Has anyone used the patch and gum or lozenge together, my quit date is 8 days away and was wondering if this would help or if I should avoid doing it?
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Has anyone used the patch and gum or lozenge together, my quit date is 8 days away and was wondering if this would help or if I should avoid doing it?
Welcome to our community!
After you have done the recommended reading, I think you will better understand what you need to do for you.
The most important thing you can do right now is to educate yourself on what nicotine does to your body and mind. To that end, I highly recommend Allen Carr's “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.” This is an easy and entertaining read. Here is a link to a free PDF version of it:
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You should also read the posts here and perhaps go the the pages of folks who you think might be helpful. You might visit whyquit.com, quitsmokingonline.com and livewell.com for the good information contained there. @https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/best-of-ex has lots of blogs written by members of this site with their experiences and guidance. You should also do the tracking and separation exercises suggested in My Quit Plan http://www.becomeanex.org/my-quit-plan.php
After you have completed the recommended reading, it will be time to make an informed choice of the quit aid, if any, you will use. If you go that route, I personally recommend the aids that don't let the addict control the dose such as the available prescription drugs or the patch. If used properly, gum, lozenges and inhalers are fine, but they need to be used only as a last resort. I have seen folks become addicted to them if they substitute them for every cigarette they used to smoke - just trading one addiction for another. I do not recommend the e-cigarette for three reasons: 1) the vapor has been compared to the polluted air in Bejing on a bad day, 2) they just provide another nicotine delivery system while continuing the hand to mouth smoking motion, and 3) the batteries can spontaneously catch on fire. . But – any method that you think will work well for you will be best for you.
The idea is to change up your routines so the smoking associations are reduced. Drink your coffee with your OTHER hand. If you always had that first smoke with your coffee, try putting your tennies on right out of bed, going for a quick walk, then taking your shower and THEN your coffee! Rearrange the furniture in the areas you used to smoke so the view is different. Buy your gas at a different station. Take a different route to work. Take a quick walk at break time where the smokers AREN'T.
You need to distract yourself through any craves. You can take a bite out of a lemon (yup - rind and all), put your head in the freezer and take a deep breath of cold air, do a few jumping jacks, go for a brisk walk or march in place, play a computer game. Don't let that smoking thought rattle around in your brain unchallenged. Sometimes you need to quit a minute or an hour at a time. You will need to be disciplined in the early days to distract yourself when a crave hits. Get busy! Here is a link to a list of things to do instead of smoke if you need some fresh ideas:
The conversation in your head in response to the "I want a cigarette" thought needs to be, "Well, since I have decided not to do that anymore, what shall I do instead for the three minutes this crave will last?" Then DO it. You will need to put some effort into this in the early days, but it gets easier and easier to do.
Stay close to us here and ask questions when you have them and for support when you need it. We will be with you every step of the way!
Nancy
Hi there and welcome. I don't believe its advisable to take a combination of any of them. Only one. As Chuck mentioned you will be getting too much nicotine. It would probably make you sick to your stomach could be bad for your heart. Check with your pharmacist to get the best advice. Again, welcome. This is an Excellent site to get support through your quit.
Yes, do the reading. Youngatheart.7.4.12 is a VERY wise person. Listen to her and other Elders. I am a younger quitter with less than 60 days under my belt. I would recommend you come here often, and read as much as possible, and take the advice that fits for you. If the advice just isn't right for you know it is given in the spirit of helping. Like this:
Everyone is different, but for me using any nicotine replacement just prolonged the withdrawal for me in previous quits. That is why I went cold turkey this time.
Greg
Here's one article by one Mayo Clinic Doctor ("Expert Advice") who posted here prior to retiring. Note: it's five years old, so I don't know if the protocols have changed or not. Tips for Using Nicotine Replacement Therapy And another bit of information from the Mayo Clinic (scroll down until you get to "Combination Therapy.") http://www.mayo.edu/research/documents/medication-handout-2015-02-pdf/doc-20140182 Personally I would ask my doc before combining treatments. There may be interactions with other medications you're taking that you know not of. Glad you've joined us. Stick around! The more you read, the better armed you'll be for the journey ahead. Just be aware that NRTs do not take away all cravings. These simply help to lessen them and to keep them manageable. There is no magic bullet for this addiction. If there were, there's be no need of a support site such as this. Education about this addiction and your particular relationship with it will be your best tool for success.
