If you have COPD, and it sounds like you do, quitting smoking is the only thing you can do that will stop the damage to your lungs from increasing at a more rapid pace every year. So while you can't reverse the damage that has already been done, you can avoid doing more and more damage if you quit now. If you don't quit, things will continue to get worse and worse. Death by cigarettes and COPD is a very long, very slow and very miserable way to die. Not something I want!

You sound like you're in really good shape. After you've quit, if you continue to work out and stay in shape, you can probably go through most of the rest of your life without even knowing you have a chronic lung disease. I'd much prefer that outcome to one where things get worse and worse every year for the rest of my life. Your choice.

I used to smoke till 3 years ago and I thought the same as you, doctors say it can't be reversed and there is no cure. So I decided after 2 years I was desperate for a cigarette and got a package. One only I thought, but with morning tea I had to have another one. Well you know how it goes, just 1 more, and I was on the road to smoking again. Then I stared getting very short of breath and headaches. I went back to no-smoking and I feel a lot better for it, but the shortness of breath is now permanent and I regret that I ever touched a cigarette again.

I hiave a very close friend who continued smoking and she deteriorated over past 5 years to the point shen is si thin and has had heart attacks and recently revived 4 times while in intensive care. She finally realised and is now on oxygen 24/7. She has now given up smoking and is now a little more stable. Please give up smoking mate. I am in early stages of copd and have to give up driving fuel tankers because the fumes affect my breathing. Also Rossy keep training as it keeps your lungs going mate. Whenever i go for a week without exercise my breathing gets heavy.

i think it will depend on the person...if you got a year or 2 too live..it won,t make a difference..if you have 10 too 20 years..it could help a lot

It usually takes a life threatening medical scare before you take necessary positive steps to show you want to continue to live. Hopefully it won't come to that but as a young man your body compensates very well for a long time but one hospitalization stay you will notice how hard it is to get back to "normal" compared to when you were younger. The older and longer it takes the harder it will be. Your lungs naturally deteriorate with age but smoking makes your lungs deteriorate twice as fast. You will come to a point when you know it's time to quit.