That was my thought as I waiting in the drive thru line at Dunkin Donuts a few days ago.
The cigarette smoke from the car a head of me was drifting from their open window backward to my car as I waited to be asked my order.
I sat and waited, trying not to inhale . . . much . . . as doing so could send me to the hospital.
I wasn't always this way. I grew up in a house of smokers. Until I was six my mother smoked, Salem. She quit around the time my grandpa, my Dad's father, a smoker, died of lung cancer.
My Dad would smoke for another 7 years. He began smoking at age 13 (1947), and was a hard core smoker by the time his father died. He had a 2 pack a day habit of Pall Mall unfiltered red pack.
He quit when I was 13 because the medication he had been given to combat an infection made him sick when he smoked. So much to my mother's joy, he quit too.
Two years later their oldest daughter, me, began sneaking cigarettes. You would have thought that knowing that I had survived at birth the lung disease now known as "Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome," back then known as Hyaline membrane disease, that 2 years earlier had killed my older brother (1959), I would have a little more respect for my lungs. But no.
I had grown up with the "romanticizing" of the cigarette
It wasn't long before I too developed a 2 pack a day habit. A 17 year old chain smoker. My brand was Benson and Hedges Menthol Lite. The lite cigarette wasn't because I was concerned for the tar I was putting into my system, it was because while I liked the taste of menthol, I didn't like a heavy taste of menthol.
My parents noticed and weren't happy with my smoking. My friends noticed too, and I'm pretty sure my voice teacher noticed (but I don't remember him saying anything, though I am sure he did).
While my usage of cigarettes increased so did my allergies. We already knew that I was allergic to pine, which ended not only having live Christmas trees in the home, but my 8th grade desire to be a forest ranger. But now my hay fever seemed not to be confined to just evergreen. So in the summer of 1980 I went to an allergist to be tested.
I don't know if you can be tested for tobacco allergies now. I know you can't be tested for some food preservatives now. Back in 1980 you could be tested for both. We learned for instance that I am allergic to the preservative Guar Gum.
When the results came back it confirmed, I was allergic to tobacco. And not just a little bit either.
My parents laid down the law. I would be 18 within a few months, if I continued to smoke they would take me off their health insurance. I would be responsible for paying the doctor and hospital bills.
I quit.
That doesn't mean I didn't have cravings, I did and I still do some 32 years later. It didn't mean that never picked up a cigarette again, I did. Whenever I drank and during my divorce. But it never lasted long.
During the years that followed I wasn't a "rabid" former smoker with a tobacco allergy. There were times that I did get a little ticked off, especially at a laundromat when my "clean" clothes were exposed to some one at the next folding table smoking while taking care of their "clean clothes."
Excuse me, I've spent money to clean my clothes, I'd like them to smell that way when I get home.
When I was pregnant with my first child I made my then husband, a smoker at the time, smoke outside. Standing outside in frigid -17F of Denver, CO that winter, just to smoke, gave him the incentive to quit.
As I said I didn't pick up a pack again until we were divorcing, and then for only a few months.
I remarried and we made our home in Massachusetts. At first it was in Western Mass known as "Pioneer Valley" while my new husband finished a Master's degree in Computer Engineering at UMASS Amherst.
That first year I began to be affected by a terrible cough. It was especially bad on days when the pollution of New York City would make it's way north and then just sit in the valley, a toxic porridge. It damaged my lungs just enough to give me asthma, as verified by the Methacholine Challenge Test (or Bronchial challenge test).
Now my allergy to tobacco seemed to become even worse. The allergy combined with my asthma could and did send me to the hospital with an asthma attack just being exposed to cigarette smoke.
Tobacco allergy claims are classic junk science. There is no tobacco smoke antigen. And that this is THE reputable scientific opinion can be deduced from the fact that this information comes from a 28-page article, with 227 references, intended to present the "State of the Art" to professionals, in the American Review of Respiratory Disease, the journal of the American Lung Association. (GT O'Connor et al. The role of allergy and nonspecific airway hyperresponsiveness in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Am Rev Respir Dis 1989;140:225-252).
"Although many human subjects have a positive skin test reaction to or a specific IgE against antigens extracted from tobacco leaf, only a much smaller number display these forms of response to smoke extract."
