Nicotine dependence treatment Olsztyn

You do not need a referral for nicotine dependence treatment in Olsztyn. Nasz Gabinet Olsztyn at Kopernika 44 is open seven days a week, from 8:00 to 20:00. Treatment consists of several stages.

1. The patient books a medical appointment by phone and chooses whether to have it at the practice or online. In both cases, the appointment costs PLN 250.
2. The doctor asks how many years the patient has smoked and how many cigarettes a day, how previous attempts to quit ended, what conditions they have and what medicines they take. On this basis, the doctor assesses how strong the dependence is.
3. The patient receives a treatment plan with the name of the medicine, the doses and the day on which they smoke their last cigarette. They get the medicine from a pharmacy without a prescription, because neither cytisine nor nicotine medicines require one.
4. During treatment, the patient meets an addiction therapist online, and each session costs PLN 250. Together they decide what the patient will do in the moments when they used to reach for a cigarette.
5. At the follow-up appointment, the doctor checks whether nicotine cravings are easing and how the patient is tolerating the medicine. If cravings persist or the medicine causes side effects, the doctor changes the dose or suggests a different form of the medicine.

Thanks to online appointments, people living in Ostróda, Szczytno, Dobre Miasto, Barczewo or Lidzbark Warmiński do not have to travel to the practice. We explain what sessions with the therapist look like on the page about addiction therapy in Olsztyn.

In some people, the first symptoms of nicotine dependence can appear after just a few weeks of occasional smoking, before they start smoking every day. These symptoms include, for example, a strong urge to smoke, irritability and difficulty concentrating when smoking is not possible, as well as a failed attempt to quit.

An American study followed 679 pupils aged 12 and 13 for 30 months. Of the 332 pupils who used tobacco during that time, 40 percent reported at least one symptom of dependence. Half of the girls with such symptoms noticed them no later than 21 days after they started smoking at least once a month. For boys, this period was 183 days. When the first symptom appeared, participants usually smoked 2 cigarettes on one day a week. Pupils who had even one symptom were much more likely to still be smoking at the end of the study.

Another American study involved 367 teenagers who smoked. Signs of losing control over smoking, such as a failed attempt to quit or a feeling that cigarettes were indispensable, were reported by 9 percent of those who had smoked 2 cigarettes in their lifetime and by 44 percent of those who had smoked 5 to 9 cigarettes. Among those who had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, the figure reached 96 percent.

These results show that dependence is not determined only by the number of cigarettes smoked. That is why, at the appointment, the doctor also asks about nicotine cravings, how the patient feels on days without cigarettes and how previous attempts to quit went. The medicine eases nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and in sessions with an addiction therapist the patient learns to ride out the urge to smoke.

In 2024, the World Health Organization published its first guideline on treating tobacco dependence in adults. It recommends combining medication with support for behaviour change. This is a strong recommendation based on high-certainty evidence. Such support includes one-to-one sessions with a therapist, group sessions or telephone counselling. According to the guideline, text messages and phone apps can be offered to people who are quitting smoking, but this recommendation is weaker because the evidence of their effectiveness is less certain.

In the Cochrane review, the effectiveness of medicines was assessed on the basis of not smoking after at least six months. The differences given come from comparing treatment with placebo or no medicine.

The medicines listed in the guideline are varenicline, nicotine, bupropion and cytisine. It describes the first three as first-line medicines. Cytisine is described separately, because the certainty of evidence for its effectiveness was rated as moderate and the medicine is authorised in fewer countries. In Polish pharmacies, cytisine is available without a prescription. Below, we list stop-smoking medicines with their effectiveness according to the 2023 Cochrane review. Cochrane brings together researchers from many countries, and its reviews combine the results of similar clinical trials into a single assessment. Prices are based on the pharmacies we checked in September 2026.

