I’m manufacturing heart & lung support devices for a living. Look up the symptoms for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). It’s now the 4th most common cause of death worldwide (after cancer, strokes and coronary issues).
Basically, your lung dies a little bit over time, and loses its potential to remove CO2 from your blood. The biggest problem is the creeping progress. If you’re not running marathons regularly, you wouldn’t even notice if your lung capacity drops by 20%. 30, you’re a bit short of breath when climbing stairs. Most people would assume they are just unfit.
But once you hit 40% and notice something’s wrong, it’s almost too late. Mind you, that can take 10-15 years, and usually only starts in your 30s, so you’ll be 40-50 before noticeable symptoms begin.
But then the decline is increasing exponentially. You have trouble breathing - try sucking air through a wet tablecloth. That’s how strenuous breathing will be (no joke, try it!!!). Additionally, the amount of CO2 in your blood will change its pH value, making your blood slightly acidic. The acidity kills your kidneys and affects your liver, and also decreases the elasticity of your blood vessels, increasing the risk of organ damage even more, contributes to formation of brain aneurysms, and also increases the risk of strokes.
Think that’s all? Once your lung capacity is below 50%, you’ll need mechanical ventilation - permanently. So they’ll cut a hole into your airways and install one of those nifty adapters to hook you up to an oxygen bottle. Kinky, right? Comes with the downside of not being able to speak. And you’ll have to drag 30lbs of equipment behind you wherever you go… On top of being in a weakened state that hardly permits you to carry 10lbs.
Consequently, you’ll spend 95% of your remaining time on earth in bed, getting sores everywhere, needing help to take a shit for the rest of your life, all the while you can’t communicate properly, feel like being continuously choked, and hurting all over.
Fun times ahead? Smoking/vaping is the leading cause of COPD. You probably just didn’t hear about it because it’s not an imminent killer. Cancer or stroke have better PR.
Oh, and there’s no cure. You can’t restore dead tissue. With lots of luck and care you can stop the progress where you’re at. But you’ll never, ever, recover a single percent of lung capacity unless you get a transplant (and elderly smokers usually don’t make the cut…). And even if you did, transplant recipients often have a shortened lifespan due to complications resulting from the immunosuppressive medicine they have to take for the rest of their lives.
Friends of my parents, both smokers, had this. One died last year. Made it to 87 but only because he was rich. Rough last few years. His wife is doing better but still shaky.
I do not have the knowledge to doubt your points here, but there are countless people who smoke and do not end up on artificial breathing apparatus in their later years.
I do not like being around smokers and understand it is not good for you, but your text here sounds very extreme.
I’m manufacturing heart & lung support devices for a living. Look up the symptoms for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). It’s now the 4th most common cause of death worldwide (after cancer, strokes and coronary issues).
Basically, your lung dies a little bit over time, and loses its potential to remove CO2 from your blood. The biggest problem is the creeping progress. If you’re not running marathons regularly, you wouldn’t even notice if your lung capacity drops by 20%. 30, you’re a bit short of breath when climbing stairs. Most people would assume they are just unfit.
But once you hit 40% and notice something’s wrong, it’s almost too late. Mind you, that can take 10-15 years, and usually only starts in your 30s, so you’ll be 40-50 before noticeable symptoms begin.
But then the decline is increasing exponentially. You have trouble breathing - try sucking air through a wet tablecloth. That’s how strenuous breathing will be (no joke, try it!!!). Additionally, the amount of CO2 in your blood will change its pH value, making your blood slightly acidic. The acidity kills your kidneys and affects your liver, and also decreases the elasticity of your blood vessels, increasing the risk of organ damage even more, contributes to formation of brain aneurysms, and also increases the risk of strokes.
Think that’s all? Once your lung capacity is below 50%, you’ll need mechanical ventilation - permanently. So they’ll cut a hole into your airways and install one of those nifty adapters to hook you up to an oxygen bottle. Kinky, right? Comes with the downside of not being able to speak. And you’ll have to drag 30lbs of equipment behind you wherever you go… On top of being in a weakened state that hardly permits you to carry 10lbs.
Consequently, you’ll spend 95% of your remaining time on earth in bed, getting sores everywhere, needing help to take a shit for the rest of your life, all the while you can’t communicate properly, feel like being continuously choked, and hurting all over.
Fun times ahead? Smoking/vaping is the leading cause of COPD. You probably just didn’t hear about it because it’s not an imminent killer. Cancer or stroke have better PR.
Oh, and there’s no cure. You can’t restore dead tissue. With lots of luck and care you can stop the progress where you’re at. But you’ll never, ever, recover a single percent of lung capacity unless you get a transplant (and elderly smokers usually don’t make the cut…). And even if you did, transplant recipients often have a shortened lifespan due to complications resulting from the immunosuppressive medicine they have to take for the rest of their lives.
Good luck.
Friends of my parents, both smokers, had this. One died last year. Made it to 87 but only because he was rich. Rough last few years. His wife is doing better but still shaky.
I do not have the knowledge to doubt your points here, but there are countless people who smoke and do not end up on artificial breathing apparatus in their later years.
I do not like being around smokers and understand it is not good for you, but your text here sounds very extreme.
Not everyone who smokes gets COPD. Just like not everyone gets lung cancer.
It’s just that you don’t know beforehand if you’ll end up as one of the lucky ones totally unaffected, so why gamble with your life?
mf overqualified