Pneumonia

Sorry you are having such a rough time. 're giving up the evil weed. My hubby and I both did it four years ago, he was a 40 a day over 50 years smoker. All done by using E Cigs, best things ever. I stopped using the ecig 2 years ago but hubby still uses his. They are now considering these to be prescribed on NHS, it is proven that they get people off cigarettes and they are 95% safer!

You don't have to use vapes - there are other options for giving up smoking such as nicotine patches. The greatest difficulty is probably the addiction to nicotine and the lack of something to do with your hands. By using nicotine patches or gum you get the fix without the other chemicals - so while you still have the effect on your heart of the nicotine, all the other things have been removed which helps a great deal.

Where are you? In the UK GPs are able to help with giving up smoking - chucking a 50-year habit is hard work!

If you had a heart attack giving up smoking is a good idea, in fact it is a good idea anyway. I must admit I really  enjoyed smoking and still miss it after around thirty years. Champix is a drug to help stop smoking and is supposed to be quite good, you will need a prescription for it from your doctor as they will need to check if it is suitable for you.

I want to know what a "slight heart attack" is. It sounds like your doing ok with the exception of the PMR pain. Hospitals are so bad at understanding that the time when you take your meds is very important.

As for stopping smoking I want to share my own experience. Maybe it can help you. To start off I did not just stop one day never to smoke again. I wanted to first stop the habits I had gotten into. So since I always smoked while I watched TV in the evening and I smoked while I drove (I had a job then that I was in my truck a good part of the day) I stopped smoking during those activities. If I wanted a smoke I just had to go out on my porch or stop my truck and get out to smoke. I made having a smoke very difficult. After a month of that I felt that my habits had been broken at least somewhat. I had already picked a stop date and had this whole thing planned out. My last smoke was on my front porch just before I went to bed. Then I used a nicotine replacement nose spray. It burned lie wildfire in my nose but it is still the best delivery system there is. It is very expensive and I have no idea if it's covered by insurance but I used it daily for the first 2 weeks which are the hardest to get through. After that I switched over to lozenges. I found the gum just upset my stomach and the lozenges did not. If you choose to use either of those two methods please read the instructions. Most people don't and they use them incorrectly and don't get the full benefit from them. For example you are not supposed to just chew the gum. By doing so most of the nicotine goes to your stomach instead of your blood. You are supposed to chew it a little bit to release some of the nicotine then "park" it between your cheek and gum. There, the nicotine will be absorbed into your blood system through your cheek. The lozenges work the same way but you don't have to chew it first, of course. While your in the quitting stage you will need a lot of affirmation. Hopefully you can get this from your family and friends but I also suggest that you Google for websites for quitting. I found one that would send me positive affirmations daily and continued to send me reminders of how long it's been since I've had a cigarette and how my body is healing itself. I think it sent me anniversary reminders for something like 5 years. Chantix was not available when I quit or I would have used it as well. The good thing about it is that if you do cheat you are not going to have a heart ache. People were having heart attack when they were wearing the patch and then breaking down and having a cigarette while wearing the patch. The rush of nicotine was too much for their heart. Oh and one word of warning, should you decide to try the patch it will cause very vivid dreams if you wear it when you go to bed. I would take it off when I went to bed and then put a new one on in the morning. But the rush of nicotine in the morning made me nauseous. This is why I did not use the patch at all the time I was finally successful at quitting. I celebrated 12 years last month. Oh and I was able to quit while there was a smoker in the house (my hubby). Most people would think that that would make it harder but I found that just smelling his cigarette would kind of help me get through a strong urge to smoke. BTW be prepared to dream of yourself smoking. I found these dreams to be quite upsetting. I would wake up thinking I had cheated. It always took me a few minutes to wake up enough to realize that it was just a dream. I've since learned that that is common with drug addicts when they quite using.

I know this is a very long post but I want you to be successful and I wanted you to have the benefit of my own experience. Of course your experience will be just that and I know that you can be successful at quitting. Good luck and keep us posted.