HI there, it's really great that you guys are giving this side to the cigarettes, but the thread started with me asking for advice on what I can do after a toxic reaction to smoking a packet of cigarettes in one day. 4 months later, I am still trying to pick up the pieces.

Don't get me wrong, you have every right to give your view, but I think we get the message <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> However, this does not help me at all. I have a system unable to rid itself properly of toxins and the cigarettes I smoked basically were the last straw for me.

lucky are those with better functioning elimination systems, I am not one of them. The cigarettes I smoked were not just a case of too much, too soon, you don't get 4 months of ongoing suffering from one packet from that alone. Obviously they were not the old style organic ones you speak of, but instead the junk laden ones of today.

If there were any benefits, regardless of toxins, I have not experienced any and still await improvements. It has been a waste of precious time to go through this and one of the worst experiences I have ever had.

I listen to my body, over anybody's advertisement. If cigarettes reacted well with me? Then I'd listen to that, as I enjoy how it feels to smoke, but if I react badly? I heed that also. Either way, my body is the one that has the last word, not someone's ongoing lengthy advertisement type responses set to convince me otherwise. I cannot help how I reacted and that's the reality, I wish it wasn't. I like a smoke too! But unfortunately, the reaction I have does not allow me to become a smoker.

I have tired more than once by the way! Simply becuse i enjoy how it feels, but it is not worth the severe aftereffects that I have to contend with. After this last bout, the idea of doing it again to me would be insane.

Sadly, this has put me off even trying to the possible healthier versions. You guys are going to have to differentuate between the junk cigarettes the old style ones that have been smoked for the 10 thousand years you say they've been smoked for. I very much doubt they were brought up on the supermarket crap ones of today, which harmed me so badly.

You say there are still benefits? wow, if that was the case in my situation, I'd not have suffered like this and for this long. Might be fine for you guys, most people don't have the bizzare backlashes I do from toxic intake. It makes life very frustrating!

And here is something. I asked my father today about his past smoking and why he really gave up. He said to me, that he used to smoke "roll-your-owns" in his youth and didn't notice issues. He then began to smoke a pipe, but ongoing he developed blisters on his lips. He stopped, the blisters cleared, he started, back they came.

Finally he stopped smoking a pipe and in fact, didn't smoke at all. Then, later on in his life, he took up smoking due to high stress situation (my brother nearly died as a kid from hydrocephalis). Well, this time, my father took up the typical junk cigarettes of today. They were there, quick and he smoked them. Well, that's when the problems began. Not at first, over time he started to develop a cough.

But due to the stress, he didn't want to give up smoking, however, the coughing worsened. In the end, he was forced to stop. Each time he tried to start? Back the coughing came and the longer he kept it up, the worse it got. Finally he stopped, the coughing left.

He didn't smoke for many years and oneday, had a go again, the smoking almost immediately returned to the point he tells me it was intolerable and if he wasn't coughing, he was constantly having to clear his throat. But again, as I said, he does not recall having the same issue with the roll your own cigarettes! But he never connected the differences, he just stopped smoking.

I wonder if he had stuck with the roll-your-owns, would he have been ok? That I will never know. He is 75 years of age now, and in excellent health. He does not wish to take up smoking. As far as I'm concerned, that's his decision.

But wanted to pass that info onto you