My wife is asthmatic. She was before I took copious snuff and she is now that I do. I used to be asthmatic as a boy until I took to smoking, when it went away. Someone at work is asthmatic. She coughs a lot, and I sometimes wonder if my snuff taker’s dust cloud is affecting her. I have taken to offering her cough sweets, and this seems to shut her up. Anyone have any similar experiences with asthmatics? Has anyone considered that taking snuff or tobacco might be some kind of cure for these conditions, however ‘incorrect’ it might be to suggest this?
I have asthma, but smoking and snuffing don’t seem to have any effect, it’s mainly allergy related. One time I was sawing a piece of bone for a knife handle, and the dust put me in hospital, so I guess I should avoid any bone flavored snuffs…
You may wish to ask your co-worker if she has an allergy to tobacco, and if so, avoid snuffing near her. I used to read a lot of medical journals as part of my job, and everything I’ve read on the subject agrees with what doctorbeat said: asthma is nearly always related to allergies. If your co-worker does not have a specific allergy to tobacco, the small amount of dust from your snuffbox shouldn’t affect her, I wouldn’t think. However, I’m not a medical professional, so don’t take my word for it.
I think I will have to do that. I’m not in really close proximity. But if snuff is what is setting her off…I talked to her about it today . She says it’s seasonal and she coughs at night. I don’t think this can be coming from the minute traces of snuff from me. Or perhaps there’s a cloud of the stuff around me the whole time. Personally I used to get the sneezes a lot before snuff, but almost never now.
My 17 year old daughter has asthma. She spends a lot of time close to me and my snuffing has never set her off. It doesn’t even bother her when she partakes, outside of a huge sneezing fit. My pipe smoke doesn’t bother her either, although she does complain about the smell of some of the English blends I’ve tried. Cigarette smoke it heavy concentration will give her problems, but less so than a strong candle or perfume.
try not snuffing around the person in question for a few days. see if it makes a noticable diffrence take notes see if there is any correlation. Would at least answer your question. Or you could just dump a tin of snuff on her head and see if you get arrested for assualt. (don’t waste snuff like that o.k…_)
my god.
Bob…might take the direct approach and offer her a pinch. That might be contrued as harassment. (‘Would you care for pinch?’)
Asthma is horrible. Few things worse than a night ruined by wheezing sneezing and coughing. Folk remedies abound and are not much good. I feel very sorry for my wife. She gets it, like a lot of people in the UK, at the changing of the seasons, the cold air coming now. Caffeine is said to be effective. Perhaps nicotine, the marvelous stimulant, might help. Anyone know anything about nicotine pastels etc? Maybe it’s worth trying. I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole myself.
‘pastilles’ I should say apparently
I remember reading a few years ago that nicotine paralyses the histamine nerves (or something like that) and this is why tobacco users suffer less from allergies. The following is a piece from a 2009 report which sheds a little light on the subject. “A leading expert in the field of respiratory medicine demonstrates that cigarette smoke decreases the allergic response by inhibiting the activity of mast cells, the major players in the immune system’s response to allergens. Researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that treatment of mast cells with a cigarette smoke-infused solution prevented the release of inflammation-inducing proteins in response to allergens, without affecting other mast cell immune functions.” Science Daily writes on the subject of the new study.
What is a snuff taker’s dust cloud? And, are you seriously proposing second hand snuff? I think we have to go back to the beginning, fellow snuffer, to Snuffing 101, the Basics. Let’s begin with a very basic rule, Rule #1: you shouldn’t look like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown, when snuffing.
@minux thats what i was getting at by typing my god … second hand snuff not to mention the thirdhand snuff thats left after the person leaves the room it gets into the carpet . curtains . etc
minux. I’m fusty and dusty. when the brightly coloured hankie comes out, what flourishes is dust that was once up my nose. You sound like a very tidy individual…In the 18th century , I’d surmise, all but the the dandies were quite snufty dusty people. As for Rule #1, I’m sorry to say I see no reason whatever to observe it. Sounds like too heavy potty training. LOL.
