Number 1 – Don’t smoke
It’s unbelievable how many patients I see regularly for lung infections, and emphysema flare-ups who are still smoking heavily. My standard line is “Doctors and medicine cannot compete with cigarettes. Cigarettes always win.”
I know patients would believe me if I told them not to drop a bowling ball on their foot, if they want to be able walk normally. Yet people are always surprised when I tell them that they cannot expect normal health when they smoke.
Now I know quitting is hard, and nicotine is really addictive, but life is short, and we don’t need to make it shorter.
And we don’t want to spend it getting lectured to by a know-it-all ER doctor like myself.
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Very well put.
Well put. However, studies show that cigarettes (nicotine, along with things added by the cig companies) are just as addicitive as cocaine. But I think meth was even more addicitive.
Ugh.
Quit for five years. Picked up on Sunday. Threw the rest of the pack out with tomorrow morning’s garbage.
Nothing is harder to put down. Not even…well, we’ll just leave it at that. Nothing is harder.
Your timing for this could not have been better. Thanks.
The fact that you are affecting the health of your family should encourage more people to not smoke. Second hand smoke is terrible on children and those with asthma.