Coughing after quitting smoking

Stopped Smoking and Started Coughing

Quite frequently when a person quits smoking, they start coughing. This problem is among the most frequently encountered problems that emerge after quitting cigarettes. There are different factors contributing to the emergence of the aforementioned problem.

When a person decides to terminate their smoking career they are quite likely to experience a certain withdrawal syndrome. Too much coughing is among the most frequently encountered symptoms. Some people cough while they smoke, but it is another thing when they cough after they have stopped smoking for good.

Sadly, this excessive coughing that emerges after stopping smoking is one of the things which may discourage a person from quitting cigarettes in the first place. One of the tricks of withdrawal cough is that it might provoke the “quitter” to reach out for one “final” smoke of tobacco leaves, and that’s it – they are back to their old habit.

Reasons Behind the Cough

The cough following the quitting of cigarettes is actually a good thing and a good sign. It indicates that the lungs of an ex-smoker are putting in an effort to cleanse themselves of the residues of the old habit. The intensity of the “post-smoking” cough is directly proportionate to the rate at which the lungs are regenerating. This implies that the person should be more worried when they fail to start coughing than when they start hacking.

Some clinicians and patients believe that cough and sputum production may transiently increase over the first weeks after smoking cessation and may in fact represent a barrier to successful quitting. The present study described changes in cough after an attempt to quit smoking cigarettes and determined patients' perceptions of how changes in cough affected their ability to maintain abstinence from smoking.

Daily smokers already recruited for ongoing outpatient clinical trials of pharmacological aids to quit cigarette smoking were invited to complete self-report questionnaires about their cough for up to 6 weeks after their target quit date (TQD).
Of the 176 subjects invited to participate, 112 completed the first assessment after the TQD. Of these, a total of 45 subjects maintained at least 1week of smoking abstinence at some point in the 6-week period (confirmed by carbon monoxide measurements).
Two self-report measures found that cough declined steadily in abstinent smokers but was constant in a comparator group of continuing smokers (n = 36). For the 94 subjects who reported smoking at least one cigarette following the TQD, few reported that changes in cough affected their abstinence attempt.
For three items asking about this area, the upper 95% confidence interval was no more than 10% for agreement that changes in cough posed any barrier to abstinence.

✓ Fact confirmed: Cough following initiation of smoking abstinence David O. Warner, Robert C. Colligan, Richard D. Hurt, Ivana T. Croghan, Darrell R. Schroeder; 2007 Nov

Sometimes the organism reacts with coughing to enable the lungs to cleanse itself of mucus piled up during the smoker’s career. This problem is especially pronounced with people who have smoked for a long time before they stopped.

As we have mentioned, coughing after quitting cigarettes is generally a good sign, but in case the coughing is persistent you need to consult your physician and see if there is some other reason behind coughing.

Getting Rid of the Cough

Some people will experience post-smoking cough for a longer period than other people. It is a highly individual matter. For some people, it will last no longer than seven days or so, meaning that their lungs are regenerating quite rapidly.

And then again, some people might suffer from this cough for three or four weeks. In case the period of post-smoking cough is prolonged and lasts for more than a month, it is recommended that the person consult their doctor. There are some measures that one can take to help get rid of the cough. Different lozenges and syrups are an option to facilitate the cessation of cough.