Mr Toque to the rescue again. Tends to confirm my conjecture, based to some extent on my experience. I’ll read this up. From reading books written in the 18th and 19th centuries I seem to recall many descriptions of clothing and persons covered with snuff. Isn’t there a story to the effect that the Prince variety was developed so as not to be visible on that personage’s dark clothing? Some people seem to be very fastidious about their usage. Not, like the good old days. You’ll find it all in Dickens and Fielding and Sterne and Smollet and Thackaray and perhaps Trollope.
back on track Found the following by googling ‘Nicotine as an anti-allergine’ there’s plenty there: 'To ascertain the effects of nicotine on allergy/asthma, Brown Norway rats were treated with nicotine and sensitized and challenged with allergens. The results unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: etc ’
snuff has an additional effect to. Which is that since it triggers the allergic reaction it also burns out the mast cells before they can regroup. Which might explain in part why you get less clogged and sneezy the longer you snuff.
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/180/11/7655.short. Bob I am sorry to say that my knowledge of cell chemistry is non-existant. This article strongly suggests that nicotine might reduce the allergic reactions in asthma. My wife’s body is a temple to her. She does not want to put anything addictive etc into it. Hence my wish to find a suitable nicotine sweety/candy. If this rescued her from some of the misery she sometimes suffers at night, that would be a good thing.
I am asthmatic and it has no untoward effect on me. I can’t see how it could affect your coworker unless you were slinging pinches at her face.
I just figured that if people can be allergic to tiny dust louse particles etc, then, tiny wafts of snuff might affect someone with that allergy. But from all this it seems that I would also be providing tiny doses of a potential remedy.
Aleister Crowley had a serious case of asthma (in fact, that’s how he got hooked on morphine, because a quack doctor prescribed it as an asthma cure). Nevertheless, he climbed Mount Everest, and smoked pipe after pipe of pure Perique soaked in rum. I partially agree with Vathek – some people are just whiners. However, some people do have life-threatening cases of allergies and/or asthma – I have more than one friend who has required an emergency trip to the hospital because their airways closed up. Simple answers are for simple minds.
Morphine for asthma is not so silly. Opiates are a recognised antitussive. Not recommended for frequent use though. I tend to agree that smokers as a group, and from my own work experience, have been the people who get things done, share useful information, and if such a test were possible, would probably be shown to be more productive. However the Whinge allegation for asthma sufferers, is, I am sorry to say almost as misplaced, and objectionable, as as the Chesterton poem quoted in the tea thread. Vathek, it is possible that if you stopped using nicotine completely you might yourself fall victim to asthma, as is suggested in the article linked above. Surely even we nicotine users have on occasion fallen victim to an embarrassing coughing or sneezing fit which we could not immediately cease?
Morphine for asthma is very silly because anti-tussives stop you coughing, and that is a bad thing for asthma. I, unfortunately, aquired lots of injuries in the police and take morphine daily and writ large on the leaflet in every box is the warning that it may make asthma worse. That’s the medico/legal advice anyway. Can’t say I’ve ever had an issue with it. @Vahtek - “There used to be some tiresome person I worked with who whinged about his asthma whenever I smoked in my office. I ignored him, of course.” Absolutely splendid!! I have had asthma for years and have doggedly taken every form of tobacco I can find. My wife has just been diagnosed with mild asthma - which she makes a song and dance about - and whines if she so much as gets a sight of me smoking my pipe. I, of course, tell her to get over herself - rather in your excellent fashion.
Morphine is great for asthama it’s just not such a good long term remedy because it’s addictive and the relaxation on the whole airway reverses when you stop taking it so it makes your asthama worse. Which as anyone who knows anything about morhpine can tell you that equals an addiction. Anyone who knows anything about asthama especialy severe asthama (which is a very really medical condition and is a potentialy very serious one too) knows that given a choice between dying from suffacation a morhpine addiction supplied by a legitamate doctor is the better choice. When crowley was alive morphine was just starting to lose it’s title of GOM (gods own medicine) because it treated many things that before were untreatable. Now it’s not so popular for it’s many legitamate medical uses because well we have a lot of things which we consider the sideeffects much more benign. For instance with asthama we have drugs that pretty much only effect the constricted breathing tubes.
If I was asthamatic I’d definatly whinge about smokers in the office. Even if it didn’t immediatily effect me the combination of increased phlegm production caused by the smoke when combined with the latter constrictions of the bronhis and such can make the whole experience much worse. Then again how asthmatic are these people too? If not too severely then their whingers (is that right my brit friends?) who rightly don’t like smoke but don’t have the bollucks to say so with out their asthama excuse.
