Medications To Help You Stop Smoking
What is 'bupropion'?
Bupropion is an oral tablet that stimulates the normal physiologic range of two chemicals brain transmitters; the chemical messengers that create the sense of pleasure - dopamine, and stimulation - norepinephrine. Those happen to be the two similar chemicals in the brain that stimulates every time you smoke a cigarette by nicotine. And when you quit smoking, they drop and make you feel miserable. So, what bupropion really does is keep these chemicals in a normal range so you don't experience much withdrawal when you quit smoking. It's an oral tablet, and it's prescription only. You start it two weeks before you quit so you can get used to its effect. Then, you set a quit date and you continue it through the whole time in which you're experiencing withdrawal symptoms, but they will be modified and limited compared to what it would be like if you quit cold turkey.
Is the non-nicotine pill right for everyone?
There are a few people who quit smoking without medication. Not everyone needs medication to quit smoking. But the vast majority of smokers have tried so many times that they really should consider using either a prescription medicine or an over the counter. The two prescription oral tablets work in different ways but are both very effective in helping people stop smoking. I would encourage anyone who's considering using these prescription medications to talk to their healthcare provider about what medical conditions they have, whether it would interact with any medicine they're on right now, or any contradiction that is known for these medications and only use it under a doctor's recommendation. I wouldn't use a friend's, neighbor's or relative's pills and use that to try and quit smoking without professional help and assistance.
What are the side effects associated with bupropion?
When someone has been prescribed bupropion to quit smoking, what they should watch for are three or four common side effects. Most of them get better after about two weeks as your brain adjusts to the new changes in the stabilization in brain chemistry. The first one people notice is usually dry mouth, but dry mouth actually helps you when you're quitting smoking because it makes you want to drink more water. Nicotine is water soluble and you flush the nicotine out of your system better, so that's a very good side effect. The second one is that some people might get jitteriness. They may feel like they drank a whole pot of coffee and they look at their hands, they aren't shaking, but they feel like they are. That also gets better in a few weeks. Some difficulty with sleeping is also noted by many people, maybe up to a third of them, initially because it's stimulating chemistry all night long, 24 hours a day, and not just when you're smoking the way a cigarette would. Some people get an upset stomach and some people get headaches. If someone has a history of seizures in their family or epilepsy, or if they have a family history themselves, or if they drink alcohol on a daily basis or have a problem with alcohol or have other chemical dependencies, we recommend them not to take this medication and to talk it over with their health care provider, or to get help for one of those other problems.
What are the side effects associated with Varenicline?
Varenicline, has a side effect most commonly of nausea. Ten to twenty percent of people may experience a little upset stomach in the first few days again their brain gets used to that. They also can have some problems with some reflux, they might have some problems with difficulties swallowing or soreness in their throat from the medication, and they can have difficulties sleeping at night and maybe a little jitteriness. There are very few other side effects and its both, the oral medications that are prescription are very well tolerated and should only be prescribed by your doctor, your clinician who knows you and your history and whether it would be a good combination for you.
Are smokers who use medication to quit more successful than those who don't?
When we follow thousands and hundreds of thousands of people in clinical trials and public research on health, we find that people who try and quit on their own without really putting effort into it, learning what to do, getting self-help or group support, or individual counselling, or going to a health care provider, if they don't do any of those things and they just throw their cigarettes in the trash, get mad at themselves for smoking and say, "I'm going to quit! I'm going to use willpower!" without anything else, the quit rate at one year is only 5 percent. That means that there is a 95 percent failure. I would encourage anyone who's tried that once or more than once to really try more effective methods, because quitting on your own without help, with as serious an addiction as nicotine addiction is, is lethal. This is a disease that kills 50 percent of its users. If you have a disease that's 50 percent lethal, wouldn't you get the best help that you could to try and avoid that consequence? Go talk to your health care provider and get help.