Covid and Pipe Smoking

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John_B

Might Stick Around
May 11, 2023
92
286
So last weekend my partner and my daughter both tested positive for Covid. I thought I'd dodged the bullet for a couple of days but I succumbed as well. I have decided to keep smoking my customary evening pipe as so far I have remained less affected, having had a recent booster jab. My sense of taste was partly affected yesterday, but today is a better day. I smoked some Capstan Blue last night and tonights pipe du jour is going to be Kriswill Classic Navy. I'm hoping the added Perique helps me focus on the taste as I seem to have no problem with sour and sweet fruity flavours. What has been your experience of smoking with covid ? Did you take a break or muscle through it ?
 

EchoPlex

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 9, 2023
136
965
I had Covid a couple weeks ago and it obliterated my olfactory (anosmia). Smell/taste are slowly returning, but cigars and pipe tobacco taste terrible. It is really depressing. I'm currently doing "smell training" and taking some supplements which have show some anecdotal promise in helping to heal those cells, but I think it may be a long time before tobacco tastes good, and it may just never be the same for me. Let us know how things go with your experiences.
 

nathaniel

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 4, 2011
791
509
Either go by CDC recommendations altogether or don't. They either know what's best or they don't.

People get boosted because the CDC told them its dangerous not to. Have you read what they've said about smoking (regardless of covid)?
 
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John_B

Might Stick Around
May 11, 2023
92
286
Thanks for the quick replies and good wishes. I am almost asymptomatic and have had far worse colds. It is my second bout of Covid and despite being careful it has come from my daughters Infant School. I also smoke to relax, so will try again tonight. I will report here afterwards.
 

sardonicus87

Lifer
Jun 28, 2022
1,361
14,037
37
Lower Alabama
It's hard to say. I thought I caught COVID about a month ago because my wife had it, which is odd because not only do I rarely get sick, for some reason my wife never catches anything I get and I never catch anything she gets (we theorize I am an alien). Turned out I just had a 24 hour stomach bug coincidentally at the same time as an uptick in hay fever and coincidentally around 7 days after I got exposed to her. And my taste was only briefly off due to stomach contents becoming nose contents.

Anyway, not everyone's affected the same way. If you smoke and it tastes bad, then don't smoke anymore until you're done; if everything tastes OK or you get something that does taste fine, have at it?

Like others replying before me, I smoke for flavor and relaxation. Personally, if the flavor isn't there, I am not smoking the pipe, I'll just stick to the cigarettes for my nicotine addiction. If you smoke a pipe for nicotine and it tastes like crap, maybe lay off and use nicotine patches for a while. I bought a whole box of 21mg patches back when we travelled a lot and flew since Atlanta is one of the only airports left with a fishbowl, because there were long periods I couldn't have a cigarette. The craving will be there still, but the patches help to ease it a bit.

It's all a personal choice, only you can make that call.
 
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quietlife

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 24, 2022
112
1,558
California
A required test told me I had covid once a couple years ago, I didn't change a thing. Still smoked a couple times a day. Taste and smell were as affected as they would be with any other cold. No jab here either and haven't caught it since. Keep smoking to relax and relieve stress! Maybe aim for a cool burning tobacco?!
Hope all gets well!
 

John_B

Might Stick Around
May 11, 2023
92
286
It's hard to say. I thought I caught COVID about a month ago because my wife had it, which is odd because not only do I rarely get sick, for some reason my wife never catches anything I get and I never catch anything she gets (we theorize I am an alien). Turned out I just had a 24 hour stomach bug coincidentally at the same time as an uptick in hay fever and coincidentally around 7 days after I got exposed to her. And my taste was only briefly off due to stomach contents becoming nose contents.

Anyway, not everyone's affected the same way. If you smoke and it tastes bad, then don't smoke anymore until you're done; if everything tastes OK or you get something that does taste fine, have at it?

Like others replying before me, I smoke for flavor and relaxation. Personally, if the flavor isn't there, I am not smoking the pipe, I'll just stick to the cigarettes for my nicotine addiction. If you smoke a pipe for nicotine and it tastes like crap, maybe lay off and use nicotine patches for a while. I bought a whole box of 21mg patches back when we travelled a lot and flew since Atlanta is one of the only airports left with a fishbowl, because there were long periods I couldn't have a cigarette. The craving will be there still, but the patches help to ease it a bit.

