Stop Smoking Laser Therapy
You can chew gum; you can wear a patch; you
can suck on a lozenge, or swallow some pills or have
acupuncture, hypnotherapy, or a laser treatment. You can even be
incredibly brave and decide to go cold turkey. You, in other
words, can approach the challenge of giving up you cigarettes in
a variety of ways, and perhaps you already have.
If you are one of the millions of people
desperate to stop smoking for whom nothing else has worked, you
may be a candidate for the stop smoking injection, which uses
two FDA-approved anticholinergic drugs, scopolamine and atarax,
to block nicotine cravings.
How The Stop Smoking Injection Works Your
smoking habit has caused your brain to develop extra nerve
endings--and the longer you have smoked, the more of them you
have--which produce an excess of the neurotransmitter
acetylcholine while you smoke and for a brief period after you
quit.
If the nerves producing the acetylcholine are
blocked, they will not be able to signal your brain and body
that nicotine withdrawal has begun. The concept is similar to
having an anesthetic before you get stitches; pain messages are
from the nerve endings in your skin to you brain simply do not
get through.
The stop smoking injection will reduce, or
completely eliminate, physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal
during the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after you
quit, when they are at their most severe. By taking a stop
smoking injection, you can spare yourself any or all of
gastrointestinal disturbances, nausea, headache, lowered heart
rate and blood pressure, increased irritability, fatigue,
nervousness, and an inability to concentrate.
Because it will take you body three to four
days to completely rid itself of all traces of nicotine, and up
to fourteen days for the acetylcholine concentration in your
brain to return to normal levels, the stop smoking injection
must be supplemented with oral medication and a scopolamine
patch, similar to the nicotine patches used to help people quit
smoking.
The medication and patch will be of lower
strength than the stop smoking injection, but are adequate to
block the acetylcholine-producing nerves while your body adjusts
to nicotine withdrawal.
Shortcomings Of The Stop Smoking Injection
Critics of the stop smoking injection say that, in spite of its
high success rate in helping people get through the physical
aspects of nicotine withdrawal, does nothing to help a smoker
understand the psychological reasons for his or her addiction
several clinics offering the stop smoking injection also have
follow-up interactive programs in behavior modification.
One study has shown the stop smoking
injection, without behavioral modification therapy, has an
initial success rate approaching 90%, with 40% of those who used
it still nicotine-free after one year. The stop smoking
injection, because it uses FDA-approved medicines, may be
covered as a medical treatment by your health insurance
provider.
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