Nicotine 2mg chewing gum
What Nicotine is used for:
- This medicinal product is used to help people stop smoking.
- It counteracts a smoking relapse in smokers who are motivated to stop smoking.
Do not take Nicotine:
- If you are allergic to nicotine or any of the other ingredients of this medicine
- If you are a non-smoker.
- If you are less than 12 years old.
Warnings & Precautions:
- Talk to your doctor before taking Nicotine lozenge
- If you any heart problems such as recently had a heart attack, suffer from heart rhythm problems, heart failure or chest pain (angina, including Prinzmetal’s angina).
- If you had a “stroke” (cerebrovascular accident).
- If you have high blood pressure.
- If you have problems with your circulation.
- If you have diabetes.
- If you have overactive thyroid glands (hyperthyroidism), overactive adrenal glands (pheochromocytoma).
- If you suffer from kidney or liver disease.
- If you have oesophagitis, inflammation in the mouth or throat, gastritis or peptic ulcer.
- If you have a history of epilepsy (fits).
Possible Side Effects:
- Nausea
- Sore throat
- Flatulence
Other medicines and Nicotine:
- Tell your doctor or pharmacist about all medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and herbal supplements.
- If you stop smoking and if you are using other medicines, your doctor may want to adjust the dose.
- No information is available on interactions between nicotine lozenge and other medicines.
- However, apart from nicotine, other substances in cigarettes may have an effect on certain medicines.
- Stopping smoking can affect the action of certain medicines e.g.:
- Theophylline (a medicine used for the treatment of bronchial asthma)
- Tacrine (medicine used to treat alzheimer’s disease)
- Olanzapine and clozapine (for the treatment of schizophrenia)
- Insulin dose (medicine used for the treatment of diabetes) may need to be adjusted.
How to take Nicotine:
- Use in adults over 18 years old the recommended dose depend on how much cigarettes you smoke per day.
- Low to moderate ( less than 20 cigarettes per day): 1mg lozenge
- Moderate to strong ( from 20-30 cigarettes per day): 1 or 2 mg lozenge
- Strong to very strong (over 30 cigarettes per day): 2 mg lozenge
Mode of administration:
- Suck one lozenge when you feel the urge to smoke.
- In general one lozenge should be taken every one or two hours.
- Normally 8-12 lozenges per day are sufficient.
- If you still experience an urge to smoke, you can suck additional lozenges.
- Do not exceed 24 lozenges per day of the 1 mg strength (applies for both smoking cessation and smoking reduction).
- Do not use more than 1 lozenge per hour.
- Nicotine Lozenge should primarily be used for smoking cessation.
- Smoking cessation: To improve your chances of giving up smoking you should stop smoking completely when you start to use the lozenges and for the whole treatment period.
- The treatment duration is individual. Normally, treatment should continue for at least 3 months.
- After 3 months, you should gradually reduce the number of lozenges used each day.
- Treatment should be stopped when you have reduced your use of the lozenge to 1-2 lozenges per day.
- It is generally not recommended to use Nicotine Lozenge for longer than 6 months.
- Smoking reduction: Nicotine Lozenge should be used between periods of smoking in order to prolong smoke-free intervals and with the intention to reduce smoking as much as possible.
- The number of cigarettes should be gradually replaced by Nicotine Lozenge.
- If, after 6 weeks, you have not succeeded in reducing the number of cigarettes per day to at least half of your consumption you should seek professional help.
- You can combine the lozenges with the nicotine transdermal patch if lozenges alone did not work for you (seek a specific recommendation).
Instructions for use:
- Do not swallow the lozenge.
- Suck a lozenge until the taste becomes strong.
- Allow the lozenge to rest between your gum and cheek.
- Suck again when the taste has faded.
- Repeat this routine until the lozenge dissolves completely (about 30 minutes).
- Avoid drinking coffee, acidic and soft drinks for 15 minutes before sucking the lozenge because they may decrease the absorption of nicotine. Do not eat or drink while you have a lozenge in your mouth.
How to store Nicotine:
- Keep this medicine out of the sight and reach of children.
- Do not store above 25 C.
- Store your medicine in its original container. Protect from moisture and light.
- Do not use this medicine after the expiry date which is stated on both the outer carton and on each blister strip of tablets after EXP. The expiry date refers to the last day of that month.
- Do not throw away any medicines via wastewater or household waste.
* Dosage form and route of administration Nicotine 2mg, 4mg chewing gum and Nicotine 10, 20 transdermal patch should be prescribed according to therapeutic indication and disease severity of each individual patient.