Smoking?
The fireworks have stopped and now it is time to put those New Year’s resolutions into action.
When it comes to your health, there are many resolutions that should be at the top of your list including reducing alcohol consumption, increasing exercise, losing weight, eating more vegetables and fruit and quitting smoking.
Unfortunately, most of us tend to make these same resolutions every single year.
Let’s tackle one of the most important resolutions – quitting smoking.
Smoking is horrible for our body. Smoking more than doubles the chances of coronary heart disease and strokes and increases the risk of lung cancer by 25 times. There are many other cancers linked with
smoking including stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and cervical cancer.
Smoking increases the risk of eye sight loss and type II diabetes, and can cause autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.
To me there are a lot of reasons to give up these death sticks!
Even with all of the reasons to stop smoking, giving up is hard for many people but there is help. Treatments are available that can help you deal with the cravings and give you a better chance of giving up smoking for good.
Nicotine replacement therapies include patches, gum, lozenges and even plastic cigarette-like devices. These can help you reduce the addictive nicotine in stages whilst breaking the habits associated with smoking. Patches are available over the counter from pharmacies and supermarkets and also available on a doctor’s prescription for a subsidised price under the PBS.
For one month’s supply of patches it will cost you $6.60 (for concession/pension card holders) or $41 (for general patients).
There are also medications available on prescription that mimic the effects of nicotine to help alleviate the symptoms of the cravings and withdrawal from nicotine.
Studies have shown that people have more than double the success at giving up smoking than going ‘cold turkey’ when taking these medicines.
The costs of these medicines are also subsidised under the PBS for $6.60/$41.00 per month.
Quitting smoking is one of the best things that you can do for your health. When you are ready to quit, have a chat to your pharmacist or doctor about available treatments to help you quit forever.