Does smoking lower your SCR?

[pilot fish]

Just keep doing it. Sit there for 3 minutes first, breathing in as slow as you can, throught the smallest hole you can make with your lips. Try and make the intake and breathing out last the same amount of time. This oxygenates your body.
Then after 3 minutes, hold the long intake, close your eyes, and try to acheive a sense of complete relaxation. You will eventually get "spasms" but they pass. on land they are not dangerous because you will simply breathe when you have to.
In water once I hit my second spasm I go up. You can learn to control them after a while...

Will try it and see if my time improves. At this moment you or Redhatmama have the Board record breath holding time.

 

[pilot fish]

No, that's not it. The non-smoker doesn't habitually move more air, but he CAN. In other words, when exercising maximally, the non-smoker will be able to move more air in and out of the lungs in a minute, and therefore will not be as short of breath, and have a higher exercise tolerance. But sitting quietly at rest, if the two people have the same metabolic rate and mass, their respirations should be essentially equal.

Can a person improve the movement of air when they stop smoking to achieve the same lung quality as a non smoker? I noticed that I was able to do more exercise, running, tennis, etc, after I stop smoking without being winded. Does lung "capacity" forever change, decrease, once you've smoked for years?

 

[Kim]

Does lung "capacity" forever change, decrease, once you've smoked for years?

I don't know how true it is but I had a conversation with a surgeon once who worked on a major lung cancer ward in the Benelux. He told me that it basically takes as many years after you stop as the number of years you smoked to recover completely to the same condition as if it had never happened. Considering what he did I always just believed this.

 

[pilot fish]

I don't know how true it is but I had a conversation with a surgeon once who worked on a major lung cancer ward in the Benelux. He told me that it basically takes as many years after you stop as the number of years you smoked to recover completely to the same condition as if it had never happened. Considering what he did I always just believed this.

I heard 7 years but I know I did not hear that from a doctor but a person that read or heard it somewhere. Anyway, I know you improve when you stop but I just wonder if it can EVER return to normal?

 

[cummings66]

I'm a non smoker, got broke of the starting habit by my Dad who made me smoke a Cigar after he caught me trying to smoke a cigeratte when I was little. Made me sick as a dog and I never once desired it afterwards, in fact smoke from others tends to make me have trouble breathing and I have to leave a room that's full of it.

For what it's worth I can do 3 minutes with no prep. I'll try some prep and see if I can go longer.

 

[TSandM]

Cancer risk returns to that of the general population somewhere around 7 to 10 years after quitting smoking. Lung function may or may not, depending on how much structural damage has been done (as opposed to functional damage, like loss of cilia). When you have emphysematous changes, with destruction of the actual alveoli (air sacs) and scarring (fibrosis), that is irreversible.

 

[jtivat]

While smoking does affect your lungs that is not the main problem. When you smoke you are sucking in carbon monoxide, this carbon monoxide attaches it’s self to the hemoglobin in your blood 200x's more readily than O2 or carbon dioxide does. The next problem is once it’s there it stays attached to the hemoglobin for 8 to 12 hours. Now hemoglobin is the carrier in your body to get O2 to it, and take carbon dioxide from it this means there is a lot less hemoglobin free to do its job! So if you look at this there is really no way smoking will increase your sac rate this is a stupid discussion, all b/c one person said there sac went down when they quit smoking.

There is a big difference in skip breathing or even breathing in and out very slowly and breathing when you need it. How much muscle mass you have, how big you are, what kind of shape your are in and how comfortable you are in the water all play a big role in your sac rate. My wife has 70 dives but does not know what a sac rate is, nor does she care what one is, I figured hers out a few times based off her computer and it was between .29 and .33. She is very comfortable in the water, is 130LBS. teaches aerobics plus spends time at the gym. One time while diving a counted her exhales to mine and she was exhaling about two to my three plus mine where bigger exhales. I know she is not skip breathing or trying to do this as she does not even have a clue what a sac is. My point in all this is that her body does not require the amount of air mine does and there fore she does not breathe as much.

 

[pilot fish]

Cancer risk returns to that of the general population somewhere around 7 to 10 years after quitting smoking. Lung function may or may not, depending on how much structural damage has been done (as opposed to functional damage, like loss of cilia). When you have emphysematous changes, with destruction of the actual alveoli (air sacs) and scarring (fibrosis), that is irreversible.

Do you see any reason diving would be more difficult for me?

NY Radiology report, September 2003:
no active cardiopulmonary desease. Mildly coarsened lung markings are noted diffusely more so at the bases. Hyperinflation suggests underlying emphysema. Free of active infiltrate.

DON'T SMOKE

 

[pengwe]

What about cannabis smoke? Normally cannabis users smoke less then tobacco smokers (when have you heard of someone smoking 30 joints in a day? 30 cigarettes?), but again, its a different substance (and not to mention illegal in most of the free world)

FWIW Researchers studying people who smoked 3-4 joints a day found a similar level of lung damage to those who smoked 20 cigarettes today.

 

[neophyte]

FWIW Researchers studying people who smoked 3-4 joints a day found a similar level of lung damage to those who smoked 20 cigarettes today.

That is contrary to any research I've ever come across. Of course, I'm always curious and would love a citation or some idea of where to find one.

However, I mean to a study like you describe, not something sort of similar involving "FTC method" smoking machines and politically motivated extrapolations. Those studies I am familiar with and they are virtually meaningless.

Oh, and welcome to Scubaboard! This is a great place and I'm glad you found it.

Woo hoo! My first, first greet.