Month: March 2019

Change Your Environment to Win Over Tobacco

Environment plays a major role in your quit tobacco journey.  Yes, your will power is required but along with that, a conducive environment is also necessary.

In a study at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, it was discovered that the management could instantly increase the amount of water people drank and decrease the amount of soda they drank, simply by rearranging the way drinks were displayed in the cafeteria. The soda and unhealthy foods were replaced at eye level and at easy reach with water bottles. This prompted the staff to consume water more than soda, and they were not even counselled for the same. Just replacing and changing the environment in the cafeteria made the difference.

 Mr Kunal, Deputy director with GOI, was a chronic tobacco chewer. His day would start with tobacco and end with tobacco, chewing almost 15-20 times a day. His tobacco packet was available everywhere – by the bedside, in the washroom, car, office table drawer. More than that, to please their boss his subordinates would also be ready with tobacco for him. Around 4 years back, his wife and daughter, removed all the packets of tobacco. They got such a chiding that they have not dared to do it again ever. I saw him around 6 months back when he noticed some lesion in his mouth. On examination, he had restricted mouth opening and also dense leukoplakia which had to be removed surgically. Quitting tobacco was a challenge. He was put on medication for quitting tobacco and also for comorbid conditions. But more importantly the following steps helped him the most:

Replaced the places he kept tobacco with water bottles. At the bedside now stands a terracotta water bottle which is always full. When he gets up in the morning, he starts his day with water and deep breathing exercise. In the car he has placed fennel (saunf), chewing gums, mixed nuts and water. Similarly the office drawer is now replaced with healthy drinks and biscuits, peanuts etc.

Further, he has put I CAN WIN stickers at all places and a notice in his office “ANYONE OFFERING TOBACCO IS LIKELY TO BE SUSPENDED”

These measures helped him strongly in his resolution and was the part of the planning given to him.

ENVIRONMENT plays a very important role in your journey of quit process. Store yourself with healthy drinks and low calorie diets. 

Mr Kunal is tobacco free and is in maintenance phase. Feels strong and energetic. The staff now looks at him as a hero. His only wish – if only he would have noticed the EARLY Changes of tobacco, he could have been saved from surgery and trismus.

Now, he is working with ICanCaRe to make his entire office tobacco free.

11 Co-morbid Conditions Associated with Tobacco Use

Opportunity to quit your habit of tobacco !

Co-Morbidity Conditions due to Tobacco Use

“In medicine, comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional diseases or disorders co-occurring with (that is, concomitant or concurrent with) a primary disease or disorder; in the countable sense of the term, a comorbidity is each additional disorder or disease. The additional disorder may also be a behavioural or mental disorder. (Wikipedia, accessed on 10-Feb-2019).

In most of the tobacco users, some comorbid conditions exist and patients visit a general physician to get its cure. These comorbid diseases are amplified due to tobacco use. Neither the doctor nor the patient takes care to get rid of the root cause of the problem – TOBACCO! This is an opportunity for you to quit tobacco.

Check if you are experiencing conditions as mentioned below after you started consuming tobacco. Along with curing the comorbidity, one should try to get rid of tobacco to permanently control the problem; the added benefit – you become healthier and wealthier!

Asthama
  1. Diabetes
  2. Periodontitis or gum disease
  3. Tuberculosis
  4. Asthma  – causing breathlessness and acute attacks
  5. Impaired vision due to increased intraocular pressure
  6. High Blood Pressure
  7. Cataracts – opacity of lens of the eye
  8. Osteoporosis – thinning of the bone
  9. Peptic ulcer disease
  10. Loss of tooth and poor gums
  11. Behavioural or mental disorder
Mental Disorder

Note should be made that when you quit tobacco the above conditions are likely to improve and require adjustment of treatment.

Recognizing the early signs and late signs of harms of tobacco use and taking action can save your life; make your family happy; and save you from the complications of tobacco use which is an irreparable damage.

A Request to all My Medical Colleagues – Please do ask tobacco history whenever a patient visits your clinic for any of the medical conditions.

A Request to all Friends – Anyone who has any of the above medical problems you should let your doctor know of your tobacco use. Ask to be counselled to quit tobacco.

ICanCaRe App

Download the app for more assistance here: Google Play Store

This app will help you explore more on tobacco and yourself by telling you your addiction level, type of addiction, your willpower index, expenditures, finding a doctor for help, self-assessment, and much more!

Whenever you decide to quit, you can visit us at Tobacco Wellness Centre, Sector – 30, Noida Medical Centre, Noida and seek counselling from our cessation expert to win over tobacco.

I’m sure this blog will enlighten you and will help you realize faster the need to quit and adapt to a being a more healthy individual.

Let us spread the message that staying healthy is possible. Let’s all adopt MED and abort using MEDICINE.

10 Advanced Complications due to Tobacco Use

Best part is recognizing the early signs of harms of tobacco and quitting right away! If these early signs are missed, at least one should not oversee the late signs of tobacco harms and should quit in this stage. They are the warning signals to stop – either refrain from in-taking tobacco or bear the fatal consequences!

But it is really pathetic that patients visit the doctor when complications of tobacco use are very much evident and make the patient sick. In the third stage of tobacco use, it is too late and the diseases have started to occur in the body. There are many fatal problems experienced where seeing a specialist becomes compulsory! Treatment of the complications takes the priority. Quitting at this stage will help and will take longer time but the damage is already done!

In this stage, the patient will have developed serious illness of one or the other forms given below. They will need both a specialist and cessation expert to cure their disease and to help them quit their habit of tobacco respectively. At this stage the patient will lose their finances at a very heavy and rapid rate that could have been saved had they quit in time! These diseases are:

Advanced Complication
Advanced Complication
  1. Heart attack
  2. Cancer of colorectal, liver, lung, bladder, cervix, oesophagus, kidney, larynx, pancreas, stomach, oral, and pharynx; acute myeloid leukaemia
  3. Oral Lesions
  4. Cardio Vascular Diseases
  5. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
  6. Eye Diseases
  7. Rheumatoid Arthritis
  8. Bone Fractures and lower bone density
  9. Chronic kidney diseases
  10. Peripheral Vascular Diseases – Bergers disease

Most of the people in India repent for not quitting early only when met with life threatening diseases. With this blogs, I intent to spread this word that self-awareness and detection at the right time will help the tobacco user to seek expert’s help immediately so that the losses are not heavy in the future. The finances can be saved, the life expectancy can improve; one can enjoy more with their family and children and of course have a better healthy life!

One should take care of their health and always advice the younger generation “TO BE SMART AND DO NOT START”. Quitting at the nascent stage will not cause devastating and heavy harms as it does in the later stages.

ICanCaRe App

Let us pledge to quit tobacco before any complications arise.

If you are a tobacco user who wants to seek assistance and help to quit, download the app here: Google Play Store

This app will help you explore more on tobacco and yourself by telling you your addiction level, type of addiction, your willpower index, expenditures, finding a doctor for help, self-assessment, and much more!

Whenever you decide to quit, you can visit us at Tobacco Wellness Centre, Sector – 30, Noida Medical Centre, Noida and seek counselling from our cessation expert to win over tobacco.

The best way to stay healthy is adopting MED and aborting use of MEDICINES.