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Nicotine Replacement: When Quitting Cigarettes, Consider Using More Nicotine, Not Less:
When delivered through cigarettes, nicotine is considered to be one of the most addictive substances on Earth, so it may seem odd to suggest that people should use more, rather than less, to quit smoking. A recent review of the research, however, has found just that.
Nicotine replacement therapy, known as NRT, has been used to help people safely quit smoking for more than 20 years. It can be prescribed by a doctor but, in many countries, is also available to buy from grocery stores and pharmacies. The Cochrane review (Cochrane assesses evidence on healthcare interventions and summarises the findings) looked at the best ways to use NRT to quit smoking – and found three ways in which using more nicotine might help:
- Use two forms of NRT rather than one. [...]
- Start to use NRT before stopping smoking. [...]
- Higher doses of NRT may help some people.
If you don't get a "happy" jolt from the release of dopamine (because the levels of nicotine never dropped to a stage of craving), the perceived "reward" for smoking is reduced/removed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ilPapa on Saturday April 20 2019, @01:45AM (11 children)
I had tried all sorts of nicotine replacements to quit smoking. None of them worked a damn bit. I patched, I chewed gum, I vaped, I even dipped.
When I finally quit, the only thing that worked was just quitting. My fears about nicotine withdrawal were a lot worse than the reality. I was actually a little ashamed that I had waited so long.
If you quit, you're going to feel better right away. After a little while, you're going to feel a LOT better. Also, I lost 15 pounds after quitting.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday April 20 2019, @02:05AM (5 children)
You are atypical or a big liar, most people usually:
1. go through withdrawal symptoms that aren't fitting the "feel good right away" claim
2. gain weight after quitting [medlineplus.gov]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @02:48AM (3 children)
Nicotine withdrawal is really not that bad... I've quit for months at a time (longest was near a year), and it's really not hard at all from a withdrawal perspective. It's the social aspect and living in an area with a higher amount of smokers that makes it hard to stay nicotine-free. Now that I'm vaping, I probably will never quit though - I love the high of nicotine and I'm not coughing shit up from smoking, stinking like smoke, or spending money on it daily so there's very little downside.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:22AM
Everybody seems to be different in this regard.
In my case, cold sweats, occasional (but atrocious) headaches, feeling generally unwell and in a blue mood, cough fits. The hardest 6 weeks of my life, symptoms slowly receded afterwards; and after 3 months I relapsed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:34AM (1 child)
Vaping can destroy your lungs too.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @11:50AM
Show me some evidence that isn't FUD about popcorn lung.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:45PM
Not that anybody cares, but my experience was exactly like IlPapa. One day, after smoking since I was 15, I just stopped. Every time I went for a cigarette, I stopped and said to myself "Wait, I don't do that anymore." Three or four days of that and I stopped smoking. I also dropped about 15 pounds, but that was due to increased physical activity (just walking). And I felt great!
This was in 2007...that lasted until 2012. Starting up again was the stupidest thing I ever did. Like the PSA said, "If you don't smoke, don't start. If you do smoke, stop."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 20 2019, @02:34AM (1 child)
My grandfather quit after he started coughing up blood regularly.
My uncle (his son) started around age 18 with his girlfriend/wife, and quit around age 25 because he remembered what happened to his father.
My aunt (his wife) kept smoking until she was ~35, played around with tar filters and stuff before finally quitting - but, she gained a ton of weight after she quit.
I'm pretty sure I never smoked tobacco (and only smoked other things in college), but I have this bizarre quasi-memory from a stressful time in my life where I seem to remember smoking just a few cigarettes, maybe only one pack altogether, but... I don't remember where I kept the pack, I don't remember buying it, or what brand it was, or throwing out the wrapper, or how I lit the cigarettes, or whether or not I inhaled some clean air after the smoke... like I learned in college, and I don't remember what I did with the butts - I certainly didn't leave them on the ground outside the garage where I have these memories of going to smoke. So, I'm pretty sure something in my mind just created this memory of going out for a smoke when things were getting to be too much, but I don't think I actually did it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:14AM
My father smoked until he was bedridden with stage 4 lung cancer that was attacking his nervous system and he couldn't walk any more. Watching someone (especially someone you love) die slowly and painfully like that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
You'd think that'd get me to stop smoking, but more than 20 years later, I'm still at it. Go figure.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stormwyrm on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:38AM (1 child)
I didn't use any kind of nicotine replacements to try to quit. I tried to quit cold turkey but after a few weeks the cravings were such that I couldn't really sustain it. What did work was gradually reducing smoking over a period of time. I was never a heavy smoker, and had already been on around 1-3 sticks a day for years, and then I spent two years gradually cutting, at first spending half a year smoking strictly one stick a day, then try to skip every other day without a smoke, then two days without one, then a week without one, and then, around 2012, I finally smoked my last stick. After 12 years of smoking, that was the end. Nearly seven years now without a cigarette. But I didn't lose weight after that... I'd rather gained quite a bit soon after quitting, my weight going up from 78 kg to nearly 90 by 2015, by which time I got a gym membership and started seriously working out and that's when I started dropping weight. But yes, I did feel a lot better once it was finally over.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:03PM
1-3 cigs per day isnt even smoking in my opinion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @11:59AM
Yes, same here. You just have to quit, not play games or waste money on crap like this.