It's all a personal choice, only you can make that call.
I gave up cigarettes about 6 years ago. I also smoke for taste and although I have a fair tolerance for nicotine, that is not the primary reason why I like a pipe. Now off to the smoking lounge (shed) so I will hopefully have an hour (ish) of me time and hopefully be able to taste. No cough and airways clear, so retrohaling should bring out some flavour.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,627
I don't smoke through health issues on the basis that nicotine constricts capillaries (the smallest blood vessels) and could impede healing. For a while, I wondered if nicotine or another aspect of pipe smoke warded off the virus, but I wouldn't try to sell that idea to anyone else.

Between my wife and I, we have a long list of vulnerabilities so we do the shots and hope for the best. Though I have heard from one of the medical elders who developed the vaccines and said she didn't take them, specifically the flu shot.

In the Navy, I got inoculated so many times for diseases common and rare, being alarmed about taking vaccines seems incongruous for me. Everyone goes by their lived experience.

On one day in basic training, the Company Commander (like drill instructor) started passing out sugar cubes, thinking they were rewards for getting yet another shot. A corpsman quietly advised him that those were the sugar cubes used to give the polio vaccine orally. Oops.
 

John_B

Might Stick Around
May 11, 2023
92
286
Well I'm about 10 minutes in and I have chosen Kriswill blue because it is a cool smoking blend with plenty flavour going on. Don't want to fry my tongue chasing after taste. It is in a falcon and so far I can taste the sweetness of the Virginia, but no zing from Perique on retrohale. Ironically I can smell some of the room note. I guess I'm getting about 60% of the usual experience. Not an entirely wasted exercise, but more of a scientific analysis of how I am affected.
 

Lucashly

Can't Leave
Jun 21, 2023
382
338
California
Well I'm about 10 minutes in and I have chosen Kriswill blue because it is a cool smoking blend with plenty flavour going on. Don't want to fry my tongue chasing after taste. It is in a falcon and so far I can taste the sweetness of the Virginia, but no zing from Perique on retrohale. Ironically I can smell some of the room note. I guess I'm getting about 60% of the usual experience. Not an entirely wasted exercise, but more of a scientific analysis of how I am affected.
Covid infections are not unlike any other URI. It typically affects taste not just tobacco but food in general. This not unique to Covid.
 

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
10,683
37,473
SE WI
So last weekend my partner and my daughter both tested positive for Covid. I thought I'd dodged the bullet for a couple of days but I succumbed as well. I have decided to keep smoking my customary evening pipe as so far I have remained less affected, having had a recent booster jab. My sense of taste was partly affected yesterday, but today is a better day. I smoked some Capstan Blue last night and tonights pipe du jour is going to be Kriswill Classic Navy. I'm hoping the added Perique helps me focus on the taste as I seem to have no problem with sour and sweet fruity flavours. What has been your experience of smoking with covid ? Did you take a break or muscle through it ?
For me it was like a slight head cold. I powered through it, smoking as often as I wanted!
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,338
Humansville Missouri
I’ve got all my vaccines and if I’ve had Covid it was asymptomatic.

We have about 18,000 people in our county:

—-

  • Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 4,403 cases have been reported.
  • Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 265 residents have died of Covid-19, a total of 61 reported deaths.
——

When vaccines became available we had 22 deaths.

Since then 100% of deaths were unvaccinated but we only have a 34% vaccination rate..

Others can do what they like but I’m too damned scared of dying on a ventilator like over sixty of my friends have to not get boosted.

I’m getting all the other shots they offer too, like flu, shingles, and RSV.

If they had RSV when I was a kid they didn’t talk about it any.:)

I wonder if RSV was the whooping cough?
 
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woodsroad

Lifer
Oct 10, 2013
12,760
20,643
SE PA USA
So last weekend my partner and my daughter both tested positive for Covid. I thought I'd dodged the bullet for a couple of days but I succumbed as well. I have decided to keep smoking my customary evening pipe as so far I have remained less affected, having had a recent booster jab. My sense of taste was partly affected yesterday, but today is a better day. I smoked some Capstan Blue last night and tonights pipe du jour is going to be Kriswill Classic Navy. I'm hoping the added Perique helps me focus on the taste as I seem to have no problem with sour and sweet fruity flavours. What has been your experience of smoking with covid ? Did you take a break or muscle through it ?
I am now on my third COVID adventure. Each time, I abstained from the pipe until I was completely recovered. Not a big deal. Be kind to yourself.
 
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