dad smoking / me getting ill

[mollykins]

Could my dad smoking have affected the amount of chest infections I got?

As a small child, up to about 9 or 10, dad used to smoke heavily, and almsot always in the house and I was always getting really bad chest infections that lasted two or three weeks.

After that he still smoked around me if I was outside and I got fewer and fewer coughs.

Since he's quit, I've had hardly any and they've not been too bad.

Is it a coincidence, and my immune system is getting better, or is it to do with the smoking?

[danchip]

its to do with your dad smoking

[redcrx]

you may just be prone to chest infections anyway (as you say you still get them), though your dads smoking would have made them worse and last longer.

[mollykins]

Plus thinking about it, I've had just as many colds and only one or two of them developed into chest infections, rather than most of them . . .

[hc4361]

Yes.
Children and babies who live in a home where there is a smoker:

* Are more prone to asthma and ear, nose and chest infections.

http://www.patient.co...Smoking-The-Facts.htm

[mollykins]

Plus i've got asthma, but a lot of people (from my mum's family I should add) have it.

[Sqad]

hc4361 is correct............but also remember that you have a congenital abnormality with an A-V shunt and this will predispose you to more upper respiratory infections.

[mollykins]

Well I never knew my shunt was making me worse, thanks for that squad.

[annie0000]

Sometimes you can just be more prone to them - my younger son will almost always get a chest infection when he gets a bad cold but my elder son has never had one. They have never been around smokers. When they were about school age, one of them thought that someones finger was on fire, I think that was about the first time they had ever really seen someone smoking.

[jaydah]

You're mixing with kids in school where infections are rife and easily passed; you're colds could infect your dad whose lungs are at risk due to his smoking.

Keep your distance of smokers when youre infectious......we wont take offence :)

[craft1948]

Blame your dad Molly......you seem to blame him for everything else.

[ummmm]

I was brought up in a pub...........My Grandad smoked 80 a day. I've never even had a cold.

[ChuckFickens]

That's not really fair, craft!

Molly's mum gets blamed for the occasional thing.

[mollykins]

Craft I'm only asking my mum first thought the correlation up.