# Smoking and IBS



## Tchaaa (Apr 24, 2012)

So, I'm not proud of the topic on this post, but in short, I started smoking when I was 16, and at christmas of last year, aged 18 I decided to quit, and I did!However, less than a week afterwards, I started to suffer from IBS at the time, and the problems became so severe I got hospitalised with the pain and whatnot. However, after a two month ordeal I felt a lot better. Now, here comes the really stupid bit, couple months after this I let a friend talk me into getting back into smoking - I feel so stupid about this, to a point you can probably not imagine. I'm looking to quit again as I'm certain this makes my IBS act up, it's really expensive, and aside from that as we all know, it's really bad for you! I decided to do some reading and came across a blog post that suggests that quitting smoking kick-starts IBS. I had never made the connection between them before, and it suddenly all became clear that the symptoms and timing matches up. Many people on the blog post have also said that they also suffered similar things for 2-3 months, and even when gradually cutting down, when you hit nothing at all, horrid things occur. (blog post in question: http://blifalood.com/27/i-quit-smoking-got-a-disease/ )Personally, I cannot see myself coping going through the pure hell I went through at christmas again. Especially as now is a prime point in my life where I've got lots of job interviews and such coming up, and big changes in my routine etc. But I really want to quit smoking again. Is there any known way to stop without practically dying for several months? I feel like such an idiot, and I'm trying to fix it, but I'm starting to feel trapped and just need to know if anyone has any advice. I'm tempted to talk to my doctor, about any kind of meds that could stem the effects of quitting before they occur, so that it's more manageable, I went from completely fine to hospitalised last time in a matter of just over a week, I found afterwards that stomach-acid lowering pills, and anti-spasmodics helped, but didn't fix everything. Plus, reading from the comments on that blog again, nobody seems to have had positive results with medicine, just several months suffering, and on top of that, I'd have to tell my doctor, that I was the tit who quit smoking, and then started again. I understand this post is unnecissarily long, and not written very well, but I'm just in a bit of a state over it all, and would really like anyones help. I appreciate your time taken reading and responding


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Use a patch if it concerns you. But trust me.... ANY possible stomach problems are WORTH it... QUIT smoking now. You are asking for WAAAY bigger problems than some stomach trouble if you don't.


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## sunflowers6 (Sep 23, 2012)

Not that you need more reasons to stop smoking but... please don't smoke you could have a stroke and get locked-in syndrome


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