Yesterday, a patient asked me the stupidest question I think I've ever heard.

[Aristus]

"How do I get rid of these nicotine stains on my fingers and teeth?"

It took everything I had not to

"Simple. Quit smoking."

It was pretty much the embodiment of the joke I've been telling for years:

"Doc, I'll do anything to get healthy!"

"Okay. Quit smoking."

"......Okay, I'll do anything but that!......"

[lapfog_1]

1. oldest medical joke I know

"Doctor! Doctor! It hurts when I do THIS!"

Doctor: "OK. Don't do that."

[Aristus]

2. My Dad, a surgical RN, told me that one all the time growing up.

[lapfog_1]

4. My Brother in law, an ER doc in AZ

told it to me when he was in medical school.

Also, as we were walking across the parking lot picking him up from class... we saw a bird swoop down and snatch up a small grasshopper. The bird ate the grasshopper and then flew away. As it passed over a car it pooped. Without missing a beat my brother in law stated "One bug in, one bug out".

[Aristus]

6. HA!

[Mickju]

21. Wasn't that a Henny Youngman joke?

[Lochloosa]

3. Well. How do you?

[Aristus]

5. Quit smoking.

A dentist can probably scrub the stains off the smoker's teeth. But tobacco stains (it's the tobacco, not the nicotine, which is colorless) get embedded so deeply into the underlayers of skin that the only real solution is to quit smoking. The underlayers come to the surface and slough off, eventually resulting in clear skin.

[cannabis_flower]

34. I imagine....

If you always wore gloves when you smoked you could keep from getting tobacco stains on your hands.

[Hoyt]

7. Bleach, and trump says it protects one from CV19. Shine a light up your rear too.

[jmbar2]

8. I quit smoking years ago in a 12 Step program

Our meetings were in a church which sponsored all of the 12 step programs - AA, NA, SA, etc.

Occasionally, the Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics folks wandered in by accident. Once they heard we were Smokers Anonymous, you could practically hear skid marks as they turned around and ran back out the door.

We always joked that they would be back after they had done all the other ones. They all felt that that quitting smoking would be the hardest.

[Marthe48]

15. Dieting is hardest

You have to eat, so you really have to work on limiting the kind of food you eat and the amount. Easy to slip.

I quit smoking when I was 36, I'd buy a cigarette from someone once in awhile after I quit. I'd give them .25 cents. ad my last cigarette when I was 41. Can't stand them at all now.

[gratuitous]

43. I interviewed a number of smokers after our office won a court case

I remember one guy. He was a drug and alcohol counselor, former user as many of them are, and obviously well-versed in the mechanisms and psychology of addiction. He said he'd kicked coke and pot, but he still couldn't put down the cigarettes.

My advice to anyone trying to quit smoking: Use every trick you can think of. People are different, addiction hits different people in different ways. Some people use the gum, others swear by carrot and celery sticks. For still others, it's developing and practicing new habits, and avoiding those situations (like having a beer) where you're used to having a smoke. Recruit other people to help you out, if you need that. Keep it a deep, dark secret if you're worried that public disclosure will blunt your efforts. Whatever works. There's not a wrong way to go about it if it works for you.

And when you fail, don't beat yourself up. It's a tough, tough addiction. If it was easy to beat, everyone would do it the first time. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again.

[jmbar2]

44. Really good advice!

Consistent with all that I saw of successful quitters. It took multiple tries for most.

One of the biggest motivators for me was shame. I was embarrassed to be seen going outside my home multiple times a day to smoke. After awhile, I felt really exposed to my neighbor's watchful eyes, doing something that I was ashamed of.

I now live in a beautiful seaside town with a lot of vacation rentals that don't allow smoking.

I often see whole groups of people who've spent SO much money to rent a vacation home hanging around outside said vacation homes to smoke out back. Weird idea of a vacation...

[Ohioboy]

9. This reminds me

This month I am 23 years smoke free!

[Marthe48]

16. Good for you!

I hope it got easier as time went on

[jmbar2]

17. Congratulations!

I hit my 22 year "anniversary" last month. So grateful to be free.

[Demovictory9]

48. Congrats

😍

[packman]

10. I remember looking out my hospital window

and seeing hospital patients, hooked up to their IV and wearing hospital gowns, standing outside the doors of the hospital smoking. When I asked the nurse what was going on, she said it always amazed them about how addicted smokers were to their habit. Not allowing them to smoke inside the hospital, they were allowed to grab their IV's , escort them outdoors and stand with them so they could get that smoke. She even mentioned a case where a patient basically had his larynx removed (cancer) and still managed to suck on a cigarette.