Hi. Welcome to Ex. If you have previous quits under your belt You may kind of know what works for you. I had only one significant quit about 11 years before this one. I had used the patch for 3 months under a Dr's supervision. As soon as I stopped the patches I began smoking again pretty quickly. Shortly before my final quit I heard an MD discussing that some people needed more than one form of nicotine replacement. It gave me hope. Sure enough, I used the patch and nicotine gum. The nicotine along with this site were the answer for me. I did get addicted to the gum (only about 3% of people do. Hope that helps. I love not smoking. I never thought that was possible for me.
I did. I used the patch mainly but I used 1-3 pieces of gum a day too. I tried to cut back my use of it. I started with the 21mg patch and went down to the 7mg. I found myself using less and less gum and made sure I always decreased. I used the 14mg patch a few extra weeks.
JHamilton1990 I did not use any NRT's but my son was hospitalized a few years ago and they put him on both the patches and the gum for the time he was hospitalized. This was a psych hospitalization and he had voluntarily committed himself. I cannot remember how long he was there, might have been 10 days...he started smoking again as soon as he was discharged. He had not planned to quit, had not prepared for it and wanted to smoke more than he wanted to recover from THAT addiction. My daughter successfully quit using the patch according to the instructions, she has been quit for over 18 months now.
Welcome to EX, you are in the right place to quit and to begin a journey of recovery.
Ellen
I used the patch only. But made a promise to myself that if I was headed to the store to buy a pack, that I would first buy some nicotine gum to get through. I never bought any gum. My point, I would only use 2 forms of nicotine replacement products as a last resort. Best wishes to you!
Welcome to the site!
I used the patch and followed the directions on the box as directed.
Went down to the lowest mg patches and keep close to the site!!
Kept going forward and am now 1397 Days of Freedom. I kept a patch in my purse
incase I got a big crave, I promised myself I would put it on and know it would take a while for it to work.
Dale on this site is who I got that from.
Best wishes for a great Quit
Mags
Not much to add just wanted to welcome you to the community and don't hestitate to ask questions or ask for help if needed. Loooking forward to following your journey.
Hi, welcome to the site! You made a very important first step in coming here, you will learn so so much about the addiction and how it works and how you can have a successful quit. I am a newbie also, just past the 2 month mark now. I had went and bought the nicotine gum, however after reading all about the addiction and how it only takes 3 days to get the nicotine out of your system, and then after that it is just triggers that make you want to smoke, I then decided to take it one day at a time. I told myself if I needed the gum, it was there. But you know I got through the first day without them, and then the second and third. And then I was like, why bother starting now, just to have to turn around and have to wean myself off the gum one day too. If you follow all the great advice here and come here everyday, especially at the beginning of you quit, you will do real good! I never realized how much a support group could help. I just happened to stumble upon this group. And I thank God everyday for it!
The other Nancy
I never used NRT's so can't be much help to you. I wanted to see an immediate monetary gain from quitting as I felt it would bolster my resolve. Each of us takes different paths. I think gardenancy8 as a newbie makes a lot of sense.......but you need to decide for yourself what will work for you. whatever you do....follow the instructions on the patch or gum. This IS nicotine which IS a drug. Someone was posting that they were chewing the patch! Not sure if they were joking....but, that's something you should not foll around with.
Stay Strong
In my previous attempts to quit, I tried the patch and at the end of a week it was as if nicotine just oozed out of every pore and all I could taste all day was nicotine - like I was smoking too much. So perhaps I had too strong a patch though I did start at a mid level. So I wonder if, by using the patch and taking lozenges at the same time - wouldn't that be doubling down on taking in nicotine? My quit buddy at work found that popping a lozenge for a serious crave - not every time he thought of cigarette - and that's key, it helped him get through his first 3-4 weeks and then was able to stop even that. We are both still off the smokes - happily because when we see our co-workers smoking, we know that we no longer have to do that - we are free! Please check the instructions so that you don't do yourself more harm than good! No matter what you choose to use, ultimately you have to realize that it's the decision to be smoke free that does the trick - all else is an "aid" to that end, not a solution. We here are one of your "aids", keep connected:)
When I quit smoking, I used NRTs the patch, gum and some lozenges for 5 months. My total cost was approximately $300.My total cost for cigarettes would have been about $1100 for 5 months. I think you can obtain help to buy NRTs in some states.
