Patches Add Muscle To Quit Fight
The Age
Tuesday May 30, 1995
Along with thousands of others, Di Miller, 31, made a new year resolution to ditch her 14-year smoking habit.
She was sick of the congested chest, the ashtray mouth, nausea in the morning. She tried going ``cold turkey" on her summer holiday and lasted three days. It was too hard to be around other smokers.
A month later, she tried again, using nicotine patches a growing industry worth $12 million in Australia after just two years. This time she lasted about two weeks, but again lapsed in the company of other smokers at a dinner party.
Hoping for a case of third time lucky, Mrs Miller is wearing the patches again, reaching her fifth day without a cigarette yesterday.
``I feel fantastic. I did aerobics this morning and I feel a lot better in the chest," she said.
She believes that this time she will kick the habit, having made a commitment to a healthier life. Quitting, she said, required a ``100 per cent effort". Without it, nicotine patches would not work. ``To me, it's like going on a diet; you've got to decide to do it."
Nicotine patches supply reducing doses of nicotine to the bloodstream, preventing the physiological symptoms of quitting.
Fresh patches are applied daily for 10 weeks at a cost of $35 per week. They must be prescribed but do not attract pharmaceutical benefits.
Their success rate is 20 to 30 per cent.
Information: Marion Merrell Dow, manufacturers of Nicabate, and Quit.
© 1995 The Age
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