Nicotine Inhaler

The Nicotine Inhaler is used to help people stop smoking. Nicotine Inhaler should be used together with a smoking cessation program, which may include support groups, counseling, or specific behavioral change techniques and preferably guided by a doctor. Nicotine inhalation is in a class of medications called smoking cessation aids. It works by providing nicotine to your body which decreases the withdrawal symptoms experienced when smoking is stopped and to reduce the urge to smoke.

How should a Nicotine Inhaler be used?

Nicotine Inhaler comes as a cartridge to inhale by mouth using a special inhaler. Follow the directions on your prescription label carefully, and ask your doctor or pharmacist to explain any part you do not understand. One should use nicotine oral inhalation exactly as directed. Do not use more or less of it or use it more often than prescribed by your doctor.

Follow your doctor's instructions about how many nicotine cartridges you should use each day. Your doctor may increase or decrease your dose depending on your urge to smoke. After you have used nicotine inhalation for about 12 weeks and your body has adjusted to not smoking, your doctor may decrease your dose gradually over the next 6 to 12 weeks until you are not using nicotine inhalation any more. Follow your doctor's instructions for how to decrease your nicotine dose. Do not stop using nicotine inhalation abruptly as this will increase the urge to smoke again.

The nicotine in the cartridges is released by frequent puffing over 20 minutes. You may use up a cartridge all at once or puff on it for a few minutes at a time until the nicotine is finished. You may want to try different schedules to see what works best for you.

Ask your pharmacist or doctor for a copy of the manufacturer's information for the patient. Read the directions for how to use the inhaler and ask your doctor or pharmacist to show you the proper technique. Practice using the inhaler while in his or her presence.

If you have not stopped smoking at the end of 4 weeks, talk to your doctor. Your doctor can try to help you understand why you were not able to stop smoking and make plans to try again.

Nicotine inhaler products shopping

Other uses for this medicine

This medication may be prescribed for other uses; ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.

What special precautions should I follow?

Before using nicotine oral inhalation,

• tell your doctor and pharmacist if you are allergic to nicotine, menthol, or any other medications.
• tell your doctor and pharmacist what prescription and nonprescription medications, vitamins, nutritional supplements, and herbal products you are taking or plan to take. Be sure to mention any of the following: antidepressants such as amitriptyline (Elavil), amoxapine (Asendin), clomipramine (Anafranil), desipramine (Norpramin), doxepin (Adapin, Sinequan), imipramine (Tofranil), nortriptyline (Aventyl, Pamelor), protriptyline (Vivactil), and trimipramine (Surmontil); and theophylline (TheoDur). Your doctor may need to change the doses of your medications once you stop smoking.
• tell your doctor if you have recently had a heart attack and if you have or have ever had asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; emphysema or chronic bronchitis), heart disease, angina, irregular heartbeat, problems with circulation such as Buerger's disease or Raynaud's phenomena, hyperthyroidism (an overactive thyroid), pheochromocytoma (a tumor on a small gland near the kidneys), insulin-dependent diabetes, ulcers, high blood pressure, and kidney or liver disease.
• tell your doctor if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breast-feeding. If you become pregnant while using nicotine inhalation, call your doctor. Nicotine may harm the fetus.
• stop smoking completely. If you continue smoking while using nicotine inhalation, you may have side effects.
• you should know that even though you are using nicotine inhalation, you may still have some smoking withdrawal symptoms. These include dizziness, anxiety, sleeping problems, depression, tiredness, and muscle pain. If you experience these symptoms, talk to your doctor about increasing your dose of nicotine inhalation.

Nicotine Gum

Nicotine gum is used by mouth as a chewing gum and should not be swallowed. Always follow the directions on the label, and ask your doctor or a pharmacist to explain any part you do not understand. Use nicotine gum exactly as directed by a doctor or pharmacist. Do not use more or less of it or use it more often unless suggested by your doctor.

Usually treatment to stop smoking is started by using the 2-mg nicotine gum as suggested by your doctor or pharmacist. Heavy smokers (those smoking more than 25 cigarettes per day) may start by using the 4-mg nicotine gum (consulting a doctor is strongly advised). Nicotine gum may be used regularly by chewing one piece of gum every 1-2 hours at first, or it may be used by chewing one piece of gum whenever you have the urge to smoke.

Nicotine gum should be chewed slowly until you can taste the nicotine or feel a slight tingling in your mouth. Then stop chewing and place (park) the chewing gum between your cheek and gum. When the tingling is almost gone (about 1 minute), start chewing again; repeat this procedure for about 30 minutes.