Haha you were like me you needed all the "help" you could get !!
Hi welcome to Ex you are in the right place for great support in quitting the smoking addiction and habit ! I did use the patch and the lozenges but I only used the lozenges when having an extra hard time I did not use man a day in fact the lozenges dissolve so slowly that I usually just put it in my mouth for a few minutes and then I had a little plastic med case that I used to keep it in instead of wasting the whole thing . I probably used only one or two a day in the first weeks then down to less then a whole one . The patch works really well and I used straws cut into thirds for most of my hand to mouth oral habit ......that wears off after awhile . I did not like the gum it was harder to save and I have never liked chewing gum ! In the last few weeks of the patch I weaned myself off the lozenges completely so when the patch was done I had no more nicotine in my body . I would say after a month I barely used any lozenges at all .
21mg Patch>Forgot 4th day. Needed next day. Forgot two days in a row the second week so stopped using them.
Put one in my wallet with a promise to myself.
Never looked back.
If you self dose every time you would have smoked you may become psychologically addicted as well as physically addicted because you never changed the reward cycle.
People who can't get off NRT's usually have CONVINCED THEMSELVES they will go back to smoking if they get off them, then, in time, they become comfortably numb to the reality of what they've done.
Put one in my wallet too; that's how I ended up with my daughter.
= P
You are suppose to take it out of your wallet at an appropriate time....
I did! I did! It was dark ... and I was in a hurry!
Do you know the song about the old woman who swallowed a fly and then a spider to catch the fly etc?
That's me!
You ask if you should avoid gum and lozenges? Simple answer would be yes.
If you possibly can.
If you choose NRT I would say avoid the gum. I spent a fortune on it and dentists bills over the years. Also, chewing is an ugly habit.
Any NRT delivers nicotine to your body so use it to give up smoking only....not as long term replacement like me.
I came here a few weeks ago looking for ways to give up the gum. I managed that with lozenges. I gave up the lozenges with patches (hence the reference to the song)...good advice here was to use a low dose nrt mouth spray or frozen grape for the moments of intense craving whilst using patches. Definitely not a gum and lozenge combo.
I am still humming the song and educating myself on this brilliant site. Am looking at oral fixation and how to break habits and ooo am off to a pilates class in a minute.
Good luck, be strong, focussed and determined.
PS my NRT quit date is 21st May.....hopefully this year!
Read the English guy's book. Nicotine addiction is really not the problem. Its the combination of Behavioral triggers and rewards that you have been wallowing in. Those are dangerous and very challenging to get around. The physical nicotine withdrawal is easy to work around. Just be damned careful about those triggers because they are both psychologically and physically tied to nicotine and the rewards stuff. You can put the nicotine down. That's not so hard. Telling yourself that you intend to stay in a Triggers/Rewards cycle is the same as arranging for your quit to be as hard as you can imagine. Read some of these books on the Triggers/Rewards stuff. That is the big deal and the key to a successful quit. I would love to see the numbers on successful quits when evaluated by how the quit was approached, how the individuals successfully quit. I am convinced that nicotine substitutes create many more problems than they solve. If you could go out and buy something that would cure you, don't you think the Tobacco scum would have bought the patent rights and buried it under some mountain somewhere. This is a forum of opinions and mine is simple. NO Chemical, drug or nicotine source can be used to cure a nicotine addiction. Smoking does NOT create a nicotine addiction. It creates an extremely complex Triggers / Rewards behavior system that is reinforced by nicotine and how it affects your body. Study Up like everyone says. That is what you need, not a better gum / patch recipe.
First of all, I think that using both would give you way more nicotine than you really need. When I quit, I used the patch because it gives a steady supply of nicotine into the system. To me, the gum or lozenges gives a person peaks and valleys of nicotine, simulating what you feel when smoking. The patch doesn't totally take away the craves, but it takes the edge off of them, which helps to prepare one for total withdrawal at the end of the program.
But then, that's just my opinion.
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck