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I woke up this morning at 5.00 am feeling absolutely lousy. My throat was so sore I could barely swallow, my head was throbbing and I had earache. I started to cough and boy was that painful. I got up and took some paracetamels then curled back up into my warm bed.

Suddenly I smiled when I realised that my symptoms weren’t caused by smoking too much as they might have been previously and that today I was celebrating 6 months without tobacco after a 40 year long addiction. I thought that now at least without cigarettes my sore throat and cough wouldn’t be worsened and prolonged by smoking.

For those of you who haven’t read my stop smoking diary I threw out the tobacco cigarettes on May 19th 2009 and replaced them with a menthol flavoured electronic cigarette. Apart from a couple of weeks using patches I have mainly used the e-cig to help me to quit smoking.

I’ve had a lot of fun with my electric cigarette over the months, but I’m sorry to have to disappoint you cynics out there who think that you are just replacing one addiction with another – I’ve quit e-cigs too! Yes I was initially replacing one addiction with another, just as I would have done if I’d stopped totally with nicotine patches, but after a few weeks I didn’t feel as addicted to the ecigs as I had previously felt to tobacco cigarettes if that makes sense.

What has happened is that I used the substitutions for as long as I wanted and without setting a time limit. I had days at a time without using the substitutes but carried them about with me. Then I stopped carrying them around and for nearly 4 weeks have been substitute free.

I haven’t had any withdrawal symptoms at all and haven’t been tempted when I’ve been around smokers. There has been the odd time that the smell of smokers wafting by has been noticable and instead of tempting me it’s been off putting and I’m glad that I don’t smell like that any more.

My total savings now taking into account the cost of patches and e-cigs is now at least £550. I’ve already used the savings to put towards a new Sony Viao laptop, it looks a lot better than a stack of cigarette packets that I would have gone through doesn’t it? I haven’t decided what I’m going to treat myself next with saved cigarette money, maybe even put it towards a holiday.

To view the rest of my giving up smoking diary click here

P.S. My illness was a throat infection – sods law that I get my first one ever 6 months after punishing my throat with tobacco cigarettes