[Aristus]

11. One of my smoking patients died just the other day.

Respiratory arrest. His larynx had been removed a couple of years ago, and he still smoked through his tracheostomy stoma. Every time I visited with him, he would tell me (in his voiceless whispery croak) that he didn't intend to ever stop smoking.

Well, he finally did. The hard way.

[jmbar2]

18. That must be painfully hard for a medical professional to deal with that

You folks hold up the earth. Thank you so much.

[Marthe48]

19. My husband had a buddy from the Army

He and his girl friend told us that while he was recovering in the hospital from a heart attack, she'd help him get to the bathroom, so he could stand on the toilet to smoke, and blow the smoke into the air vent.

[czarjak]

42. Seeing nurses smoke on break always amazes me at hospitals.

[IggleDuer]

12. I recall an intubated patient asking a nurse who smoked ...

… to exhale his smoke down his tube.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. Intubated patients can't talk, if I understand it, because they are sedated & have tube in way. . nt

[Farmer-Rick]

13. I quit about 9 years ago

But I have lost people to smoking. I know a guy who picked up smoking again 3 months after open heart surgery. He died 3 years after that.

Smoking kills....the younger you start smoking, the harder it is to quit. That's why cigarette corporations want children to smoke.

I can't believe cigarette corporations are still allowed to sell their heart attack sticks. I know people call them cancer sticks but it is their hearts and pulmonary systems they are really destroying when they smoke.

That famous study done by Ancel Keys that documented heart disease (he claimed it was due to eating fat and cholesterol but he was wrong) was really a documentation of how smoking was killing people. He mistook the increase in heart disease as caused by fat and cholesterol when all along it was caused by an increase in cigarette smoking.

Only in very rare cases, will Cigarettes Not eventually kill you, if you do not quit.

And no, COPD is not a guarantee after you quit smoking. I smoked most of my life (though I tried to quit often) and quit for good in my 50s. I have no COPD symptoms or any heart problems. Quit Now before you permanently damage your heart.

OK, rant off.....ex-smokers are the worse about trying to get people to quit.

[Aristus]

14. I'm a never-smoker, but I really appreciate the help of former-smokers in getting the message out

there.

Thanks.

[usaf-vet]

20. Started smoking Oct 26, 1965. Second day of boot camp. Two smoke breaks a day. Otherwise...

.... clean the barracks AGAIN, polish your boots, or for the smokers two breaks outside.

I wonder how many young people started in boot camp?

Quit April 01, 1973, the day our son was born.

48 years later still smoke-free.

[LittleGirl]

24. I quit for the last time in 2017

I have had a few since then but they are really nasty to me now. I bought a pack once to get rid of the urge and couldn’t finish them. I threw them away so I’m really glad I’m over them. I quit cold turkey each time. I quit for 5 years for a spell. What I miss is being thin. For some reason, not smoking made my thyroid shut down and I can’t keep the weight off.

My mother smoked for 50 years. She quit in her 70s and died at 88 in September. She really struggled to breathe in the end but died of old age and non treatment of her other ailments.

[Chille]

47. Thanks for saying

this. I quit a few years ago and I went to my dr to get chantix. He told me I most likely have copd because of my many years of smoking. It has haunted me so much that every time I climb the stairs I wonder if my copd is making me feel like I’m dying 😵 or am I just out of shape.

You’ve given me hope

[liberaltrucker]

22. My last cigarette was March 26, 2018

Still use nicotine gum, though.

[tavernier]

23. After almost 60 years of smoking

I just whittled down the number of cigs per day, then per week, then two weeks, etc. until it just stopped being a huge desire. It worked.

[onethatcares]

26. 16 yrs quit for me

every now and then I take a hit on a bong, but no cigarettes since 2006.

[LiberalFighter]

27. Never had an urge to smoke.

My parents did not smoke nor my siblings.
My grandmother's did not smoke.
One grandfather smoked a pipe and the other cigarettes although not much.
Non of my dad's siblings or spouses smoked.
A number of my mother's siblings smoked.

One my cousins offered a lit cigarette to smoke. I took it to my mouth but instead of inhaling I exhaled.

[Historic NY]

28. If you think fingers are bad, picture the interior of the house & car.

its dripping off. In the old days pictures were all yellow in the firehouse, 60+ yrs of smoking in the halls did it. Good thing there were in frames.

