smoking and diabetes

who does what

  • smokes

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • gave up since diagnosis

    Votes: 3 9.4%

  • never have smoked

    Votes: 27 84.4%

  • partner smokes around them.

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Total voters
    32
  • Poll closed .
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Steff

Steff

Little Miss Chatterbox
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
right we talk alot in here about how alcohol effects the BS but I have always wondered how smoking effects it and is it worse then alcohol or just the same ? reason being my uncle was diagnosed type 1 in 1993 and he gave up smoking preety much straight after diagnosis this was the best thing he has ever done according to him , also i was a very light social smoker before i was diagnosed but since i have dipped once and had one it caused all sorts of bother for me and i have not had one since ,but i was just wondering how many of us are smokers? have given up because of diabetes? or have never smoked?or has a partner who smokes around them? my o/h does smoke and I make him stand by the door and do it I dont know why but maybe just because im uncomfy around it now .
 
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I gave up 3 years ago,which I initially thought was a good idea. However since giving up in 06 I had a stroke in 08 and was diagnosed T2 in 09. Was I wise to give up???????? I think so LOL

Chris
 
weird you should say this i am quite close to one of the mums at my sons school and i know her mum very well to her mum is 70, she was a chain smoker for many years but gave up in june due to problems wite her kidneys after a few weeks anyways she was in and out of hospital with her nerves and within a month she had been in and out of hospital 37 times , with heart pulpatations etc etc , she was at the stage where she was having a break down and she has been put on a waiting list to go into a home , she has put all this bad health down to stopping smoking as it all happened she put 2 and 2 together and now smokes again she is now not going to the hospital and has stopped having nerve problems, i put to the daughter of the mum i wonder if the smoking is just a comfort for her., she got so addicted to the nicotine that when she stopped she didnt have the fag to turn to and became a nervous wreck. her daughter says she has gave up trying to tell her going back to them wont sort it in long run but hay ho she aint interested 🙄
 
It's strange that when people give up the dreaded weed and the body starts to cleanse itself it appears to be under attack all the time. I have friends who have given up and they have all reported varying degrees of illness in the process as well as the usual withdrawal symptoms.

Chris
 
I gave up 5 years ago and put on copious amount of weight (3 stone) and have asthma which is not that well controlled which the smoking hid.
 
I am lucky as I have never smoked, not even one.

Right from my childhood - I hate the smell

In my late teens and early twenties when, night clubs, dancing etc were the norn, I hated going because of the stale smell - sorry smokers. I could just not understand buying a new outfit, showering, nice perfune products, but my the time I came home, everying went into the washing machine and I would hit the shower, no matter how late.

I fully admit, it is a bit if a thing with me, but I truly hate the smell

Food has been my 'drug' of choice

Hazel
 
I put on about the same Adrienne, I was hoping that the Metformin would help in the weight loss department as others have reported, but typically no such luck in my case.

Chris
 
I gave up smoking nearly thirty years ago and none of my family or friends smoke any more either.
 
I do not and have never smoked. I hate the smell, have asthma, and I'm also a singer. I've always likened being a singer who smokes to being someone who plays the tuba and decides to use it as a urinal. Bit disrespectful to your instrument! :D
 
Singing is the reason I started smoking. I used to do the folk circuit in Scotland and all those smoky pubs led me to the path of ruin.
 
Never smoked bar the occaisional cigar on nights out here at uni. I suppose that the odd cigar doesn't do any harm. I'm not smoking like the majority of my flatmates.
 
Never been a proper smoker, duid dabble. A cold turns to a chest infection and repeated trips to docs, I don't want to aggrivate chest any further. DOn't allow anyone to smoke in my house either unless it is an emergency.
 
I still love the smell of a cigarette, weird huh. I hate the stale smell on clothes and hair though. I can't go anywhere where there is smoke as I can't then breath due to the asthma, I was very happy when they banned it in pubs, restaurants and planes all those years ago. I used to be one of the smokers up the back on the planes. Felt sorry for the non smokers who were near the smoking section !
 
