Is this normal??

[goatofmendes]

I quit smoking 2 weeks ago. After I quit, around the 4th or 5th day, my nose started to cycle between running all of the time, and being so dry and scabbed up that I couldn't touch the outside of my nose without being in horrible pain. At first I chaulked it up to a typical head cold, and the dry air from the winter. but it's been going on now for

My wife quit as well a few days after me, and started to get the same thing happening to her a few days later than I did. It is still going on and more than not now, is the scabbed up, painful inside of the nose, but it's getting a slight bit better.

We each smoked about a pack and a half a day (sometimes 2) for abour 15 years. Is this normal with quitting and going through the cycles or what? It seems to not stop, but it seems to get better somedays where I can breath through my nose way better than I could when I smoked.

[goatofmendes]

*but it's been going on now ever since.

[cathi4]

It is not normal by any means but probably some secondary infection from the winter heating and the quit itself. Get some medical help or buy a sterile (for inside the nose) antibiotic and swab it on four times a day in the lower 1/3 of your nose. Be careful of putting it too high and cross contaminating (use fresh swabs each time) and wash your hands. Sounds frankly like a huge vitamin defiency but you gotta do medical for that. Thats all the free advice I give! Congrats on the quit! You both rock ,even while you are a little buggy, you still rock. Hang in there!

[goatofmendes]

Thank you Cathi! Like I said, It seems to be getting better. I just wasn't sure if it just so happened to start up after I quit coinisidently, or if it had anything to do with quitting. I do know that around this time period, the lining of your nose does get better... but I'm sure if it was like this I would have heard others say something about it before now haha.

Thanks again!

[outofstep_withtheworld]

Actually, I read an article that said a runny nose could come in cycles for almost a year after quitting smoking. Its because your body is throwing out the damaged cells as new ones are created. A runny nose is the bodies leading way to do that.

[snowwhite]

Hi, I have read a lot about the physical effects of quitting and I know that when you quit you increase all of the blood flow to the tiny capillaries throughout your body (nicotine constricts blood vessels. You have many of those in your nose as it is very vascular. I had to have extensive surgery to my jaw once and the doctor would not perform the surgery unless I quit smoking. He said that I needed the extra bloodflow to my head to heal faster.

Any infection however should be seen by a doctor. Taking a vitamin supplement may help.

Hope this helps.

[trance74]

Hello.

I experienced this the week before my quit date and the first week after my quit date. The week before I quit I was weening myself down up until my quit date. I wondered about this also. The left side nostral would always have blood on the inside wall. Nothing bleeding or dripping, but everytime I blew my nose, there was traces of blood. And was doing a bit of regular sniffling like a cold. Its been 2 weeks and a day now since my last cigarette and it's stopped. My nose is back to normal. I'll admit. It did scare me at first, but did some research and spoke to some other ex smokers, and it can happen. Everyone is different. Some didn't get anything like this.