Do not chew nicotine gum too fast, do not chew more than one piece of gum at a time, and do not chew one piece too soon after another.

If you are using the 2-mg gum, do not chew more than 30 pieces a day if you are under the supervision of a doctor or 24 pieces a day if you are not under the supervision of a doctor. If you are using the 4-mg gum, do not chew more than 24 pieces a day.

Gradually begin reducing the amount of nicotine gum used after 2-3 months. This reduced use over time will help prevent nicotine-withdrawal symptoms.

Suggested tips to help reduce your use of nicotine gum gradually include:

• Decrease the total number of pieces used per day by about 1 piece every 4-7 days.
• Decrease the chewing time with each piece from the normal 30 minutes to 10-15 minutes for 4-7 days. Then gradually decrease the total number of pieces used per day.
• Substitute one or more pieces of sugarless gum for an equal number of pieces of nicotine gum. Increase the number of pieces of sugarless gum substituted for nicotine gum every 4-7 days.
• Replace 4-mg gum with 2-mg gum and apply any of the previous steps.
• Consider stopping use of nicotine gum when your craving for nicotine is satisfied by one or two pieces of gum per day.

Use of nicotine gum for longer than 3 months is discouraged. Do not use nicotine gum longer than 6 months without talking with your doctor.

What special precautions should I follow?

Before using nicotine gum,

• tell your doctor and pharmacist what prescription and nonprescription medications you are taking, especially acetaminophen (Tylenol), caffeine, diuretics ('water pills'), imipramine (Tofranil), insulin, medications for high blood pressure, oxazepam (Serax), pentazocine (Talwin, Talwin NX, Talacen), propoxyphene (Darvon, E-Lor), propranolol (Inderal), theophylline (Theo-Dur), and vitamins.
• do not smoke cigarettes or use other nicotine products while using nicotine gum because nicotine overdose can occur.
• tell your doctor if you have or have ever had a heart attack, irregular heart rate, angina, ulcers, uncontrolled high blood pressure, overactive thyroid, pheochromocytoma, or a dental condition or disorder.
• tell your doctor if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breast-feeding. If you become pregnant while using nicotine gum, stop using it and call your doctor immediately. Nicotine and nicotine gum may cause harm to the fetus.

Zyban Stop Smoking Pills

Zyban is a prescription medication designed to help smokers quit more easily than without the drug. It comes in a pill form. It does not contain nicotine

Zyban's history is interesting. Smokers who happened to be users of the anti-depression medication Wellbutrin (bupropion hydrochloride) often reported a lessening in the desire for cigarettes. Through further testing, the drug was found to be effective in treating the smoking addiction, and helping smokers quit. GlaxoSmithKline "repackaged" Wellbutrin and marketed it as the smoking-cessation drug Zyban.

Unlike nicotine patches or nicotine gum, Zyban does not put more nicotine into your body. If you use the patches or gum, you should stop smoking so that you don't "overdose" on nicotine. With Zyban, you continue to smoke when you first start taking the medication, eventually reaching a quit-date, and taking the drug for a period of time after quitting.

Before taking Zyban, smokers want to know what Zyban will do to make quitting easier. According to the results reported during clinical trials, "treatment with ZYBAN reduced withdrawal symptoms compared to placebo. Reductions on the following withdrawal symptoms were most pronounced: irritability, frustration, or anger; anxiety; difficulty concentrating; restlessness; and depressed mood or negative affect. Depending on the study and the measure used, treatment with ZYBAN showed evidence of reduction in craving for cigarettes or urge to smoke compared to placebo."

Zyban is not without side-effects. According the the Zyban website, "The most common side effects experienced with ZYBAN include dry mouth and difficulty sleeping. There are other risks associated with the use of ZYBAN, so it is important to talk to your healthcare professional to see whether ZYBAN is right for you. There is a risk of seizure associated with ZYBAN, which is increased in certain patients."

Zyban has proven more effective than placebo in clinical testing, with success rates ranging as high as 58% in one study. Most studies showed success rates at somewhere between 15%-25%. Long-term success rates are obviously on the lower end, as smokers tend to relapse after longer periods of time. Some studies included using Zyban in conjunction with nicotine patches.

Nicotine Patches

Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Once the smoker gets addicted to it, the addiction is difficult to break. Despite the serious health consequences, smokers find it extremely tough to quit smoking.

When you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine level in your body spikes and your body receives an immediate rush of nicotine. As the nicotine level slowly dissipates and then drops below a certain point, your body craves another spike or “hit”, obviously through another cigarette, in order to relieve this craving. For this reason any attempts to quit smoking can be so difficult.

