Medication and/or nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) can help and here are some points to consider:
- Using medicines and nicotine replacement products (patches, gum, lozenges, and inhalers) can double your chances of quitting smoking1. They can relieve nicotine craving and withdrawal symptoms.
- Getting counseling, along with using medicine, can increase your chances of quitting even more.
- If you smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes a day, you may not need medicines to help you quit smoking.
- It’s rare for someone to get addicted to nicotine medicines, because the nicotine is released slowly at low levels into your bloodstream.
- Nicotine replacement products may cause some side effects, such as problems with sleep or red and itchy skin with the patch. Medicines in pill form can cause nausea, dry mouth, and trouble sleeping. For most people, the side effects aren’t bad enough to make them stop using the products.
- Nicotine medicines have less than half of the nicotine of cigarettes. And by itself, nicotine is not nearly as harmful as smoking or vaping. The tars, carbon monoxide, and other toxic chemicals in tobacco cause the harmful effects.
- N Good Health offers online and in-person tobacco cessation workshops to aid in your tobacco free journey.
- Norton Healthcare will pay for all of the cost of NRT as well as all or part of the cost of medicines used to help you quit smoking. Printable vouchers for free NRT available in the N Good Health online cessation workshops to be picked up at any Norton pharmacy.
1 Stead LF, et al. (2012). Nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (11)