[plimsoll]

32. Painted commercial apartments for a number of years.

The smokers apartments always had yellow walls. The paint we used had a slight blue cast. The worst part was that you had to double or even triple coat everything because the tar would leach out, but not evenly. They always took at least twice as long to paint.

[Hekate]

36. The dust cover of one of the used books I bought online looked like that: drippy yellow inside...

The whole book smelled so bad that I tried everything I could think of to freshen it even a little — SoCal sunshine, baking soda sprinkled between the pages — it was wrecked. I can’t remember now if I asked for a refund, but I know I finally just gave it away to a charity. It was from England.

Because nearly all the hardcovers I’ve bought over 20 years are used I occasionally get one with a faint whiff of smoke. I can live with that, sorta. But increasingly I’ve noticed a tendency for online sellers to specify things like “non-smoking home,” so I can’t be the only one who notices.

… Drippy yellow-brown …

[Ocelot II]

39. Airplane mechanics used to talk about how checking for pressurization leaks was easy

before smoking was banned on planes, because of the brown streaks along the exterior of the fuselage wherever there was a leak.

[Devil Child]

29. How did your patient respond?

Compassion fatigue is real.

[Aristus]

30. He wasn't sure he heard me correctly at first.

I repeated "Quit smoking. If you don't want nicotine stains, quit smoking. When I don't want to get wet, I don't go out in the rain."

[Devil Child]

33. Messages that need repeating. Hope the pt took it to heart

[IronLionZion]

31. In some countries, they still think smoking is good for health

I worked with a Chinese immigrant who was convinced smokers have healthier teeth and blood and other stuff (not lungs) than non-smokers. But he also thought Tiananmen square was a hoax.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

35. At least as long ago as the 1940s cigarettes were called coffin nails.

Even without the disease issues (cancer, lungs, heart) people who smoke age a whole lot faster than non smokers. Their faces got lots more wrinkles and often (in white people at least) have a grayish cast with is unmistakable.

I have never smoked, and I have zero patience with those who do. It's hardly breaking news that smoking is very bad for you. In fact, smoking is so tightly linked to lung cancer, and it's the ONLY cancer risk factor that is so great, that lung cancer would almost totally disappear if no one smoked. Other cancer risk factors, except perhaps for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and breast cancer, are relatively trivial.

[Hekate]

37. I have both patience and compassion, as my late mother's struggles to quit were monumental...

My dad didn’t have nearly her struggles, but my brother who died of COPD a year ago July was never able to quit until after he spent time in an ICU. My daughter isn’t going to be able to quit, either — stupid little rebel started in her really early teens and is now 45.

Nicotine is bad shit. The people who get addicted are not bad people.

They just don’t get to smoke in my house.

[Hekate]

38. I think calling them "coffin nails" goes back over a century. I seem to have read an old cowboy book

… where they were called that. (Of course the author could have been using a term from the 1930s - 1940s when he was writing.) They were associated with coughin’ hence a kind of pun.

[Ocelot II]

40. My mother was a nurse in the late '40s, before I was born.

When I was a kid she talked about how the lungs of smokers looked, all black and tarry, when they were doing surgery on them (usually for lung cancer). Needless to say, nobody in my family smoked.

[hay rick]

41. The funeral director may be able to remove the stains.

For a small additional fee.

I had a particularly hard-headed friend who continued to smoke after he contracted emphysema. I went to his funeral and his body had been prepared with an open pack of Lucky Strikes leering out of one jacket pocket and (three?) folded two dollar bills in one of his hands.

[Aristus]

46. Yeah.

If you got an annual physical exam more or less often than every year, you'd have to call it something else, right?

[DFW]

49. I always liked Abraham Lincoln's comment

"What is a cigarette? A stinking weed with fire on one end and a fool on the other."

[3catwoman3]

50. I'm sure you and I could regale each other

…with stupid question stories.

Early in my career, during my first Air Force tour, I saw a baby girl, 6 months old or so. The reason for the visit, in the parents’ own words, was, “She had a rash 3 days ago. Now it’s gone. What do you think it was?

I wanted to roll my eyes and say, “If the rash is gone, I haven’t got a snowball’s chance of knowing what it was.

Many times, I’ve seen babies with alleged rashes, and after looking the child over from head to toe, have had to ask, “OK, where?”

Another winner was a dad who asked when it would be OK to start putting Coca Cola in his baby’s bottle. “How about NEVER,” was my answer.

[zanana1]

51. I know that no names were mentioned, but...

Your posts make me think that as soon as I leave my doctor's office, she's making fun of me.

[Hotler]

52. Patient: Doctor it hurts when I do this.

Doc. Well, don't do that.