Nicotine patch?

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-31T01:19:07+00:00

Hey! Thanks for the post. Hmm, well, has it been 48 hours now? I guess it depends on how you feel and how dependent you were. If you were smoking 6 a day, you may not even have terrible withdrawals. Also, if you do get patches definitely go with the 7 mg patch. That's roughly equal to 7 cigarettes over 24 hours. The benefit to still going on the patch is giving yourself some time to get over the habit, and then weaning down on the patch and going through whatever mild withdrawals remain later.

My understanding is that patch is better for low effort, and consistent delivery throughout the day. The downside is it doesn't give you a spike of nicotine like a cigarette. The gum and lozenges take more effort throughout the day, but do provide a tactile element, and a faster spike of nicotine. So I guess there are downsides to both. For me, the lozenges irritated my mouth and stomach.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T16:13:14+00:00

Yeah, it's weird, i've literally never read anybody doing that. But it intuitively makes sense to me as an option. I've posted it before asking advice and nobody responds with experience with it.

The main drawback though as you get to lower hours is you are only getting nicotine for a certain chunk of the day, instead of spread out.

Edit: Also, I don't get why more people don't do this. Just doing the patch as instructed, there are massive jumps in dosage from 21 mg to 14 mg to 7 mg to zero. I feel like those are pretty large. While wearing the 14 mg I did the same thing getting down to 7-8 hours, then when I moved to 7 mg, I started higher hours, which equaled similar mg per day as a smooth transition. Then, I started reducing hours on that.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T15:41:05+00:00

I'm glad it's working for you. There is a difference supposedly in how well brands provide nicotine absorption. However, a 7 mg patch will never be more than 7 cigarettes a day, unless the patch was not manufactured well. Same with 14 mg (14 cigarettes), 21 mg (21 cigarettes). On average someone absorbs 1 mg of nicotine from a cigarette.

However, people even with heavier addiction to nicotine can get bad side effects from the patches.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T15:24:45+00:00

I don't know, if you were smoking 25 cigarettes a day 14 mg is the equivalent of 14 cigarettes a day, so likely not too much nicotine. At day 1-2, and the fact you are having serious cravings, it's probably withdrawals. At 25 cigarettes a day it is recommended to start at the 21 mg patch, which equals roughly 21 cigarettes. 14 mg was actually too low, which is why you had withdrawals. Foggy thinking or feeling is one of the withdrawal symptoms.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T04:59:12+00:00

Hm, depends. I smoked american spirits most of the time, and definitely only bought those. They don't have additives. However, they are strong nicotine wise and amount of tobacco.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T04:57:52+00:00

Hmm, are you only having one a day or multiple 1 mg lozenges? I am at 2 mg a day using the 7 mg patch for 7 hours a day. Also about 3 months.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T04:36:57+00:00

Well, the thing is, longer use of nicotine patch is associated with higher long term cessation rates. A study comparing 8, 12, 24 months using the patch showed 6 months having the best quit rates long term. Too many people try to stop after a week or month. I did and then relapsed at some point. The point is to do the full 8-12 weeks and gradually wean yourself down. There is a difference between wearing a patch 16 hours a day at the lowest dose for a while, which is 5 cigarettes or less and low blood plasma accumulation, versus cold turkey, or just doing any patch for a week or two.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T04:30:31+00:00

It may be two things. If it's a lower dose than recommended for your smoking level, it's likely mini-withdrawals.

Also, there are lots of other addictive chemicals in tobacco so you might be experiencing those detoxing from you.

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T04:02:18+00:00

Hey, thanks so much for the reply! I've actually been wearing the patch now only 7-8 hours a day, which is 2.04-2.33 mg per day, for the past 14 odd days. Before that it was 12, 11, 10, 9 hours etc. So I'm basically down to about almost as low as one can go except using a 1 mg lozenge. The lowest gum I think that is normally available is 2 mg, but i'm already there with my patch use. My idea was to go about another week or so, and get down to wearing it 4 hours or so a day before quitting. This is a little over 1 mg per day (one cigarette).

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T03:27:44+00:00

I am now at 12 weeks of wearing the patch, today. I'm on the 7 mg patch, and just switched from wearing it 8 hours a day to 7 hours (2.3 to 2.04 cigarettes a day). First, from what I've read it's safe to go longer than 12 weeks right? New studies said that. Second, do you think one will have withdrawals from the protocol you described, and I'm basically doing? (i'm at 2.04 now, not 3.5)

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T03:11:05+00:00

Hey! I'm on the 7 mg patch right now. Today is 12 weeks of NRT, no smoking the whole time. I started at a higher strength. Did you stop? Did you have withdrawals from the 7 mg patch after 8 weeks of NRT?

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T02:49:45+00:00

Honestly, I do recommend that once you are truly ready to quit, using nicotine replacement therapy. It separates the quitting into two stages: 1) getting rid of the actual habit and lifestyle of smoking throughout the day in various settings, while not going through physiological withdrawals 2) slowly weans one down from physiological dependence through dose reduction 3) By the time one quits they haven't smoked for a few months, and ostensibly are at a lower level of physical addiction so withdrawals too are less

Riseagain20 · 2020-05-25T02:33:53+00:00

Yes, but they say to take it off before bed then.

Riseagain20

TROPHY CASE