to blame bad health outcomes on habits.
That’s not to deny that healthy habits are a good idea!

My mum was diagnosed with COPD aged about 70. She stopped smoking when she was 45. Smoked 20 a day for 20 years. But has asthma.
A friend of mine was diagnosed about 3 years ago, he's smoked 20 a day since a teen, he's 48.
I think most smokers with asthma will end up diagnosed with it.

If she's been smoking 5 a day for 12 years that's equivalent to 3 pack years of smoking. In terms of risk stratification taking that on it's own in a 30yr old female that's low risk for developing copd or lung cancer.

If she permanently kicks the habit I suspect that she's not at much more risk than a non-smoker.

My father smoked from 17-70 between 20-40 a day. Quit smoking because he wasn’t able to go out and buy cigarettes anymore, and i didn’t want to buy them for him. He died of copd at 75. He was in a wheelchair for 3 years by then.

I've had lung cancer and I have copd. Oddly enough, the type of lung cancer I had (a pancost tumour, I think it was called) isn't necessarily caused by smoking. I smoked from age 15 to 50, on and off.

I was asked to consider being part of an experimental Group that was being organised locally, it was part of an experimental development into individual treatment for lung cancer.

the professor I saw quizzed me about my lung health. I've had periods of quite bad chest infections from being under one year old. She said that there was a school of thought that believed there was good reason to believe copd was an autoimmune disease.

On the one hand, that would make sense. Me, and others in my family, have various autoimmune diseases. On the other hand, I grew up in a mining village, with all the pollution (coal fires ect) that implies, and I did used to smoke. So who knows?

Your friend has done the right thing by stopping. And really, five a day? And she's been smoking these for about about ten years? I would put her risk chances on the low side.

But, opening poster, that's exactly where I'd put your risk too, and I'm assuming here that you are a nonsmoker.

My friend was diagnosed with lung cancer 6 months ago. She has maybe 2 months left to live, maximum. She's 58, started smoking as an older teen, smoked between 1-10 a day since, but mostly between 1-5 a day for the last 10 years. IMO she's been very unlucky because she's never been a heavy smoker, and she's still pretty young. 😩

My uncle died at age 70 from lung cancer due to occupational exposure. He had never smoked.

@LoftySnail

My Mum's lifelong friend:

Age 70
Since teens
60 per day!

As far as I know, she's still otherwise fit & well, living life as normally as she can. Haven't seen her in a while but I'd be told in a heartbeat if any change.

OP, the experiences of other posters cannot possibly indicate your friend's chances reliably! They are only anecdotes. Forget about guessing the future and instead be happy for her that she's managed to quit!

My mum smoked 20+ a day from her teens to her 40s. Gave up and became very fit and sporty in her 50s- 70. Started with COPD issues and emphacaemia (sp!) in her early 70s, which got quite bad mid to late 70s. Became better when a pacemaker was fitted.

After 15 years she should have the lungs of a non smoker (so say all the experts) so she should be okay...

My dad got COPD and never smoked in his life. Friends mum has COPD (and now lung cancer), she was a heavy smoker for years. Good friend of mine is sadly currently dying from lung cancer, age 57. She has smoked quite heavily since teenage years. It was very sudden, diagnosed 1st Jan, spread to brain already and now on end of life care. My eldest smokes and he has cut down drastically after this. Hope he stops. I smoked from 13-27. Currently 47.

Dad smoked all his life, not particularly heavily. Diagnosed with copd about 2 years before being diagnosed, and dying from lung cancer- it’s was all very quick in the end. He was 74. He switched to roll ups about ten years prior to his death. He also worked in an industry which may have attributed to his copd/cancer diagnosis.

@Zanatdy i hope he’s able to stop, he’s young enough for his lungs to recover. isn’t it becoming illegal for people born after a certain date to buy cigarettes ? I really hope so.