If you think about it, about 30 years ago many people smoked. The quitting campaign was chugging along. So I would think it would be hard to document a solid correlation between smoking and RA.

To answer your question, I started smoking somewhere in high school. I quit after about 25 years of smoking, in 1985. I was diagnosed with RA in 1992. So this would fit your scenario, Oceans.

But I know specifically what the trigger was in my case. It was a strep infection. I had gone back to the east coast in 1992 for a quick visit with my family in the dead of winter. While there my brother and I both caught a nasty strep infection that would lead to bronchitis and, in my case, lead to walking pneumonia. About 6 months later I had joint issues and was diagnosed with RA [in California]. Ironically, my brother had also developed joint issues several months later and would also be diagnosed with RA [by a rheumatologist on the east coast]. No, he never smoked in his life.

It's funny you mentioned a strep infection. I truly believe my immunte system issued (RA) started years before any of the "classic RA symptoms" for joints took place.

In 2003 I remember having a bad flu/walking pnemonia, went home had a major fever, prior to then I can't remember when I actually had a fever accept when I was a young kid?

As I was getting over this I was left with a weird cough, that I still have to this day! I also lost 30lbs!! I was eating but couldn't keep food down because I was coughing & gagging so much! I had joint pain but much different than what I experienced when first diagnosed with RA, it felt more nerve related. I remember sitting in a warm bath that felt like it gave me relief!

Well, all that took about 6 months to finally get over, plus add a little weight as I was able to control my gagging but was still having coughing fits. So the weight came back very slowly. When I first started reading about RA I read about, "Fever, feeling of mailaise, sudden weight loss", I said, "OMG, that was me but 10 years ago"!?

Maybe it was related maybe not, who knows now. But at least I quit smoking!

I started smoking when I was 17 years old, quit in 2008. I am now 63. There is not any one thing that happened that triggered my RA. Rather, if I look back, I had many signs indicating some type of autoimmune issue, but way back in those days it just didn't occur to anyone.
I did have a very easy time quitting smoking! I had swelling in my lungs and felt like I couldn't breathe. Docs ran many tests, including the Rhumatoid Factor test, but I am seronegative and it was three more years before I got a diagnosis. By 2011, I couldn't even dress myself. Doing much better these days!
Lynne

If walking pneumonia is a precursor to RA then I am in! I had it many times. I somehow always managed to push my Type A person out the door to work, to kids sports, to clean house. Always an xray is where it showed up. One son was the same, although he was 6, and is now 35 and still no RA, thank goodness.

As for smoking, I have never smoked. I am allergic to it, hate it, detest it and I have made many trips to the ER for asthma because someone was someone was smoking near me. I even still have a carbon filtered mask, in case someone is smoking outdoors. It still bothers me that much. My parents did not smoke, also hating it as much as me. My father dissected cadaevers from smokers and non-smokers. The non-smokers' lungs were pink, full and vibrant. The smokers' lungs were black, hard and shrunken. Not much of a decision when you hear stuff like that. Besides, I was a rebel, and all my friends smoked, so I had to rebel against them!

However, I did play in bars for 5 or 6 years, in the smoke filled years. And also arena were really bad. I started lobbying against that, also because my kids had asthma, and it made it hard for them to play hockey. I was successful, and this was back in the late 1980s. Hard to believe the right to breath clean air was something that had to be fought and lobbied for, only 25 years ago. In Canada, anyway!

Hmm, I also had strep a time or two, which I was too busy to deal with. So many factors, it is hard to say what triggered my RA. Although I still favour the allergy shot theory.

i'm not interested in what triggered it - no ruminations - no theories on my part. had two aunts with it. their treatment consisted of pred. everyone has something. this is my something. had streps since birth. allergy shots in grammar school saved my grammar school career. non smoker. bad lungs, irrespective. can't breath around anyone's smoke first hand second hand or three miles away. congrats to all of you for beating the sticks. ra is livable. lung cancer is more of a challenge. just finished reading the recent best seller "breath like air" Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi missive written while dying from lung cancer at 35 - after reading atul gawande's "being mortal" (think I am stuck in a death mode reading wise).

depot

I guess part of me wants to know what triggered it because if it can be "turned on" like a light switch then "in theory" you SHOULD be able to turn it off. Or in some cases that light switch may not be just one switch, could be a dozen?

