in my experience.. quitting smoking is 99% brain power 1% physical. Distract your mind long enough and you wont need anything major in order to quit.

If you really need a reminder of why you're quitting just remember your neck now vs what it'll be after and that should be enough.. if not having a buddy at work/at home/ wherever you go to ensure you dont light up is always a nice option.. and IMO Id avoid everything drug related before surgery, no maryjane, no drugs used to help you crack nicotine, nada, do it completely cold turkey... be a bitch for a little while... and pig out for the first two weeks after quitting so your body has all the energy it can get for the shock and awe campiagn that's going to be going on in your head. just learn to control yourself after those two weeks so you dont become a whale ;p

(why the hell is everyone saying I'm cold?! I'm not cold and i diddn't quit!)

if you dont want to turn yourself into pinhead from hellraiser, try this,

try and find an alternative vice that relaxes you. for me it was a sauna. i go for about one week, sit in for about an hour a day (dry ceaderwood sauna with small breaks every 20 or so mins). every time i leave out of a sauna, ill instinctivly reach for a smoke, but then put it right back. it always feels like im breathing in a cold snap, so thus i never want to smoke afterwards.
this also helps with the extra wieght you gain. do 20 mins on the eliptical or what ever then sit in the sauna and breathe deeply. the days i go i generaly never touch a cig after doing that.

useful trick if you run out of smokes in iraq, or if you want to quit.

thing is, i like smoking, so until Mrs Turkey says its time to quit, i wont quit.

I hate how cigs work. I never had any problem quitting. I only smoked for 3 years, then i was put in the hospital for a week and didn't like them any more.

The gum idea is good though. I would do that along with accupuncture(since you have 20 visits.) Maybe once a week or something until your surgery to keep the cravings down. Then just gum inbetween. I'm not so sure about the pinter joints though. Most people that are addicted smokers always crave an after bowl cig. if that's not you then go for it, but if you are the type of person that enjoys a cig after cheefin it could make it harder. But also you have the gum to help with that.

But just for your info, it's not just the nicotine that affects your recovery. It's inhalation of smoke in general. It causes restricten blood flow. Also I just looked up an article and it said it cause lack of oxygen to your skin(but i'm not sure how true it is :/) But either way both affect recovery. So if you smoke at all i'de just use a vaporizer or make some delicious foods :) From prior experience I realize it does effect the healing process. A month after my splenectomy(removal of spleen) I decided to take a butterly off my scar on the very top. I got one side off, and my scar started to peel back open. Could have been caused from smoke. So just for safety i'de find safer ways just to be safe and have a full recovery. People may say BS that's wrong, but it's your health and i'm sure you want to have full kneck mobility, so why risk it ?

I am just hoping quitting is easier than it has been in the past, I'm a raving BITCH when quitting. Oh, and I'm probably not going to take drugs other than Rx and I'm going to eat healthy...I tend to heal fast but why risk it?

As far as smoking goes, it isn't just the smoke, it IS the nicotine, hence the reason I can't replace with gum or patches:

Of all these factors, the one that MOST negatively impacts the fusion rate is smoking. Nicotine has been shown to be a bone toxin and it inhibits the ability of the bone growing cells in the body (osteoblasts) to grow bone. A fusion is basically a race between the bone growing cells and the bone eating cells (osteoclasts). Continuing to smoke after a spine fusion surgery, especially immediately after surgery, favors the bone eating cells and significantly undermines the body's ability to grow the bone needed to create a fusion.

This came from a website (one of many) I researched to find out more about the surgery. So, quit I will, not worth screwing up the fusion.

But today I'm smoking my face off!

lol smoke away! And when you become a bitch get on CSS and yell at us abd kill shut ::u will prob help ur rage also be a good laugh for all even you :)

What about prime times? Good luck with quitting and your surgery!

Good call.

So its tuesday how many cigs have u forced down your throat today? lol

I know, but nicotine isn't the only thing that could effect healing. Nicotine affects the bone growth wich is what you're worried about in the long run, because that would affect your neck movement and how far you could turn your head each direction. But, smoke in general restricts blood flow, it doesn't help with blood clotting either. Wich is what you want to happen in the wound as fast as possible. I'm not just thinking of the fusion itself. I'm thinking about the scar tissue around it healing as well. I'm just looking out for ya, making sure you know of side affects the doctor may not have mentioned. I'm just saying from experience I woulnd't smoke pot about a half week in advance or a week after the surgery just in case.

"In lab experiments, THC has been shown to block the immune system’s ability to function properly. This leads to greater risk of illness, infection, and cancer among heavy users. It would be hard to say pot is less dangerous than cigarette smoking because marijuana has 3 times the amount of tar as tobacco, and its carbon monoxide levels are 3-5 times that of cigarettes." Having a less efficient immune system, illness and infection is just a way to prolong healing. That's the only reason I say it might be good not to smoke for a couple weeks.

Oh and just in case you feel like reading into it more this is one of the places I looked, it has a lot about tobacco, pot and a lot of other shit.
http://www.princeton.edu/uhs/healthy-li ... d-smoking/

EDIT: Also those are just seggestions. some people have weak immune systems and others are unimaginably stong. Just depends on you.

