I am a 33 M. I was a heavy smoker of mostly weed for 16 years, I would never smoke tobacco by myself i only did it when at the beginning of smoking with friends and never made it a habit. Started smoking when i was 16. When i was younger i has exercise induced asthma. During these 16 years I would need to use albuterol to get to sleep usually. A year and a half ago i quit for 5 months and got in the best shape of my life and got very athletic. After those 5 months i picked smoking weed back up for a year and a half heavily. During this time i also dropped some of my ground up mariujana and picked it back up off the ground twice and put it all back into the same jar, so it had some dust in it for sure.
The 1st spirometry done in June 2025 i had pre and post bronch. The second was done in November 2025, not much change but slightly improved after being on 230/21 Ive had cessation for about 10 months. My symptoms are having phlegm in my throat constantly all the the time, not much of a cough but occasinally but very infrequent almost non existent. It also feels like i cant get a deep breath when i want to at the very top of my breath, only when my body allows it is what it feels like. I definitely feel better during exercise and after it. When i drift off to sleep i can almost convince myself i dont have a breathing problem and waking up.
Can this get better over time? Will the phlegm in my throat go away and my ratio improve over time? I am going to make another appt with my pulmonologist for June for another spirometry. Ive been told i potentially have large lungs given the above average z score for fev1 and fvc. Does that make this harder to diagnose? I can exercise and do calisthenics still, but was used to doing high intensity workouts so ive dialed back the higher heart rate of my exercises by letting my heart rate come down first before i go to the next exercise, and spaced out my exercises so i dont breath as heavily. The chest heaviness feels worse when i start breathing heavier, as apposed to how it was when i was doing this a year and a half ago i could just breath through it easily, now its like breathing through it with more difficulty if i decide to push it hard.
I am never going to smoke again. Thank you for your time and reading this.