Quit Smoking and Health Care

Consider chemical treatments to quit smoking.

Chemical treatments tend to be most effective, because they do more to ease the physical addiction to nicotine. Natural treatments are only likely to alleviate the psychological addiction, which is powerful, but is less disabling and painful. You should always discuss chemical treatments with your doctor before using them to quit because they can cause side effects in some users. Read about the products, and if one seems attractive and is approved by your doctor, try it.

Zyban is the marketing name for the antidepressant bupropion hydrochloride. This is essentially “happy pills” designed to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. To use Zyban, you should start taking the pills a week or two before quitting. Zyban is only available by prescription and should not be used with any other antidepressant. You must be sure what to tell your doctor about any other medications you are using.

Nicotine patches are used to small, so that your skin absorbs the nicotine so you can enter the bloodstream at a steady pace throughout the day. When you smoke or use other replacement therapies, nicotine, you get a “spike” high level of nicotine in their blood, then down until you feel the need to take another dose and increase their level of nicotine. The patch just keeps at a constant level all the time, and you get used to without waiting for occasional high. The patches come in different doses. Progress of the strongest to the weakest, and possibly discontinue use altogether. Read the rest of this entry »