How Do You Evaluate The Risk?

[Pipercat]

For me, weight is a big factor in acid reflux. I know my limit, and take steps to loose weight when I start to get close (235ish). Goes away once I loose some. Just walking can help, any kind of regular exercise is good, especially lunting (smoking while walking) I hope you are able to figure out a solution, stomach issues are not fun.

 

[warren]

If you aren't willing to listen to your body or seek proper medical advice, just suck it up and live with the discomfort. Only advice I can think of. Just revel in the self-flagellation, enjoy the various discomforts. I repeat myself, decisions/behaviors have consequences, accept such and continue to spend your discretionary moneys on something which discomforts you.

Just curious, do you engage in other masochistic behavior?

 

[JOHN72]

The risk is always there. It's a tightrope without a harness. We also eat food with pesticides, contaminated water, and a long list of other risks. My homemade formula. Vitamin C, Kefir, sometimes probiotics from the pharmacy, and physical exercise, cardio and weights. Mediterranean diet. I am doing well. It's the only thing I can do, the rest I leave to my genetics, and to the destiny I have written.

 

[anotherbob]

honestly go search out the research. Generally like every single thing in the world it's not 100% safe but the data is out there. And my take on the data is that heavy pipe smoking like the sucker never leaves your mouth is about as dangerous as casual cigarette smoking. I.e. smoking less then a pack a week.
It is certainly safer then cigs. In fact all tobacco is safer then cigs excepting Pan Masala which is insanely carcinogenic because it also has betel nut. But at the end of the day it is addictive and no matter how safe something is it will have a chance of being the thing that effects your system.
Also one thing people never seem to mention is the broken pipe when one of the people in our hobby passes on. And honestly the pattern of mortality and morbidity seems about the same as non smokers and doesn't seem to show any increase in any particular type of death or disease. Where if you look at cig smokers who have passed there are patterns that are incredible clear and hard to dispute. Lung cancer for example happens but isn't common but among smokers and people who work with asbestos it suddenly is.
Not saying it's safe or harm free but it's certainly not the killer and destroyer of health that cigarettes are.

 

[BCF]

 

[VDL_Piper]

Risk phtttt. If I wake up and take a breath its a good day, everything after that is risk!

 

[warren]

One can reduce one's risk though. Weigh the risk against the possible benefit. It's easy. One doesn't knowingly step of a curb into the path of a bus. Or, eat contaminated food. It's simply "risk management." Some do it. Others? Well smokers, by definition, are risk takers. Pipe smokers like to think they are taking "smart" risks.

 

[kcghost]

I've been smoking for 50 years and hang out in a smoke shop for 35 years. How much risk is that?? Not much says I and so do the health statistics. We live as long as non-smokers.

 

[jbfrady]

I have odd thoughts here, and these are only my opinion...

Snuff tubes and pipes have been found archaeologically dating back 10,000+ years. Because the odds that we found the first pipe and snuff tube ever made by man run roughly 0.0%, we may ascertain that humans have been using tobacco for tens of thousands of years. Because it's been so graciously perpetuated generation after generation, we may assume a certain level of safety, in that no society has every died out due to smoking. The same lasting impact won't hold true for, say, eating Tide pods, but listen to the medical doctrines at hand and you might come to think they're equally risky.

Beyond that, it's well documented that Herbert Hoover, for instance, smoked up to 30 cigars a day. He still outlived most presidents, dying in his 90s, even after having led the country through the Great Depression. The same goes for Winston Churchill, who smoked like a freight train and drank like a fish, but still lived a long life after leading one of the most stressful lives of the 20th century.

Andrew Jackson lived until his '70s, despite being sliced with a British sword as a kid being stabbed multiple times, shot multiple times, leading soldiers into battle in his 40s, then running the country for 8 years in his 60s. When he spoke with a doctor about his health issues, he said the only things he could never give up or coffee and tobacco. He was such a prolific tobacco user that he installed spit buckets in the white house, on top of the cigars he smoked and the pipes he smoked.

I could go on, but the returns would diminish. In short... I believe health is a lifestyle rather than a checklist. No one thing is going to kill you unless it's an event, rather than a habit. (Plane crash, car crash, etc.) Me, I exercise regularly, I don't eat fast food, I don't sip on corn syrup, I eat plenty of veggies, and I try to be sure I get the sleep that my body craves. If my pipe does me in despite all that, then I was already fucked.

