Choosing Nicotine Patches
Millions of people who want to quit smoking understand that they will need some form of chemical help in order to achieve their long-term goal. This is because they know all about nicotine. If you are someone hoping to eliminate cigarettes from your daily life, but you don’t know about nicotine, you should take a bit of time to understand it since this is the component in a cigarette that makes you crave them more and more.
Nicotine is an addictive drug that is comparable to heroin in its power over the mind of the user. It works in the blood stream and requires ever increasing doses to get the same pleasant results. Just like other powerful drugs, nicotine also presents users with serious implications should they decide to cease putting it into their bodies. This is called withdrawal, and it has both physical and mental symptoms.
The physical symptoms of withdrawal will vary but can include dizziness, coughing, sleeplessness, headaches, fatigue and tightness in the chest. Emotionally, someone who is craving but not receiving nicotine will be irritable, depressed, and will often have a hard time concentrating.
Fortunately, science has come up with ways to override or reduce many of the symptoms of nicotine addiction in order to help people to stop smoking. Among the most popular options are the systems using “patches”. These vary in size and in dosage, and they are a small adhesive bandage type of object that deliver a specific amount of nicotine into the blood stream of the wearer over a twenty-four hour period.
They are a good choice simply because they require nothing more than a single daily application or re-application of the patch. Because they come in 7, 14, and 21 milligram doses, they can allow someone to begin with a much higher replacement treatment in order to help them during the most difficult part of the quitting process. They can then decide when to reduce their dosage or end the patch treatment altogether.
When someone quits smoking they can always try the old-fashioned “cold turkey” approach which includes no support of any kind. Usually someone will have cleared their body of nicotine within 72 hours after the last cigarette, and their emotional responses will be well under control. If, however, someone knows that they cannot afford to be extremely moody and irritable – such as those in a professional work environment – the patches can really help to support them over a bit of a lengthier withdrawal period just as well.
