Firstly can a nicotine patch boost your blood pressure?
Actual Question asked by an actual patient: On the day I stopped smoking a few weeks ago, I started using a nicotine patch. When I smoked, my blood pressure was great — 100/70. Now it is up to 160/90. I would hate to stop the patch, since it really helps, but I’m worried that it could cause a problem.
Actual answer provided by a typical medical practitioner: First off, congratulations for trying to stop smoking. Every part of your body will benefit if you quit.
The above must be the dumbest response anyone with experience could ever give a patient that stopped smoking.
The actual answer is : YES it can and it probably will raise your blood pressure, simply because no cigarette can bombard you with the amount of nicotine found in any of these money=making nicotine patches promoted by money-hungry health care practitioners.
First of all there are much worse things people do to their health than smoking. Stopping smoking could be life threatening and extremely dangerous. It is not uncommon for patients to suffer a stroke soon after stopping the habit after 30 or 40 years. It is also not uncommon for patients to develop chronic bronchitis or worse after kicking their smoking habit.
There is so much nonsense being spread by the media and the medical / health profession about smoking and what it supposedly does to your health, while they themselves make these statements based on hearsay and not on actual research conducted by themselves.
Why should one preferably never start smoking?
Everyone is always on about lung cancer being caused by the cigarette smoking as a scape goat just to keep the public from realising the true cause of lung cancer caused by the biggest sponsors of medical schools in the world, the oil companies, diesel exhaust fumes to be specific. Unfortunately none of them would ever enlighten the public to the danger of diesel fumes, because tat would mean taking on their largest sponsors, which they would never do. In the meantime they are happy to blame every disease under the sun on tobacco to keep your mind so occupied that you would never even consider any of the true dangers threatening your life daily.
Smoking can cause gastro-enteritis and often causes gastric problems, particularly relating to the cardiac valve (the upper inlet valve of the stomach). It may cause long-continued spasms / tension of arterioles with arteriosclerosis of the coronary arteries. Its long-continued use may cause degeneration of nerve tissue, as witnessed in atrophy of the optic nerve with long-term use of tobacco. These are the main reasons why one should not start smoking, but once you've been smoking for a number of years, and especially for a decade or more, kicking the habit is not all that simple.
20 minutes after quitting
Your heart rate and blood pressure could drop, which should not be confused with a reduction in blood-pressure. Smoking does not cause high blood pressure so quitting doesn’t affect your blood pressure. The nicotine in tobacco products causes blood vessels to constrict and will temporarily increase your blood pressure. The metabolism of nicotine is relatively short but varies from individual to individual based on age, gender, race, and food intake. Taking your blood pressure about two hours after smoking will probably show your normal levels.
However, smoking increases your risk for coronary heart disease, which is a leading cause of death.
12 hours after quitting
The carbon monoxide level in your blood should theoretically drop to normal. Unfortunately this is once again only theoretical, because the rotten meat and fish that you buy from you favourite food chain store gets treated with carbon monoxide to restore its colour, making it look fresh again. Almost 100% of all fish bought from stores gets treated with carbon monoxide for the sole purpose of retaining its so-called 'natural colour'. So stopping smoking would do very little for your carbon monoxide levels.
2 weeks to 3 months after quitting
Your circulation improves and, if you actually used to inhale your tobacco smoke into your lungs, your lung function may improve. Very few smokers actually inhale their tobacco smoke into their lungs. If you watch smokers carefully you would notice that most of them inhale the smoke only into their mouth or throat and not right down into their lungs. Most smokers tend to puff more than they smoke.
1 to 9 months after quitting
Theoretically coughing and shortness of breath should decrease; cilia (tiny hair-like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) should theoretically start to regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection. Unfortunately if you live in a city or drive in traffic everyday stopping smoking would do very little for your lungs. In any large city you smoke the equivalent of 2,500 cigarettes per day anyway, just by breathing the filthy air produced by the sponsors of your medical schools, the oil companies.
1 year after quitting
The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a continuing smoker’s. The risk of having a heart attack is therefore reduced only after one year of not smoking.
5 years after quitting
Risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, oesophagus reduces, although you would also find that most cancer sufferers never smoked tobacco. Stroke risk is hugely increased in the first few months after quitting and thereafter it may fall to that of a non-smoker after 2-5 years, but this is highly debatable. The fact is it would do very little for reducing your chances of contracting lung cancer, particularly if you live in a city or any area where you are being exposed to vehicle exhaust fumes, diesel exhaust fumes in particular. One should take into consideration that people smoke much less today than in the 1970's, yet the diseases blamed on smoking kept on rising at a huge rate notwithstanding the fact that fewer people smoke. What they don't want you to know is that the incidence of lung cancer keeps rocketing at the same pace as diesel vehicles increase on our roads.
15 years after quitting
The risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker’s, which means it makes little difference anyway, because by that time you may have developed hypertension, and you'd be placed on anti-hypertensive drugs that cause diabetes and weakens you heart and you'd most probably be on cholesterol medication which would kill you much sooner than the hypertension would
These are just a few of the benefits of quitting smoking for good. Quitting smoking lets blood vessels work better, and helps the heart and lungs. Quitting while you are younger will reduce your health risks more, but quitting at any age can make a huge impact on the health status of your coronary and peripheral arteries.
Bottom-line is this
The ideal is to never start smoking, but if you do start smoking be very careful as to how you go about stopping the habit. The longer you've been smoking the longer the period you require to wean yourself off the cigarettes. Your body is used to the relaxing stimulating effect of tobacco between 5 times a day and 120 times day, depending on how much you smoke. The more cigarettes you smoke per day the greater the dangers of coronary heart disease and the greater the dangers of suddenly stopping the habit.
More people do not smoke than the number of people who actually do smoke and more people who do not smoke die of the same diseases than people who do smoke. Your prescription drugs are far more lethal and dangerous than your cigarettes, but smoking 60 to 120 cigarettes a day certainly cannot be healthy and it does not take a genius to realise that. Smoking 5 to ten cigarettes per day is nothing compared to the poisons in your tap or bottled water. One steak broiled over an open fire contains the same amount of benzopyrene as 600 to 700 cigarettes. I'd much rather smoke 20 cigarettes than eat a single steak broiled over charcoal.
If you want to stop smoking do so, it is a choice. Do not wait until you get a heart attack before kicking the habit, do it before you get there.
Most people realise that the whole 'smoking causes lung cancer' is a scape goat for diesel and other exhaust fumes. Diesel exhaust fumes cause more lung cancer than everything else combined and really is the main cause of lung cancer. Do not stop smoking because of lung cancer, because that is why most people never stop, they know its nonsense. Stop smoking because of what it does to your coronary arteries, because it really does do damage to your arteries and you want to have a healthy heart with healthy arteries.
