Once upon a time people complained about second-hand smoke because it stunk up the house and was a general annoyance. Today we know that “sidestream” or “passive” smoke poses a real danger to those around the smoker. A non-smoking woman with a smoking husband has twice the likelihood of dying of a heart attack than if the spouse didn’t smoke; that’s based on data from a 10-year study at the University of California at San Diego. And in 1985 an American Cancer Society study showed that wives of smokers have an extra 20 per cent cancer risk.
Passive smoking results in lower HDL levels than are found in families without smokers. That’s true for children as well as for spouses. Women whose husbands smoke are likely to enter menopause earlier also.
According to an article in the journal Circulation (January 1991), second-hand smoke causes an estimated 53,000 deaths in the US annually, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States today.
Non-smokers exposed to other people’s smoke are in danger of both cancer and heart disease. The carbon monoxide in the smoke appears to be the culprit.
Heart patients already have a limitation on the amount of oxygen getting to their heart muscle. Increasing the level of carbon monoxide in the blood further cuts the oxygen supply. There’s also evidence that passive smoking makes blood platelets abnormally “sticky” and more likely to form clots. The aggregation of platelets plays a role in heart attacks as well as in the development of atherosclerotic plaques that block the arteries.
If you’re a man whose wife has had a heart attack or bypass surgery, please quit, both for her sake and yours. If you’re a woman whose husband has had a heart attack, please quit, again, for your sake and his.
But what if you both smoke cigarettes? Don’t quit at the same time. This is no time for togetherness. Both of you being nasty and irritable simultaneously will undermine the chances of success. And if one of you slips, he or she is likely to sabotage the efforts of the other in order to share the failure and thus lessen the feelings of guilt.
The first spouse to quit should be the one who’s had the heart attack. The smoking spouse should make every effort to support the other’s efforts, and should keep from smoking in his or her presence. Certainly, in terms of the dangers of passive smoking, don’t smoke in the house. After a reasonable period of time after the heart patient has quit, you can join your spouse in a life free of tobacco. Then you can become mutually encouraging, supportive and capable of contributing to each other’s success on a long-term basis.
If you’re not a smoker, and your spouse must quit to ensure his or her chances of a complete recovery from heart attack and heart disease in general, please be as sympathetic as you possibly can without being a nag. As a non-smoker, there’s just no way to make you understand just how hard it is. You’ll just have to accept it on faith. Remember, even the US Surgeon General has called it a major addiction, as difficult to overcome as any other drug addiction. It’s not just a “dirty habit”.
Your spouse will undergo a period of withdrawal. That is a painful and difficult experience, with symptoms of irritability, jitteriness, difficulty in sleeping, and sometimes even flu-like symptoms. You may even think your spouse is behaving “like a caged animal”. Withdrawal lasts about two weeks, and then starts getting easier and easier. As each day passes, the urge to smoke will come less and less often and will strike with diminishing intensity.
There’s no doubt that stopping the smoking is the most important aspect of recovery during the early stages, even more important than being 100% perfect in making dietary changes or getting regular exercise. Helping your spouse to quit smoking is the best thing you can do to help him or her to recover.
You might even wish to read some of the material dealing with stress management and relaxation techniques for your own needs during this trying period of time. When your spouse acts particularly irritable it’s best to simply leave the room, go to a quiet place, and do some deep breathing exercises. At those times when the irritability factor isn’t too bad, and you can bear to be with your spouse, you might like to get into the habit of doing those breathing exercises together. You’ll both derive real benefits from this, and it’s a wonderful thing to do as a couple.
You can help your spouse “get the monkey off his or her back” in other ways, too. Help him to avoid smokers and smoking situations. Ask visitors to please not smoke in her presence. After dinner, get up from the table rather than lingering over a cup of coffee. For a smoker, that’s agony for the first weeks of going without nicotine. Suggest a number of non-smoking activities such as movies and theatre, places where no one is allowed to smoke. To further assist your spouse, read the section on coping strategies beginning on page 267.
Your contribution will be unsung, but it will be enormous in terms of short-term recovery and potential for a longer, healthier life.
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Cardio & Blood/ Cholesterol