In this episode, tips to quit smoking FOREVER.

You can also watch this as a video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/lagLuANUC5g

Most long-term smokers want to quit but it is extremely difficult due to the addiction having multiple components: physical, psychological, and social. Understanding these components needs to be a first step towards overcoming them. Breaking some habits while fighting cravings may be one of the hardest things you can do, but well worth the health benefits.

Smoking is a gamble with your healthy years of life. It significantly increases the risk of lung, heart, and vascular diseases while reducing your chances of leading a healthy life. To quit smoking permanently, you need to deconstruct and address each component of the addiction as it relates to your own situation.

Physically, nicotine is a very addictive substance. It changes brain chemistry, leading to cravings and withdrawal symptoms like irritability, anxiety, and agitation. To combat this, it's crucial to understand your smoking habits. Journaling your daily cigarette consumption and noting the time of the day you smoke can help gauge the level of addiction in your case (to know where you are starting from). Setting a quit date in the future and then working up to that date to gradually reduce the frequency and quantity of smoking can readjust the brain's chemistry back to normal. It can be helpful to see a smoking cessation specialist to consider Nicotine Replacement Therapy (e.g. nicotine patches, gum, lozenges or inhalators) or medications like bupropion, varenicline or cytisine if you need extra help in dealing with smoking cravings.

Psychological addiction is a huge component of smoking. Smoking often becomes a ritual associated with specific activities (such as drinking coffee, driving) or emotions (smoking to combat anxiety or stress). Journaling can sometimes help you identify these associations, to enable you to gradually break unhealthy habits over time. Sometimes, being ill or hospitalized, travelling and becoming absorbed by other major life events (such as the birth of a child) can inadvertently break these patterns, providing an opportunity to quit.

Social factors can also make quitting a challenge. Not joining friends for smoking breaks at work or social events can create a fear of missing out (FOMO) or feeling excluded. If this is hard to avoid, you could just join your friends but not smoke, even if it may be hard. Knowing that you may occasionally be slightly mocked or teased, and reacting in a neutral, non-defensive way, can make your friends accept and eventually support your decision to quit. Over time, others may even come to respect your decision and seek your advice.

#smoking #quitsmoking

Answering a bunch of questions about COPD, emphysema and inhalers.

You can also watch this as a video on the YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/ghNRzXhNhZ4

The questions and comments that I discuss cover some of the following topics:

- side effects of inhalers

- healthy living versus going on inhalers

- explanation what is emphysema and chronic bronchitis

- can you be addicted to / dependent on inhalers ?

- zephyr valves for emphysema - how would they work and why they are not for everyone

- does everyone need pulmonary rehabilitation or to see a specialist pulmonologist ?

- the power of healthy habits to help improve outcomes of chronic respiratory conditions #toplunghealth #copd #emphysema

Answering a question about reducing corticosteroid treatment (prednisolone) in sarcoidosis.

You can watch the video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/j4u7om2X1Ds

Reductions in the dose need to be done gradually, as the body no longer produces its own steroids after a lengthy treatment. By gradually reducing the dose, we give the body a chance to resume it's own physiological steroid production. In some cases the reduction needs to be very slow. Steroid-sparing medication also has a good effect in sarcoidosis, but it has a different side effect profile. In many cases it can be safer long-term, but this depends on a case-by-case basis. I would highly recommend a careful discussion with your doctor about the right strategy in your case, as everyone is different. In the cases of long-term immunosuppressive medication, there is always a balancing act between controlling sarcoidosis and minimizing side effects.

#sarcoidosis