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Maybe pwms are trying to self-medicate with nicotine? Here´s from an article on schizophrenia and smoking:

"Many people with schizophrenia smoke, and their unique smoking behaviors have led scientists to believe that nicotine, the addicting substance in tobacco, may represent a form of self-medication, normalizing some central nervous system deficits involved in the disorder."

http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=b ... gs_smoking

I haven't explained my reasoning well....

Smoking weakens the immune system. If MS is truly an autoimmune disease, smoking a pack a day should help slow the immune system's attack on myelin, and NOT make MS progressive.

Cigarette smoking also weakens the immune system by depressing antibody response and depressing cell-mediated reactions to foreign invaders.

Those T and B cells would be halted by smoking... instead, MS becomes progressive. I think this is an important study...because it highlights the problem in the current mode of understanding MS.

Smoking is an immune system ablator....yet it makes MS worse.
Smoking decreases oxygen and is a vasoconstrictor...
cheer

I used to smoke. My multiple sclerosis hit with immediate effect on my walking ability. When I smoked tobacco, I would find with immediate effect that my walking was significantly worse. I quit smoking!

I can second that GibbledyG, I also had an immediate worsening of walking, an increase in spasticity and shakiness.

I gave up 5 years ago and I am so happy that I did. I have met others with MS who say that MS is so stressful sure they've nothing much left in their lives that gives them pleasure but smoke. That's just nicotine addiction.

I only realised how insidious the nicotine addiction is when I gave up - I was thinking things like "I'll never enjoy another meal out without cigarettes" "never enjoy a beautiful bit of scenery" "never be able to cope when upset"....all a load of BS. Just nicotine addiction. If you've out there with MS and a smoker, and are dithering about giving up....do it. It will be the best present you'll ever give yourself.

I used to smoke and even though it would completely paralyse me I just couldn't stop. Then I went onto LDN and gave up easily.
It seems to make a perfect tie in with CCSVI. Paralysis due to vassoconstriction of an already compromised blood drainage from the brain thanks to tobacco.

If anyone out there wants to quit but is having difficulty just bear these things in mind:

100% of the pleasure from smoking comes from relieving the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine (which begin minutes after stubbing out a cigarette). The drug itself is 100% stimulant and it produces no relaxation, no euphoria, no aid in concentration...this is why people who smoke are not more relaxed than non smokers. It is also why those who smoke 40 a day are not twice as relaxed as those who smoke 20. Plus it explains why the first ever cigarette is a let down.... you cannot get the pleasure till you have nicotine withdrawal to ease, and to do that you need to become addicted.

Sure, there is a huge pleasure, but is just the pleasure of returning to the point of relaxation that non smokers experience 24 hours a day! (It's like wearing tight shoes for the pleasure of removing them every hour or so, once they become unbearable).

This is why smoking kills...nature never intended us to smoke tobacco - a substance that does not even stay alight in the natural state.

The white man has only smoked tobacco for 500 years, but the Native Americans smoked for 10.000 years. There are patronising and false versions of history that accuse the natives of smoking nothing but tobacco for all these years, but the truth is there was probably little or no tobacco in the pipe of peace in those days. The Indians mainly chewed ithe stuff. There were no drug laws and they could smoke what they liked. They were very knowledgable about the drugs in whatever locality they lived - far more than we are today- knowledge that was wiped out with them. They had many recipes for pipes, some to stimlulate, some to relax, some medicinal, some to communicate with the gods - each tribe had its own secret recipes and the pipe was a sacred and central part of their way of life. Columbus came from another tribe and in all likelehood he got fobbed of with the tobacco plant...maybe it served us right!

Nicotine does has a great natural purpose that the Indians also used it for - it is easily the world's most poweful natural insecticide - just what the organs within your body, including your skin, love.

People can and do get hooked on drugs that do nothing for you (unless you are hooked on them) - just think of Michael Jackson and painkillers.

gainsbourg

Great, pragmatic explanation Gains.

Allen Carr's "Easyway"
I tried to give up almost daily for years and years. Then I read this book and giving up was suddenly so easy! Honestly, it's amazing..
Incidentally, I gave up a year before my first MS symptoms appeared..