Quiting smoking and Blood Pressure

"No one likes a quitter." -- KMS, 1990
"Daddy, your beard stinks." -- Louisa, 2008

So...Chantix.

Interesting stuff.

Fills the receptors in yer brain. The same ones that would normally be filled up by nicotine get filled up by this stuff.

The process is simple: you smoke away. Puff puff. You take a pill in the morning. Puff puff. You do this for three days. Puff puff. After day 4, you go to twice a day, PUFF puff. by day 5, those smokes are kinda tasting bad*, but PUFF PUFF you still need them.

You look down and realize that beside the ciggies tasting bad, you have been hotboxing the shit out of the last 4 smokes, seeking that buzz. 4. In a row.

You are supposed to quit on day 8. I did so.

I did OK for the first 24 hours. It was alright. Not great, not bad. I kinda wanted a smoke, but it wasn't all that horrible.

Day 10, I got up in the AM, went outside, and lit up a butt. Yes, I found a butt from my previous day's attempt at hotbox cessation, and lit up. Blech. No fun.

that ws the last smoke I had. It will be the last smoke I ever have.

Good bye, my stinky friend.

Now, I am on...er...what day is this? Day 11.

that is amazing to me. Really and truly.

However, that is not THE most amazing thing:

That distinction would fall on my circulatory system. My blood pressure, to be precise.

On the 21st of this month (quit day), my BP was 135/88. Not so good. borderline hypertensive.

On the 24th, it had gone down to 129/85.

On the 27th, 124/82.

On the 28th, 118/76 with a fever

and on the 29th: 105/64.

So a 25/20 point drop in 9 days of not-smoking. THAT is impressive.

Today, it seems to be high(er): 114/76, but I am kinda stressed today. I had to schedule surgery (not a horrible thing--tonsilitus).

Still don't wanna have a smoke, tho.

EDIT BELOW:
* Whoops. Here is the deal about smokes: they taste like monkey-ass, but oh, the drug, the DRUG! Nicotine, and its nice elating effects, makes the plain, horrible tasting monkey-ass somehow taste like monkey-ass with vanilla ice cream on it. So, cigs taste bad. You just didn't notice when you got the DRUG.

Submitted by JJ on Mon, 03/31/2008 - 1:27pm.
JJ's blog | login or register to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Lynns | Mon, 03/31/2008 - 1:29pm

Browse archives

« July 2008  
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

Navigation

User login

Banner Photo

by ocean yamaha courtesy of Creative Commons Attrib license. Thanks, ocean! yay CC!

southeastportland

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Flickr tagged with southeastportland. Make your own badge here.

Search

Syndicate

Syndicate content