most effective place to put a nicotine patch

In case of interrupted sleep, they may switch to mornings. Instruct patients to put on the patch the night before their quit date to ensure a therapeutic nicotine level upon waking in the morning. The sustained release patch provides a maintenance dose of nicotine throughout the day and night.

The standard way of using NRT is as follows:

However, if used in the appropriate dose, the patch will make the process of quitting much easier. The patch also will not make someone quit – it is not a substitute for motivation. The patch will not treat sudden cravings or urges caused by environmental or emotional cues. Thus, experts continue to support nicotine patch use up to six months but do not advise patch use beyond this time, as it has no added benefits related to quitting smoking.The goal in recommending the patch is to meet patients' nicotine needs, allowing them to feel, for the most part, comfortable throughout the day.īy providing relief from the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, NRT makes it easier for patients to focus on making behavioural changes in their lives. The good news, however, was that 12 months of nicotine patch use was just as safe as two and six months of use.īased on these findings, authors conclude that while a year of nicotine patch use is safe, it does not help smokers quit any more than six months of treatment. But after a year, researchers found little difference in quit rates between subjects using the patch for six versus 12 months. Not only were they 70% more likely to have quit smoking by six months, individuals with longer nicotine patch use smoked fewer cigarettes a day if they hadn’t yet quit and reported more smoke-free days than those using the patch for eight weeks. Investigators followed participants for a year, tracking both smoking cessation rates and any side effects associated with treatment.Īfter six months of treatment, researchers found that those still using the patch were significantly more likely to have quit smoking than those using the patch for just eight weeks. To learn more, researchers recruited 525 smokers wanting to quit and randomly assigned them to two-, six- or 12-months of nicotine patch use, in addition to regular smoking cessation counseling. Experts wondered whether nicotine patch use beyond six months would have additional benefits in helping smokers quit. But recently, the FDA changed labeling to allow nicotine patch use for up to six months, based on research suggesting that six months of patch use helps smokers quit moreso than just eight weeks of use. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they were approved for use up to eight weeks. When nicotine patches were first approved by the U.S. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine puts current nicotine patch treatment guidelines to the test.

Most effective place to put a nicotine patch