The huge popularity of several types of stop smoking medication has brought to the fore a host of problems associated with their use.
If you are a smoker who is intending to take one of these products, it is not always a simple matter of taking them and expecting all your smoking related woes to just go away.
What you have to realize is that virtually all stop smoking medication are very powerful substances in their own right, containing significant amounts of nicotine in addition to other ingredients.
Now, you would typically only take these stop smoking medication when you are attempting to quit smoking, and as such you would obviously not be smoking at the same time.
For many smokers however, the lure of cigarettes is often just too strong to resist, so they may be tempted to indulge in a puff or two of their favorite poison, even when they are taking stop smoking medication.
This is possibly the worse thing that they can do as the dose of nicotine in the stop smoking medication, combined with the additional nicotine in the cigarettes, would likely cause a nicotine overdose in the user.
This could result in several alarming symptoms such as headaches, nausea, severe diarrhea, fainting, respiratory difficulties, dizziness, body pain and-in extreme cases-even severe convulsions.
Even if you do not smoke while using stop smoking medication, you can still experience a nicotine overdose if you use more of the medication than is prescribed by your doctor.
This is why, no matter how much you are craving for a nicotine jolt, you should never take more than the recommended dose.
The prescribed dosage is designed to give you just the right amount of nicotine that you need in order to assuage your cravings, and to go beyond this recommended dosage can result in disastrous consequences.
It is also important to make sure that you dispose of any stop smoking medication remnants or wrappers properly.
Even minute traces of nicotine can cause severe ill effects in a child or pet.
Tiny amounts of the drug may not affect you at all-particularly if you have been smoking for a long time-but a child or animal that is not accustomed to nicotine in their body will definitely feel the effects.
Finally a pregnant or nursing woman should not use any type of stop smoking medication under any circumstances.
Nicotine can be extremely harmful to the fetus and it has even been known to pass through breast milk to the child.
The use of stop smoking medication can be a tremendously helpful aid in the struggle to quit smoking.
Some care and responsibility is important however in ensuring that it does not do more harm than good.