 

[MartyA]

I've had a few smokes on a pipe in the summer most every year since about 1969. Early last year, I discovered how wonderful churchwarden pipes are for reading and I ran across a tobacco I really like, so I've smoked a pipe or two each day since. Except in the winter... I only smoke outside. And at 74, I figure something else will kill me long before I develop cancer from moderate pipe smoking.

I seldom argue promoting the safety of pipe smoking, because anyone saying that any use of tobacco, the most widely known, proven, carcinogen, is even somewhat safe, simply tends to get dismissed as a fool rationalizing something that he wants to do. HOWEVER, the 1964 Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, which was the death knell of cigarette smoking, showing a 70% increase in lung cancers, barely registered any danger to pipe smoking. Maybe a 3% increase in such things as throat and stomach cancers. The big difference is, cigarette smokers draw the smoke into their lungs, while pipe smokers simply taste the smoke and blow it back out. Big difference. There have been some studies showing pipe smokers living longer than non-smokers, which I consider ridiculous, but the danger is evidently small enough to be lost in the statistical noise.

As for myself, I had colon cancer somewhere back in 2006, but all that's left of that is the scar on my stomach. I had prostate cancer a couple years ago, but some radiation got rid of that. My pulse and blood pressure are low enough that nurses have to take it manually because they can't trust the electronic measurements. I tell them I'm sort of like a toad in the root cellar.

Someday, I'm going to die like everybody else, but I intend to enjoy my life as much as possible until then, and my time outside on my swinging chair with a pipe and a dusty old book is one of life's pleasures.

 

[warren]

Snuff tubes and pipes have been found archaeologically dating back 10,000+ years.

And every one of the users is now dead. Ergo, snuff tubes and pipes will kill the user. Irrefutable evidence.

If one hunts hard and long enough a justification for our poor choices can be found to ease our less than healthy choices. Pick your poison, to risk/reward assessment and then, no matter the choice, enjoy. But, at least use reasonable facts, etc. to evaluate your choices. I think some here are simply just writing streams of consciousness without logic. Benn there done that! Enjoy!

This is a really enjoyable thread to keep coming back to.

 

[AJL67]

If I worried about the health effects, even in the slightest, I wouldn’t do it, but that’s just me.

 

[LeafErikson]

When the average person thinks of a pipe smoker, don’t they think of an old man?

That’s gotta be a good sign!

 

[didimauw]

Personally I just get an adrenal rush out of being in the super-edgy, extreme high risk danger zone group of pipe smoking old men with digestive issues.

I think this wins the Internet today.
And
Smoking is bad.

 

[Hillcrest]

Wow ! I feel so much better after reading this thread. Thank you !!

 

[Scottmi]

imho, you are asking the wrong question

 

[BingBong]

It's rather unfortunate that so much research into the health aspects of tobacco is tainted by money and agendas. We will probably never know the actual risks or benefits now.

The cigarette / lung cancer link is correlation and the causes and mechanisms have never been found, nor why some people seem vulnerable and others not - and the same applies to HIV and AIDS, at root, all handwaving passed off as solid science.

By the same token, smokers were 70% under-represented among Covid 19 hospitalisations at their peak. Nobody knows why; a couple of research papers were produced but they are, frankly, pathetic and speculative.

Three studies have been done on the risks of second hand smoke; the two largest found no measurable risks, the third and smallest emphatically established negative risks. Yet, when one of the scientists from the latter was challenged about their methodology, he said "yes, yes, it's terrible science, but at least it gets people to stop smoking".

So, we have to make our own minds up. Belief probably has a lot to do with it. YMMV.

 

[woodsroad]

The unfortunate fact is that “Science” is indelibly tainted by money, politics, power and ideology. The same is true for one of the other pillars of truth, journalism. Together, this erosion of veracity is doing irreparable damage to democracy.

 

[johnnyflake]

In reading the responses here I have noticed that several of them point out that Omeprazole should only be taken for short periods of time. I believe that 15 days, a couple of times. I do not understand that. All I can say is that I have been taking it every day for the last 15 years or so. As far as I am aware I have not had any health issues caused from it. Note that I see my doctor every 3 months normally.

 

[Sigmund]

@johnnyflake My doc wont prescribe it long term do to potential health complications. You can look those up. Its not a harmless medication. Im not a doc but here is a link to some info. Of course they dont happen to everyone but the chances are possible. Perhaps its a good idea to discuss it with your doc and have some labs done.

Adverse Effects Associated with Long-Term Use of Proton Pump Inhibitors - PMC

Proton Pump Inhibitors are used widely to manage many gastric acid-related conditions such as gastroesophageal disease, gastritis, esophagitis, Barrett’s esophagus, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, peptic ulcer disease, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov