Smoking and the coronavirus

[MerinoFroggie]

Any body here a smoker or ex smoker and contracted the virus? How was your illness?

I was watching a video from Dr John Campbell and he said smokers get hit harder with a covid19 disease. He recommended to give up.

I am an ex smoker now. I started smoking in my mid teens and I smoked for about 20 years. I started to give up when I turned 35. It was followed by a few months of stopping and starting the cigarettes. I am delighted to say my last cigarette was at Easter time of 2018 and I will never go back to smoking again. It actually makes me sick now. My giving up smoking journey was followed by a few months spell of sickness. I was coughing so much. It was awful. I was coughing to the point of passing my pants and puking. Thankfully all that settled down and I am doing OK.

I used vaping to give up and when all this virus stuff emerged last spring, I used it as an opportunity to drop my juice nicotine strengh to 0 nicotine. By August of 2020, I naturally eased myself off the vape. I never intended too because I did enjoy vaping but it just happened. My vape is still sitting on my bedside locker. I am now 5 months vape and nicotine free.

Just wondering how ex smokers are tolerating the virus?

I am so happy to be smoke and cigarette free. About 2 and half years cigarette free and I thought I would never see the day.

There's a lot of odd data around smoking and covid.

It appears that smokers are less likely to get covid and are massively underrepresented amongst those who are hospitalised.

However smokers who are hospitalised have much worse outcomes.

It has been suggested that nicotine is protective against the virus and that abrupt cessation of nicotine when a smoker is admitted to hospital, makes a poor outcome much more likely.

There's a RCT that has recently started in France looking at nicotine patches as a possible therapeutic in (non-smoking) hospitalised patients:

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT04598594

It's always a good idea to quit smoking because that is far, far more likely to kill you or cause serious long term health issues than the virus is.

I'm an ex-smoking vaper and I have no intention of quitting nicotine right now. If I was still smoking and trying to quit I wouldn't attempt cold turkey, I'd use NRT or a vape.

It would seem like a no-brainer to ensure that every hospitalised smoker or vaper is given nicotine patches.

I'm the opposite of you and smoked in my twenties, gave up for 18 years and then started again 2 years ago, vaping now, I had Covid in October and had hardly any cough, didn't feel breathless at all, my XH has never smoked and he was really poorly with very low oxygen levels (he's quite a bit older than me) even my DD15 felt breathless but I didn't at all.

@LangClegsInSpace I carried on vaping while I had Covid, that's interesting

The virus was the reason I gave up nicotine and went to 0 nicotine in my juice. I thought I don't want nicotine withdrawal symptoms if I get sick and too poorly and won't be able to vape.

I smoked in my late teens and twenties. Gave up at 30 and I’m 32 now (although have the odd pack or so if I’m very drunk!). At times I smoked quite heavily (20 per day and more than the odd spliff too). I had covid at Christmas and weirdly had barely any respiratory symptoms ! My partner who has never smoked at all was hit harder with the respiratory symptoms. Thought that was very odd.

@MerinoFroggie

The virus was the reason I gave up nicotine and went to 0 nicotine in my juice. I thought I don't want nicotine withdrawal symptoms if I get sick and too poorly and won't be able to vape.

Yeah that would be horrible. Addiction is shit.

It still might be worth getting some patches for your first aid box. The data is really unclear but it looks like ex-smokers who are admitted to hospital do even worse than current smokers.

If you've managed to bin the hand-to-mouth habit of smoking / vaping then it's very, very unlikely that using patches will re-addict you because there are no behavioural cues and the nicotine is released too slowly to give you any sort of hit (this is also why patches are shite for anyone actually trying to quit smoking).

If I was in your position I would not hesitate to apply a low dose patch as soon as I tested positive and I would avoid abrupt withdrawal until I was safely out the other side.

I was a smoker when I had covid. Had very mild symptoms

I was a smoker (20 a day) now a vaper and very worried about getting covid as I cough a lot from the vape. Tried stopping a few times but I’m far too stressed just now and can’t seem to do it! There doesn’t seem to be much advice for giving up vaping compared to smoking.

I’ve looked at the studies and personally I have decided now is not the time to quit.
However, I do think part of the findings could well be that smoking status isn’t always correctly recorded in medical notes/people aren’t always honest