Going cold turkey or relying on willpower to quit smoking most often ends in failure. However, there are medical aids that may make the task a little more bearable, with the most popular ones being those that supply and regulate nicotine in the bloodstream.

The nicotine patch is one of the more popular medical aids for quitting smoking. This nicotine patch is placed on your skin, which then releases a slow and steady stream of nicotine into the bloodstream. Instead of cutting out nicotine instantly from your system, the patch supposedly helps your body adjust slowly to not having spikes in the nicotine level and wean your body gradually off nicotine. As your body adjusts to lower levels of nicotine, the dosage of the patch can be further reduced, until eventually the nicotine level is almost minimal and your body is finally nicotine free.

The patch is also a very strong deterrent against smoking, because if you smoke while on the patch, you could suffer from a potentially lethal nicotine overdose. However, one common problem with the nicotine patch is that because the patch supplies a steady amount of nicotine into your bloodstream, there is no spike or hit, so that some smokers still crave cigarettes for the hit that cigarette provides.

To quit smoking takes serious effort, but too many smokers try to quit by relying on sheer willpower, which is extremely hard to do. By using these aids such as the nicotine patch and Zyban, you are making it easier for your body to quit smoking and thus improving your chances of success.

NNicotine Replacement Therapy

NRT or Nicotine Replacement Therapy is one way

• Nicotine patch ---> Nicotine Patches
  
• Nicotine gum ---> Nicotine Gum
  
• Nicotine inhaler ---> Nicotine Inhaler
  
• Nicotine lozenge
• Nicotine spray
• Nicotine sublingual tablet

To stop smoking, one has to break the addiction to nicotine. Nicotine is not doing much harm to us, it is the tar and chemicals we inhale with the smoke from a cigarette which causes diseases and a weaker immune system.

Stop Smoking with NLP

Probably it's Easier to Quit Smoking than the "Experts" Think!

The addictiveness of nicotine is a big myth...

I don't say this to annoy smokers who HAVE experienced difficulty quitting smoking. Because difficulty quitting smoking and addiction to nicotine are two different things.
"nicotine is as addictive than heroin or crack cocaine"

What utter rubbish!!! It is so SO simple to disprove:

In chemists throughout the western world, you can now buy PURE nicotine in ready-to-inhale form (called Inhalators in the UK). Now are you seriously telling me that if you could get whatever the active ingredients in crack are... in this form, that you wouldn't be having thousands of people queuing up for it?

So, the tobacco companies paid out for nothing. Oh well.

Anyway, withdrawal symptom studies show that you get withdrawal symptoms from placebo. That is, the more likely you believe you'll get withdrawal symptoms, the more likely you'll get them in reality.

So be prepared for bad withdrawal symptoms (IE reduce your stress levels etc), yet expect your body to make it easy for you.

"NRT doubles your chances of quitting"

Companies that sell NRT repeat this message over and over again. What they don't tell you is that

1. The difference is only 6% after 3 months, which could be easily accounted for by placebo.
2. After 6 months, the difference diminishes to zero. Obviously, your body and mind have fully recovered from the nicotine addiction by this time.

The most powerful predictor of success is self-motivation, which makes something like a 20% difference. You have to want to quit.
So how do you actually quit?

Everyone thinks they know what quitting is, but can you tell me exactly what you need to do to quit? What actual behavior constitutes quitting?

Who was it that said "I give up smoking every day?" Very true.

The crucial element is that you have separate states of mind, one for when you give up and one for when you start smoking again (if you know NLP, you can simply collapse the two and future pace).

Decisions you make in one state of mind don't necessarily carry over into another.

Therefore, you need to physically rehearse the decision you want to make in the situations where you would otherwise have smoked.

1. Smoke half a cigarette. Stop. Look at it. Realize you don't want to smoke any more (more on how to do this later*).
2. Smoke one puff of a new cigarette. Repeat as above.
3. Light a cigarette and be about to inhale. Repeat as above.
4. Be about to light a cigarette...

N. Be about to buy cigarettes in the supermarket.

etc.

In other words, you are going backwards through the previously habitual smoking ritual. Keep doing it for everything that used to be part of your smoking ritual or made you want to smoke.

OK. Now before you can do this, you have to rehearse the decision to not smoke any more*. This is basically the state of mind for when you give up. Whether it be determination, pride etc that makes you feel you'll never want to smoke again.

So each time you go through the ritual, you end it with the conviction that you'll never smoke again.

Stoping Smoking