--- Robert Seeberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > *Note: Not a defense of smoking* > Do any of you who get "ill" (Not sarcastic quote > marks, I use them to mark > the difference between actual sickness and the kind > of illness I am positing) > around tobacco smoke get ill around other types of > smoke?
Yes - I think I posted about my problems with smoke from the Hayman fire here last summer; not only did I wake coughing and with burning eyes (despite keeping windows closed! and the fire being ~30 miles south of my home) during the worst of it, but I developed asthmatic-type shortness of breath afterward, such that I had difficulty walking beside a student and talking at the same time. I am almost back at my prior lung capacity, but not quite. At least one asthmatic patient died from Hayman smoke. I also avoid breathing in campfire smoke, and will develop a dry cough if I am around one for more than a couple of hours. > How about on the freeway or on downtown streets? No choking incidents, but I have pulled off when stuck in near-stand-still traffic with 18-wheelers around; I can easily tell if I'm following a diesel vs. unleaded gasoline-using car by smell and what I'll call "taste in the back of my throat." (That's a bizarre term, but a similar sensation occurred back when I was working in a chem lab and somebody'd left particular reagent bottles improperly capped.) I avoid driving behind or beside buses as well. > It makes me wonder if Tobacco is only a secondary > causative. It's well-known that some pollutants/irritants/allergens are synergistic or additive; it is also true that those with reactive airways, such as asthmatics and those with severe respiratory allergies, are more susceptible to such stimuli. One of the many possible contributors to the rise in asthma/allergies is the triggering of 'genetically vulnerable' persons by various environmental insults, including tobacco smoke and industrial pollutants. Tobacco smoke is directly toxic to the respiratory cilia, and they cease their proper functioning (to sweep mucus with its entrapped particles up to the throat where it is either swallowed or coughed out) after chronic exposure (I think "chronicity" can be quite variable, and there is again probably a genetic component to how much smoke will cause impairment of the 'ciliary elevator.'). After being smoke-free for days->weeks, some cilia will recover function and start sweeping again -- this is why moderate->heavy smokers who have quit recently will complain, "Now I cough more than when I was smoking!" Debbi Smoke Gets In My Eyes And Hair And Lungs And...Maru __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