Caroline said:
Never been a proper smoker, duid dabble. A cold turns to a chest infection and repeated trips to docs, I don't want to aggrivate chest any further. DOn't allow anyone to smoke in my house either unless it is an emergency.
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An emergency? I'm trying to imagine an emergency that could be dealt with by smoking... Umm, nope, nothing comes to mind. I'm a militant ex-smoker (they do say there's nothing worse than a convert), anyone who wants to smoke around me can go do it outside and I don't care if it's 40 below with a force 10 gale and a blizzard out there.
 
I never feel the urge to have a cigarette during the day and ive never smoked properly, but when I'm out with friends who smoke and i'm a bit drunk I usually end up smoking.
 
As a never-smoker, I can actually think of an emergency situation when smoking just might help. The only times I've ver been tempted have been after resuscitation attempts, whether or not they resulted in a life saved and whether in clinical setting or the outside world. When colleagues or people I've just met during a resus attempt went to smoke, it was right to go with them, even though I didn't want to smoke, just wanted comradeship, I guess, and on a couple of occasions, we haven't had a single mutually understood language, so smoking was the right action. But, equally, something other than smoking, like brewing tea or sharing a thermos of hot drink, has also done the trick in several similar situations.
 
im a bit bias on this subject as i have never smoked myself but have a parnter who smokes. i also have a wonderful father and mother who both smoke and my grandparents on both sides of my family smoked till they were ripe old ages. my nan of mums side of the family only died a few weeks ago (i was actually luck enough to be able to administer the last rites and preside over her funeral). in all i find it is acceptable to smoke in society when things go wrong simply due to the fact we need comfort.
i used to be a bit of a hell raiser when i was younger (yes i was a wild child lol) and went on a very huge drinking session quite often. i used to find that i could see life clearer and better understand it through the bottom of a bottle (yes i did go to AA). i had a very bad accident where i was nearly killed (my fault as i was still slightly drunk when i got on the motorbike) and it took a long time for me to regain the use of my legs as i had broken my back and needed to learn to walk again. it was during this tough time i found god again and also figured out my calling in life.
before the accident i had been a succesful chef. i had even been to france to train under michel roux snr and his son michel roux jnr so i would say i was an accomplished chef. i found true love in 2 ways as i met my soon to be wife a couple of months after finding the lord again.

im not trying to say you need to find god as i understand that not everyone believes and i would be the last one to push it on people. what i am saying is that people find solitude in the things they find comfort in. mine happens to be god, but it did used to be drink.

sorry if it a bit long winded lol
 
No category for me Steff! I smoked for about 20 years, but stopped 15 years ago, and I'm very glad I did now that I have diabetes. When I was in hospital they did an angiogram, where they look at the state of your coronary arteries. The surgeon said mine were 'pristine' except for one which 'showed slight furring, but not flow-restricting. I suspect that if I had continued to smoke all those years, the findings would have been far different, and I would then have been faced with the extremely difficult task of stopping smoking after just being told that I have a chronic and dangerous disease.

Smoking does affect you adversely if you have diabetes, and not only in the obvious ways. It actually increases insulin resistance, so for Type 2s in particular it can make the job of keeping your levels under control that much harder. Of course, we're already at higher risk of clogging up our arteries, but smoking will accelerate that and give you a much greater chance of complications in addition to the potential for directly smoking-related problems.

For anyone who wants to stop, I'd thoroughly recommend Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking (amazon link) I saw Allen on TV on the Friday night, bought his book on Saturday, and stopped smoking forever by Sunday evening. I told all my work colleagues about it, and they stopped too. Their wives, girlfriends, husbands, mothers-in-law etc. also read the book and stopped. I'd tried all sorts of other methods, and none of them worked for me, but this book did! A much better way to spend ?5-?6 than on a packet of ciggies!:D
 
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