Lately we’ve had great success in helping many of our patients quit smoking cigarettes using a medication called Chantix.
Combined with the medical skills and encouragement our staff gives, Chantix has helped about 30 patients at Green Country Free Clinic quit smoking in the past two years.
We’re especially pleased with these results because some of our patients were people who had smoked for 30 or 40 years.
In the past, our clinic offered a biweekly smoking cessation clinic, but almost no one was able to quit or cut down considerably. We eventually gave up this program because it wasn’t effective.
Basically, our patients who want to quit smoking now take Chantix over a 12-week course, and at the end of that time they either have quit or reduced their smoking considerably.
If a patient still has a problem with smoking after 12 weeks, they take a break from the medication and we help them assess what problems blocked their progress, such as stress at work or home. We listen, offer advice and encouragement, and sometimes counseling services.
We then start our patient taking Chantix over a second 12-week period. For many people, the 12 to 24-week time is all they need, and then they don’t ever smoke again. There are some potential side effects, but we’ve only had one or two people that had any problem at all with Chantix.
We also give our patients all kinds of accolades when they cut down or stop smoking. The first question I’ll ask a patient is, “Have you cut down?” When they say yes, I tell them how terrific that is.
We encourage people every time they reach a milestone, such as cutting back to 10 cigarettes a day.
When they come in and say, “I quit, I haven’t smoked in two weeks,” we clap and we draw a big smiley face in their chart. We’ll brag to volunteers and staff in the clinic, “Guess what, so and so hasn’t smoked in two weeks,” and people from the clinic will say how fantastic that is.
Here at Green Country Free Clinic, we really celebrate when someone stops smoking. Chantix is helping us make a big positive difference.
According to the American Cancer Society, http://www.cancer.org, smoking is still a health problem in the United States in the following ways:
– About 46 million adults in the U.S. smoke and half will die prematurely from smoking
– Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death
– Smoking causes nearly one in five deaths from all causes