I think Bob is on the right track with cell chemistry - where he knows more than I . As for for the whinge factor that is just psuedo scientific psycho babble which became popular years ago. The cause of asthma, as I suppose, should be reducible first to chemistry and then to physics, If we are that lucky. I think Vathek’s contribution to this discussion is mainly rubbish. His contribution to the tea discussion, in the Chesterton poem, for those who can read, is nasty rubbish. Take a look at the yellow mandarin (tea), and the description of chocolate (people, he means). Chersterton is dishing Blacks and Asians, because they were not Catholics as he was and were not known to be perpetually drunk- as he was. He is writing off the greater part of the human race, because he thought he was superior in some theological sense. Part of the Chesterbelloc ‘mystique’ was that booze is excellent. I’ve no particular argument with that - but to make it an article of faith is daft. (By the way, several of Belloc’s novels are not much in circulation these days. They are just too full of Jew baiting to be printable, (I’ve read one or two of these, and I wouldn’t recommend them). The ‘Pull yourself together’ approach is usually pretty nasty and useless. The action of chemistry in cells appears to be a fruitful avenue. Thanks for all those who contributed… Have enjoyed this discussion.
I bet the moisture content could be a factor; more moisture= less dust. I seriously doubt that your coworker could be breathing in enough snuff to cause an allergic reaction though. I should point out here that ‘doctorbeat’ is a joke about my surname, I am not actually a doctor…
People make too much of the Chesteron as drunkard bit. Sure he wrote about alcohol approvingly, but he certainly never encouraged anyone to be “perpetually drunk.” A good bit of this was rhetorical to make a distinction between what he saw as the wholesome view of life’s pleasures and the puritanical teetotalism that was prevalent in his day. Chesterton explains his position on alcohol as a good thing in moderation quite well in the essay “Wine When It is Red” which can be found here: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/gkc16028.htm As for the rest, Chesterton was a bit of a bigot. I’ll not attempt to excuse his behavior in this area, other than to observe that his views were not much different than those of the majority of his generation and time. Much the same could, and has, been said about Rudyard Kipling, whose writings I also enjoy, despite disagreeing with him on many subjects. When you get down to it, most writers and artists have objectionable character flaws, and limiting one’s reading to author’s who are “good people” or ideologically pure, would be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face–which would be a problem, because then where would the snuff go :)?
Not at all like Kipling. This is apparent when he is read. Kim for example does not show all Indians as in some way hopelessly wicked, does it? I would refer you to verses quoted in the tea thread. What are we REALLY to make of these? Are they decently quotable? I would then refer you to Kiplings ‘Road to Mandalay’ - well worth a read. I believe that you will see at once that Kipling had a heart when it came to ‘foreigners’ and human relationships in general. I’m not at all espousing ideological purity, or ‘correctness’, which I detest. I am to some extent grateful to Vathek for giving me the opportunity to re-evaluate my opinion of Chesterton. I’d put no barrier to this. I am sorry to say that it is Chesterton who is suffering from a sense of ideological purity. So much so that in these verses he can show that he despises most of the rest of the human race. This is not a minor flaw in his character such as may be found in other famous writers. I spoke of Belloc’s novels. Some of these are unprintable. The excuse of these people, in so far as they may be excused, is that they wrote most of their poisonous drivel before the time of the gas chambers.
Morphine was one of only a handful of compounds available to doctors in the 19th century (and before, in different guises) and thats why it became GOM - because it had a noticeable and genuine effect where the rest of their pharmacopea was largely inert. Oddly enough, I was reading some Victorian remedies last night and they seemed to have been largely based on opening the bowels or causing vomiting. Morphine - due to its obvious properties - at least masked symptoms in an opiate haze. Addiction is the unavoidable result of long term use and I was told with my first prescription that it would happen to me, but thats life. Coming back to the original point: asthma, of course, is a serious illness in its severe form and for some people even certain aromas can set off a dangerous attack in the same way a microscopic bit of peanut can kill someone with a severe allergy, but a cough sweet won’t stop an attack and if it does shut her up I would suggest her wheezing is tactical rather than physical. Can tobacco cure things? I doubt it, but it certainly makes some conditions easier to deal with. I have met very few psych patients (and I have met a lot) who don’t use tobacco and it seems to have a genuine calmative effect. It certainly makes chronic pain easier to cope with. Lets get back to snuff please.
I like snuff. I’m having some now. Quite stimulating isn’t it. Thanks for your thoughts guys!!
Me too. Very stimulating.
must admit i have had a few beers … but reading this ( blurrying new word maybe ? ) is why i love snuffhouse …
Vathek…I’m not going after that rabbit! Micheltn - thanks. Another avenue.