As someone who relatively freshly started smoking 1.5 years ago, I find it insidious. After stopping for a day or two, I actually feel better as tension goes away and I sleep a lot. Shortly, however, I start randomly getting sneezes, runny nose, and slight ill-like feeling in my head.
Part of what makes me start again is the desire to avoid spooking others with those flu-like symptoms in the middle of an epidemic, since I live in a densely populated area.
I don’t have a clear idea of what mechanism is at work here, my hypothesis is that the withdrawal somehow suppresses my immune system.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, nicotine patches aren’t as good (or useful at all) at reducing the respiratory symptoms in short term. I suppose it’s not purely nicotine withdrawal that’s causing this.
This is a real effect. Smoking paralyses the cilia; about 4–6 days after cessation, the cilia become active again and start to bring up mucus from the lungs.
The good news is that these symptoms are temporary.
Public health communications on the benefits of cessation don’t usually mention this. I wonder if that’s a mistake. I would have thought it puts a lot of people off quitting, and maybe if they knew what was happening it would be easier to deal with.
This is definitely useful to know. I reckon some smokers suffering from this upon withdrawal would suspect immunosuppression, and choose to continue.
When I have a week or so apart from the crowds, I’ll see how long it takes to push through those symptoms.
(I thought if withdrawal causes immune system suppression, this effect could explain the apparent COVID statistic correlation mentioned by 0-_-0 in parent comment, but from your information it’s unlikely to.)
I think the leading hypothesis is that nicotine may have a protective effect against COVID-19, which is strong enough to more than counteract the negative influence of the lung damage caused by smoking.
(This would explain why former smokers are worse off, since they have residual lung damage but no protective nicotine.)
Of course this is all quite hypothetical, and may turn out to be wrong, but I gather it’s biochemically plausible.
Part of what makes me start again is the desire to avoid spooking others with those flu-like symptoms in the middle of an epidemic, since I live in a densely populated area.
I don’t have a clear idea of what mechanism is at work here, my hypothesis is that the withdrawal somehow suppresses my immune system.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, nicotine patches aren’t as good (or useful at all) at reducing the respiratory symptoms in short term. I suppose it’s not purely nicotine withdrawal that’s causing this.