Wishful thinking I guess.

I also think, from what I have read, that the RA genes (multiple) do not have an "off" switch. So regardless of what turns it on, at this point in medical history, nothing is going to turn it off.

However, I have heard that some research is focusing on this. I'll go anywhere to be a test subject, as long as I am not in the control group. Placebo effect won't work on me.

Let me ask.....

Marlene, is it possible you had strep?

If not, then maybe it's walking pneumonia that's the gatekeeper/catalyst.

I am an ex smoker. I started smoking my first year in college (1986). Smoked till I got pregnant (1996) and quit. Then from 1996 smoked here and there. Seems like when something bad happened I would smoke for about a year and quit. Last quit January 2016.
I have no idea concerning my RA, my luck smoking. My grandmother had swollen hands but as far as I know not diagnosed with RA. No recollection of strep or pneumonia. I was diagnosed in 2014, but I feel that it was present in 2010 just went through so many other test and pain pills till 2014 visit with an RA.

I agree. Far too many people used to smoke to make any connection.

BUT, I also smoked from 17 - 27 (1972). Diagnosed with RA 1983

I smoked for 25 years, until 1989. I had a bunch of strange things happen, health-wise, in the next couple of years. I developed allergies, was diagnosed with plantar fascitis, that would supposedly go away in 6 weeks, but 6 months later, I was feeling someing similar up to my knees, And, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, though I'm sure that diagnosis was wrong. It was similar to RA in scope and intensity, but it was muscular. My theeory was that it was something to do with connective tissue, specifically fascia, which surrounds muscle fibers, fiber bundles and muscle groups. I was diagnosed with sero-negative RA in 2001 and sero-positive RA in 2005.

I think smoking affected the severity of my RA at onset, but stress was my trigger. Maybe RA saved me, but forcing me to quit working, basically do nothing for a while. Lots of anxiety about not having an income, but lots of time to meditate and medicate.

No, we are NOT going to start smoking again!

@buddha

"lots of time to meditate and medicate"

that's precious. :)

Depot

Lit my first Winston the Summer of 1971. My cousin and I walked up to the neighborhood store that had a poster in the window advertising a pac for thirty five cents. I remember it so well because we had exactly thirty five cents so when the two cent sales tax was added we didn't have enough and had to walk all the way back home and get two pennies. Went to the creek, fished, smoked the whole pac and got sick as dogs. This was in central Kentucky and I was ten. Didn't start regularly until I was 16. One pac per day still to this day. First dramatic flare which drove me to the doctor and a diagnosis in February, 2016. Should I quit? Yes. Am I going to? Doubtful. Early this fall had a quart of fluid drained from the right lung, tested every which way, no nothing in the fluid just caused by the RA. Pulmonologist, RA and GP all said the same thing because I asked them directly.....paraphrasing the three of them....."Smoking isn't helping you but after all the xrays, the tests on the fluid, I have to say your lungs are actually in pretty dog gone good shape. No, the smoking isn't going to kill you because the RA will get you long before it will".

We're all different. It's a smelly, dirty addiction and if you don't smoke then don't start. If you do I suggest that you quit buying those per-packaged cigs because they are pre-treated with chemicals to make them go out as well as with more nicotine and goodness knows what else. Get yourself a little machine that "stuffs" pipe tobacco into empty tubes with filters already attached (RYO stuff at any tobacco shop)....about one quarter the price (in AL) and way less chemicals because pipe tobacco isn't treated the same as cig tobacco.

I smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day for 20 years. I had a bad asthma attack. It knocked sense in my head. I quit the first time using Nicorette. Hardest thing I ever did. Have never had another drag since.

If I can do it, anyone can.