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HELP WITH STOPPING

Which method should you try?

Big Breakfast presenter Donna Air is reported to have had herbal implants placed behind her ears in an attempt to give up smoking.

Everytime she craves a cigarette she presses one of the implants to take away the desire to light up. It seems an extreme course of action, but some people are so desperate to quit that they will try anything.

There are so many different methods and products on the market that the choice can be baffling. And how do you know if the product you are using is effective and safe?

To help, we have scoured all the products on the market. Here we reveal all the possible ways there are to give up - and how effective they are.

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)

These methods replace some of the nicotine that you need to get from smoking. Used correctly they will double your chance of success and are more likely to help those who smoke their first cigarette within half an hour of waking.

Until now these treatments were only available in pharmacies or to people in certain 'health action zones 'in the UK.

But the Government has just announced that from the end of April they will be available on the NHS.

The options:

• Skin patch: A nicotine patch looks like a sticking plaster, lasts either 16 or 24 hours and comes in three strengths, delivering different amounts of nicotine which is absorbed by the skin. Most helpful to moderate smokers (10-20).
• Chewing gum: This is different from ordinary chewing gum and can have a peppery or tingling sensation to begin with but can double the success rate if you smoke 20 or more a day.
• Tablets (Nicorette) and Lozenges (Nicotinell): Like the gum, the nicotine is absorbed through the lining of the mouth.
• Nasal spray: Delivers a dose of a fine spray of nicotine squirted into each nostril and can be used up to 32 times a day. Particularly suitable for highly dependent smokers.
• Inhalator: Looks like a cigarette holder, inside which you place a cartridge containing nicotine. Clinically proven to double the chances of quitting especially when your body craves the nicotine and your hands and mouth miss the cigarette.

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