And:
". . .antigenically cross-reactive material was found in a number of vegetables, including tomatoes and peppers. Skin test reactivity to tobacco smoke or leaf extract does not appear to be correlated with smoking status, so IgE produced in response to other plant antigens may be cross-reacting with tobacco proteins. There is no firm evidence that allergy to tobacco smoke occurs. . . "
- THERE IS NO TOBACCO ALLERGY by By Carol Thompson 08/23/93
Smokers' Rights Action Group
Yeah, sure /sarcasm .. . tell that to the people on the Amtrak train who were forced to wait an hour or two while I and my children were taken off at South Bend, IN and rushed to the hospital because I had an asthma attack triggered by having to walk through the smoke filled club car on the way to the dinning car.
Or my children who can't go over to a friend's house because their parents smoke, and I have had an asthma attack triggered just by handling their clothes.
Or to hotel personnel who have had to change my hotel room because even though it was designated as a non-smoking room, it wasn't cleaned thoroughly and I couldn't stay in it.
Before Massachusetts banned smoking in public facilities I was either imprisoned in my home or had to shop, go to a laundromat, etc. at times when smokers would most likely not be out and about.
It's a hard thing to try and get your head around sometimes, that you are imprisoned in your home because of something that started out as a choice for many people to put into their bodies. Something their bodies didn't need to begin with.
Then you hear the likes of people like Rush Limbaugh spouting off about "smokers rights" to put a legal substance in their body, and how cigarette smoke never killed anyone.
What about my rights? (I'm not even going to the second hand smoke argument here.)
There is precious little on the web about tobacco allergies. I found this question while researching this dairy, it was posted in 2006
I always thought I was allergic to tobacco, because whenever I was around people who were smoking cigarrettes, especially in restaraunts and bars before the law went into effect, I'd start coughing and my sinuses in my nose would close up so that I couldn't even breathe out of my nose.
And then last week, my brother was smoking a cigar, and I got curious and tried a puff of it. The next morning when I woke up, my top lip had swelled up, and it was like that for most of the day. At first, I was trying to figure out what I'd eaten the day before that could have caused it, but as far as I know, I don't have any food allergies and hadn't eaten anything that I'd never eaten before. And then my brother reminded me that I'm allergic to tobacco, so the reaction was probably from having direct contact with a tobacco leaf.
When I looked it up on the internet, it basically came up with a bunch of websites that say tobacco allergies do not exist....
Is anyone here allergic to tobacco or knows anyone who is???
Or this question from 4 years ago
Is it possible to have an allergy to tobacco?
Everytime I smell someone smoking, I get a sore throat, a headache, itchy watery eyes, break out in hives, and I get really really drowsy. I've actually been unconscious twice for 16 hours from being in a smoke filled room.
I've been near the tobacco plant itself and it rubbed against my skin and I developed a rash from it that lasted a good three days. The rash was only in the spot where the plant had rubbed against my arm.
Yet I have read online that it isnt possible to be allergic to tobacco. I clearly have something here.
I am also allergic to mold, grass pollen, and I am suspectible to hay fever.
Some sites do say that tobacco smoke doesn't contain allergens. Which is strange to me for two reasons:
1. I am allergic to tobacco, established.
2. If you burn poisonous plants like poison ivy:
Do not burn plants that may be poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac.
* Inhaling smoke from burning plants can cause severe allergic respiratory problems.
-CDC
Why doesn't tobacco smoke retain allergens like poison ivy when burned?
Most people are well aware of the relationship between tobacco smoke and lung cancer. Tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemical agents, including trace amounts of poisons like formaldehyde, arsenic, DDT and cyanide. Many of these are also potentially cancer causing, and a large number are irritants to the mucus membranes lining of the nose, throat, and lungs. Although tobacco smoke does not contain allergens that trigger an allergic response, people with allergies may be more sensitive to cigarette smoke than other people, and studies show that tobacco smoke worsens allergic responses to other allergens.
- open site
Well if it's not the tobacco itself, it's the chemicals they've put in the tobacco.
Same difference for me really ... the result is the same. I can't breathe/live around tobacco smoke.
Many more may have this allergy and not know it, or be brainwashed by the tobacco lobby and the web information slight of hand
Symptoms of Cigarette Smoke Allergy
Individuals suffering from cigarette smoke allergy may experience an array of different symptoms. Most are mild. Some of these symptoms include:
• Nasal congestion and increased mucus production in the lungs and throat
• Coughing, and soreness of throat
• Hoarseness of voice
• Burning, watery, or irritated eyes.
• Shortness of breath and other breathing complications.
more information can be found here and here (you may have to type in "tobacco" in the search window and then scroll down to "tobacco allergies")
For me, the most welcome sight I see on businesses, restaurants and hotel rooms is this.
