Smoking cessation: you don’t have to do it alone!

Clear the air – make an appointment with a pharmacist for smoking cessation

Each year many of us make New Years’ resolutions, and one of the most common is to quit smoking. It can oftentimes be a difficult resolution to achieve on your own. Quitting smoking becomes easier when you enlist the support of clinical specialists.

The pharmacy department at Hennepin County Medical Center offers a personalized Smoking Cessation program facilitated by a Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Pharmacist. The goal of Smoking Cessation through MTM is to align patients with the right tools for quitting. Patients work directly with a MTM Pharmacist to receive tobacco cessation counseling and medication management. By pairing these two activities, patients are able to communicate their needs and receive support from a clinician who can counsel and provide alternative options, instead of having to try different methods on their own.

Receiving treatment for behavioral aspects of addiction can be just as hard to overcome as the chemical aspects of addiction. Being in familiar situations where you would regularly smoke can provoke feelings of needing to use tobacco. A pharmacist can provide you with tools beyond medications to help support you when you may find yourself in familiar situations where you may want to smoke.

Behavioral help tools include:

• Counseling for how to manage stress, weight control and being around other smokers and smoking triggers
• Regular check-ins with a pharmacist
• Follow-ups to help you adjust and help you remain a non-smoker

In addition, medication therapy is also a big part of recovering from nicotine addiction. MTM pharmacists can offer nicotine replacement therapy and prescription therapy to help control the chemical aspects of addiction. Pharmacists will determine the specific form of treatment for a patient, and monitor and make changes to a patient’s therapy based on the patient’s preferences or medical conditions.

Medication therapy tools include:

• Nicotine patches, gum, inhaler, lozenge and nasal spray
• Zyban (bupropion)
• Chantix (varenicline)

Successfully quitting tobacco and saying smoke-free is a difficult task, but it can be achieved when patients are given the right tools and support. If you or someone you know is interested in quitting smoking and participating in smoking cessation through MTM, you can find more information at:

hcmc.org/mtm or make an initial appointment by calling 612-873-6963.