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The 72 Hour Myth
The 72 Hour MYTH
From CarlyKicksButts on 3/2/2011 2:36:53 PM
It burns my ash when I hear people saying "after 3 days all nicotine is out of your system, so all that's left is a psychological craving."
I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one online. But I read a LOT and spent the better part of my first 6 months quit doing nothing but research. I read what doctors were saying. I read what pharma was saying. And I read what all of my quit friends were saying as we stepped through this process.
Here's what I believe (remember, I'm not a doctor. This is my belief):
I believe the first week is the hardest because the grip of nicotine is so strong (physical) coupled with the psychological cravings. Absolutely. Somewhere during that week, I suppose nicotine itself takes a hike. 72 hours? Cool.
BUT, here's the thing.
The lungs, the veins, the skin, the CELLS in your body...they all need time also to regenerate and become free of residual nicotine effects. (Not all will return to pre-smoking status.)
The BRAIN (a physical body part) has some pretty jacked up wiring at this point that is NOT fixed in 72 hours. In fact, you only start really feeling how this wiring is messed up once the nicotine has left the body and has left a void in the way your brain operates.
A way of describing it that I could wrap my own head around is this:
We flooded our brains with nicotine for years which did two things. It flooded one kind of neurotransmitter receptor, let's call that the little nicotine sponges. Every time we smoked, this "feel good" stuff saturated the brain and the little nicotine sponges in the brain soaked it up and all was joy joy in our world.
At the same time, the normal dopamine sponges (another feel good neurotransmitter) that helps normal non smokers "feel good" dried up and were barely used by the brain. The brain didn't need to use them because we kept getting these big nicotine blasts. So some dopamine sponges closed for business completely, and brain "forgot" how to produce and regulate even levels of dopamine.
When we stop flooding our brains with the nicotine, we don't get that "feel good" feeling, AND our body doesn't automatically produce all the dopamine we need, and even if it DID, a lot of the dopamine receptors (sponges) needed for soaking it up don't work anyway.
We're going to feel "off." We are going to feel "not so good" because our "feel good" system is a mess!
The good news is that over time we create new neuropathways and the body does begin to regulate itself properly again.
I think some of us are kind of hosed a little. Me? I started smoking when I was just 11 years old and think by doing so I did a bit of permanent damage to the whole "feel good" system (including seratonin and norepinephrine, two more neurotransmitters.) So for me, it was important to get on an antidepressant which helped with some of those.
There are many posts about PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome) also which talks about up to a year, year and half of withdrawal type symptoms.
THESE ARE PHYSICAL changes in the body.
If ANYONE tries to tell you, oh there's no nicotine in your system after 72 hours, get over it, you have my permission to reply with "Thank you for the misinformation. Bite me." teehee
Just sayin'
It took me a good 140 days to start feeling less foggy and human again. That's around the time I also got on wellbutrin (dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors.)
But about 160 days I was really much better (but it took a year to feel like I was really going to be "normal" again).
IF you find yourself still nauseous, still off balance, still brain-foggy, still CRS, etc. a few months into your quit, that's OKAY!!!!
The BEST news is that the physical cravings themselves will NEVER be as strong as that first month (every week you go, the quit gets stronger and the nicodemon gets weaker!) and the other symptoms are a sign of your body healing itself!
Maybe you can find information on this to give your spouse or anyone who needs to ease up on you a little. :-)
Congrats to everyone on your quits!!!!
KEEP GOING!
Carly