Quitting smoking is hard and may require several attempts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For those who tried and failed to quit smoking in November during the Great American Smokeout, don’t give up.
Quitting smoking is hard and may require several attempts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who stop smoking often start again because of withdrawal symptoms, stress and weight gain.
Getting people to quit smoking is a challenge and it takes a desire to quit to make it happen, said Dr. Heath White, pulmonologist, Baylor Scott & White Central Texas.
“We’ve found that the more measures you take to approach smoking cessation, the more successful you are going to be,” he said.
Medication is only a small part of a smoking cessation plan, White said. There are medications that lessen craving and there are nicotine replacement therapies, counseling and support groups.
Those who take into account both the physical and psychological side of stopping tobacco use do the best, he said.
“If they quit smoking and they relapse, we find the more times they keep trying the more successful they are,” White said.
The Great American Smokeout has been around since the 1970s and continues to be an important piece in the tobacco cessation movement, he said. Keeping the anti-smoking message out there continues to be important and has led to more people quitting or not starting.
Smoking is responsible for most cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a disease that damages lungs and makes it difficult to breathe.
“The longer you smoke, the worst the disease,” White said. “The damage is irreversible, but by quitting smoking you limit the decline in lung function afterwards.”
There are inhalers that deliver medications that improve symptoms, such as shortness of breath and cough, he said.
The majority of White’s patients are still smoking and having problems with shortness of breath when they see him for the first time.
“There are many who quit smoking years ago and are just now noticing the effects of the smoking,” he said.
Treatments for the two groups are basically the same.
Lung issues related to smoking takes years to emerge, so the patients White sees are typically older.
“The best therapy for smoking is the prevention of smoking,” White said.
Smoking is one of the most preventable activities that result in a multitude of disease affecting the lungs, the heart, cancer and vascular structures, he said.
It is the leading cause of the development of lung cancer and causes cancers in the head, neck, bladder and esophagus.
This year, the University of Texas at Austin partnered with Baylor Scott & White Health and the Texas Department of State Health Services to launch eTobacco, a newly designed tobacco cessation protocol that connects a patient’s electronic medical records with a state-funded tobacco cessation program called Quitline, 877-937-7848.
Through the eTobacco protocol, adults interested in or struggling with tobacco addiction will find coordinated support and reap the benefits of free and proven interventions, said Dr. Shelley Karn, a certified health care reform specialist in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at UT Austin.
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