Thanks for this, yeah, I know. I am getting as healthy as possible. Good food, vitamins, exercise, no smoking anything, etc. I heal very fast from surgery, tattos, piercings, injuries, etc but why take a chance? Esp with all the corticosteroids I've been on lately from the epidural injections.

Thanks everyone for your amazing support.

Well that's good. Like I said, it's all up to you. But when i quit smokin i just look forward to restarting lol, I know my tolerance will be pretty much gone so I won't have to smoke so much anymore lol.

btw what's an Epidural Injection ? I've heard of em, but never to the time to figure it out. I guess I could just go look it up to make it easier on myself and anyone who'd reply.

If I can stay quit till at least 8 weeks post surgery I will be happy, but I'd just like to stop, they are expensive and bad for me. I decided to wean down kinda, yesterday was NO BUENO, so it was 6 yesterday, 5 today, 4 tomorrow, etc so I can be quit by the end of the weekend. I will have much more success doing it that way as I'm apt to just get pissed and buy a pack.

An epidural injection is where they put a big needle into your spine and inject betamethasone (a corticosteroid) and lidocaine (an anesthetic) into the areas where the nerve roots are being compressed by the ruptured or bulging disc. They keep you awake, you are on your stomach, prepped and draped and they use a fluorscope (live xrays) to guide the needle so you don't get your spinal cord poked and end up paralyzed. The needle placement is uncomfortable rather than painful (they numb the area first) but the actual injection SUCKS. Feels like they are burning and pulling all the nerves in your neck/back/arm out by force...first time out of the 3 I got I yelled and I'm pretty good with pain, it was bad. You are not allowed to drive for a day, must have a ride (Gr33ny went with me) and your arm doesn't work very well for a few hours, think of a numb mouth at the dentist only it's your arm. For about a day and a half after a shot, I felt like my upper back and neck had been hit by a car, not much activity those days. Then the steroid kicks in and I had 5 pain free days the first time. Then it wore off all of a sudden and I was dying until I got the second, and the third was a week after to try and extend the pain relief. I got 2.5 good weeks out of those, and now the F*CKING pain is back with a vengeance...I take a lot of nerve and pain drugs. I can only get 3 in 6 mos as these shots can break down the bone if given too often. They aren't to fix the problem, just the pain. Some people get no relief, some get full relief forever...I get about 5 days per shot which kind of sucks, but at least it worked some.

Sorry for the book but here ya go.

Ya I don't read books, so I guess it's good to have one to read every now and then lol. That doesn't sound to fun at all. But a week of relief is alright I guess. Better than an extra week of pain. Having a spaggetti noodle for an arm sound quite intersting though lol. But also it would get very annoying after not very long. But thanks for the input, i've wondered what they were. Just lazy old me didn't take the time to just type it into google :/

omfg thats awesome to read about pinky. sucks for you but it makes for good readin'. keep us informed yo.

also, why were you not a doctor? you speak the lingo pretty well yo.

yo.

I think she might have nursing experience.

n00bfest! Its like cigarettes with less cancer and more pwnage!


i just realized im in the same boat as you pinky. not so much as its a health risk (220 lbs and smoke bout 1/2 pac a day and can still run a 1515 2 miler without killing myself) but my fionce says that once we get married, i gotta quit.


i dont know if i can say goodbye to my camel wides. ffuck im going on a smoke break right now....

Yeah, went partway thru Physician Assistant Program at RIT back in the day, left stupidly cause my ex wanted me to to have kids (love the kids, but didn't really want em at the time) went into nursing to keep the skillz up, and got burnt out there, so no medicine other than keeping up the education for awhile now. I'm going to be getting my pharm tech cert soon and register in school to get my pharmacist degree.

Quitting hasn't been going so well, I keep cheating. But as of the 23rd of this month, I HAVE to be stopped cause it'll be a month out and I need a month off cigs before surgery. It SUCKS to quit.

You wanna see my surgery? Here ya go! (not for squeamish) I'll have a pretty cool throat scar.

Animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsYyVtBph7E

Real deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiXe9w7PATM

I watched the real deal video. That was interesting. It was hard to tell what was what for a little bit until I saw some bone and figured it all out lol. Seems you might be in some pain when it's all said and done! Hope all goes well with that and good luck!

After watching your surgery I decided it was time to finally see what they did to me. Very interesting but quite a bit more blood and you can also see a lot of other organs gettin shoved around and such. Some of the tools they use for surgery these days are unbelievable!

Splenectomy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk3lhKdHCpg

lol
I realize this is probably the wrong forum to get into a "link war" on lol but I watched my surgery done before i even had it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeCQhoUIG0U

done by the head of the medical divison of the jordanian army... lol mine was done by a surgeon who learned it directly from its creator.. and that video really isn't for hte faint of heart.. the splenectomy one was cute...seemed more like a science video we all watch in high school... and the spinal one was mildly-extremely disappointing , thoguht there would be more to it...lul

YA I wish there were a video of my actual surgery from opening of the stomach to the stapling it closed part. Would be cool to have, but didn't have the chance to ask them to record it. Would have been some amazing last words if I didn't make it. "Record this shit man, it'll be sick dude!"