def·i·ni·tion

DAY 25 ~ I’ve done some more reading. The more I read, the more disturbed I’m getting. Here is the most direct expression of the issue I’ve found on the matter:

“Tobacco smoke is toxic but also anti-inflammatory. Paradoxically tobacco smoke contains hundreds of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals that produce inflammatory reactions and numerous degenerative diseases, but it also contains nicotine that is anti-inflammatory. Smokers assault their bodies, but moderate and obscure the inflammatory degeneration and disease, until they stop the nicotine exposure” ~ (From a post in a forum at mindandmuscle.com)

I started describing the nicotine fit even back in high school as that it’s like having “itchy veins”. That was thirty years ago. I can’t help but wonder what are the implications of misidentifying chronic inflammation for this long? Where might I be at in whatever this process leads to?

If cigarettes are ironically treating the condition they are also contributing to… what might the medical consequences be when I finally remove them from the mix – especially now that it is so much “later in the game”?

I’m worried, but much more than that… I’m angry. Everything could have been so very different – if I had known it was such a treatable condition all along.

Wow.