Quitting Smoking...

Ok, so I'm 23 years old and have been smoking since I was 10 (yeah I know, horrible lol). I've attempted to quit smoking probably about 25 times or more, literally. I hate it in just about every way possible. But because it's become part of my life and I've been smoking most of my life, nothing has worked. I've tried cold turkey, a combination of regular sugar-free gum and sunflower seeds (oddly enough, sunflower seeds help me not think of smoking nearly as much as usual), and now I just tried the nicotine patches. I lasted about 3 weeks once by quitting cold turkey, 1 month with the gum and seeds, and not even an entire day with the patches.

I had the patches on for exactly 3 days. The first day I didn't smoke for half the day, but I was getting so many pains and 'side effects' already, all from the patch. I was getting tingling feelings in my whole arm of where the patch was located (felt like loss of circulation), my hand was swelling up, the patch area was itching like crazy (which is normal), I was getting the 'escaping itch' (when you're itchy in one spot and you attempt to scratch it but it 'escapes' to another area and keeps doing that), my arm was feeling very heavy like there was a 15 lb weight inside my arm, my hand was feeling numb at some times, I was getting some seriously unexplainable head aches that were quite intense, the head aches lead into my neck and down my spine, and my heart was hurting really bad.

Those are all supposed to be 'side effects' of smoking with a patch on, which means you are overdosing on nicotine. But this all started the first day during the time of the day I wasn't smoking at all. So one patch alone can cause someone to overdose on nicotine? How safe can these patches really be? If I go according to what the 'side effects' are supposed to be of using the patch while smoking, I could have had a damn heart attack the first day, while not smoking. 

I ended up smoking later in the day (which was pretty stupid, I know) and all of those 'side effects' only got twice as worse, of course. The patch didn't help me feel less of a need to smoke, I think it made me feel more of a need. As of more recently (about a year and a half or so ago), I've been getting pains all over my body, bad pains, which would annoy me and make me want to smoke more, so it became part of my habit to smoke more as the pains increase. That being said, that may be the reason why I started smoking on the patch in the first place. 3 days passed on the patch and I took it off because the 'side effects' were only getting so much worse. I took off the patch yesterday, and I still feel these pains. I couldn't play any games because of them. I attempted to play some PS3 and my hand went numb for a little, back to normal, then I was getting that horrible tingling sensation as if i were losing circulation, then back to normal, and finally, my arm started to feel like it was being stretched by the inside, as if it were about to explode. So, obviously it was a little more difficult to play games, so I stopped.




Is it just me, or do these damn nicotine patches sound pretty evil? I could have dealt with the arm stuff if it wasn't for the additional head pounding pains and the feeling of my heart about to explode. I know everybody gets different side effects, but I'd like to know if anyone else that has tried the patches have felt any of these things WITHOUT smoking with it on?

My first blog... Ever.

So obviously by the title, this is my first blog. I've never done this before, so here's my attempt.

My main interests are games and metal music so this will most likely partially be about that, but mostly about my condition because I not only need to talk about it, but I really need help with it. Nobody knows what's wrong with me but something definitely is, and it sucks. People are definitely much worse than I am but I'm allowed to complain too, right? =)

My entire damn body hurts inside and out, top to bottom, and I'm a broke ass, so I really need some help, but don't get me wrong, although I'm in crap loads of pain and I need to talk about it, that doesn't mean I'm not a happy person. I just don't want to burden my friends about my bitching and complaining about it. So it only made sense that I create a blog partially for it, not just for complaining, but also to help me remember all my problems to tell the doctors because it's just that much lol.

Hopefully this blog gets accepted, and if it does, you will all see that I really just might be entertaining. =) For all of you gamers and metalheads, I'll have lots to say for you guys. And for all those curious about strange unknown diseases, this is the place for you too lol. Hope you all enjoy.