Coleen Nolan quits smoking after terrifying health scare

Coleen Nolan has finally quit smoking after a terrifying health scare.

The 'Loose Women' star - who was a smoker for over 40 years - revealed she gave up cigarettes in December after being left unable to breathe.

She told The Mirror: "“I literally couldn’t walk a few feet without stopping to catch my breath. It was the scariest thing, feeling constantly winded. After 'Loose Women' one day, our warm-up guy Lee insisted on taking me to see a doctor, who put me on antibiotics. Being a typical woman and mum, I kept saying I’d be fine.

"I met [partner Michael Jones] outside the hotel and by the time we’d gone up in the elevator and walked a few paces to my room, I was gasping and trying to say that I couldn’t breathe. I had a full-scale panic attack and the more stressed I got and the more I cried, the less able I was to breathe.

"I genuinely thought ‘I’m going to die in my hotel room, away from home’. It was really frightening. The whole thing lasted two minutes but it felt like an hour.”

Coleen, 58, made an appointment with her doctor the following day.

She said: "He knows I smoke and told me I could be looking at COPD and emphysema. The message was, if you carry on smoking, this is what will happen. I thought: ‘What the hell am I doing?’ I want to be around for as long as I can for my kids.

"I was going to bed at night, saying to Michael, ‘I’ve got COPD or lung cancer... what an idiot!’ When I went back to get the results and was told my X-ray had come back clear, it was a massive relief. My chest will probably never recover but hopefully quitting will mean it won’t get any worse. I felt like the universe was saying ‘This is your last chance’.”

Coleen shares daughter Ciara, 22, with former husband Ray Fensome, and sons Shane, 34, and Jake, 31, with her first husband Shane Richie.