• Cytisine in Desmoxan, Tabex and Recigar tablets. It is a plant alkaloid with a structure similar to nicotine. It partly stimulates nicotine receptors in the brain, so the urge to smoke decreases, and a cigarette lit during treatment no longer brings the relief the smoker is used to. The tablets are taken for 25 days in decreasing numbers, and smoking must stop by day 5. Among 100 people treated with cytisine, 7 more quit smoking than among 100 people in comparison groups who received a placebo or no medicine. The whole course fits in one pack of 100 tablets, which cost from about PLN 40 to PLN 78.
• Nicotine patch, for example NiQuitin Przezroczysty, worn around the clock, or Nicorette Invisipatch, worn for 16 hours during the day. Nicotine passes through the skin slowly and evenly, so a patch eases cravings throughout the day but acts too slowly for a sudden, strong urge to smoke. Treatment with NiQuitin patches usually lasts 10 weeks, and their strength decreases from 21 mg through 14 mg to 7 mg per 24 hours. With a patch alone, the advantage was 2 people per 100 treated. NiQuitin patches for the whole course cost from about PLN 606 to PLN 930.
• Fast-acting nicotine: Nicorette Spray with 1 mg of nicotine per dose, Nicorette Classic Gum 2 or 4 mg and NiQuitin MINI lozenges 1.5 or 4 mg. Nicotine is absorbed through the lining of the mouth, so the patient uses these medicines when the urge to smoke comes. They do not exceed 4 sprays per hour and 64 per day, or 15 pieces of gum or lozenges per day. For fast-acting forms of nicotine, the combined result was about 3 extra non-smokers per 100 compared with placebo or no medicine. Combined with a patch, fast-acting nicotine gave a result close to that of cytisine treatment. A 150-dose spray cost from PLN 62 to PLN 85, and 105 pieces of 4 mg gum from PLN 78 to PLN 100.
• Varenicline and bupropion, the active substances in Champix and Zyban. Varenicline acts in the brain in a similar way to cytisine, while bupropion is an antidepressant. The advantage was 8 people per 100 treated with varenicline and 3 with bupropion. Both medicines require a prescription. Zyban's status does not mean that all bupropion products are unavailable; other medicines containing this substance are indicated for treating depression. Zyban lost its marketing authorisation in December 2023, and Champix was not available in the pharmacies we checked in September 2026.

In Olsztyn, the doctor therefore usually chooses cytisine or nicotine. If a patch alone is not enough to control a sudden urge to smoke, the doctor can add gum, a spray or lozenges. In line with the World Health Organization recommendation, we combine each of these medicines with sessions with an addiction therapist.

Smoking increases the risk of dementia. In this disease, memory, thinking and orientation deteriorate so much that a person can no longer manage everyday life on their own. The most common forms of dementia are Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, caused by damage to the blood vessels of the brain.

In an analysis of 37 studies that followed people without dementia at the start, smokers had a 30 percent higher risk of dementia than people who had never smoked. The risk of Alzheimer's disease was 40 percent higher, and of vascular dementia 38 percent higher. Every 20 cigarettes smoked a day increased the risk of dementia by a further 34 percent. In former smokers, the authors found no increased risk of any of these forms of dementia.

The link is also seen in older people. A study from South Korea followed 46,140 men aged 60 or over for 8 years. Men who had not smoked for at least 4 years had a 14 percent lower risk of dementia than men who smoked throughout, and their risk of vascular dementia was 32 percent lower. Both studies were observational. They therefore show a link between smoking and dementia, but do not prove that smoking caused the disease.

We enter the medicine, doses and times from the treatment plan into the Nasz Gabinet app. The app sends a reminder for every cytisine tablet and every patch change. Once a day, it randomly picks one dose, which the patient takes in front of the phone camera, and the patient marks the other doses as taken with a single tap on the screen. The recordings are reviewed by medical staff.

Consecutive days on which the patient has taken all doses make up a streak. When the patient has taken all doses for the required number of consecutive days, the practice extends their access to the programme. The app shows how many days are left until the next reward. The extra days are granted as soon as the last required dose is confirmed. A missed dose resets the streak, but days already added to the programme are kept.

The app is free to download, and the fee covers the treatment programme that the practice runs in it. To get started, just come to our practice at Kopernika 44 or call us. We will help you install the app and start the programme.

• We do not recommend silver acetate gum, lozenges or sprays. Combined with smoke, silver acetate leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth that is meant to put people off smoking. The review authors found only 2 studies that checked whether participants were still smoking after at least 6 months. In these studies, silver acetate did not increase the number of non-smokers compared with placebo. The authors suggest that smokers simply stopped using a product that was designed to be unpleasant.
• We do not recommend oils, drops or inhalers containing cannabidiol, known as CBD. In a pilot placebo-controlled study, 24 smokers used an inhaler with CBD or placebo for a week whenever they felt like smoking. People using the CBD inhaler smoked about 40 percent fewer cigarettes that week, but the study was very small and did not check whether anyone quit smoking for longer. CBD oils sold in shops are not stop-smoking medicines.

Smoking increases the risk of community-acquired pneumonia, that is, pneumonia that starts outside hospital. In a review of 27 studies involving 460,592 people, smokers developed it roughly twice as often as people who had never smoked, and the risk grew with the number of cigarettes smoked. In former smokers, the risk was also higher than in people who had never smoked, but less so than in smokers.

Smoking also makes serious pneumococcal infections more likely. Pneumococci are bacteria that commonly cause pneumonia. An American study included adults aged 18 to 64 without immune disorders. Among patients in whom pneumococci had spread to the blood or other organs, 58 percent smoked, compared with 24 percent in the healthy comparison group. The risk was higher the more a person smoked, and lower the more time had passed since they quit.

At Nasz Gabinet Olsztyn, the patient has someone to ask about the medicine and about difficult moments without cigarettes throughout treatment. The doctor chooses the medicine and changes the dose when needed. With an addiction therapist, the patient draws up a plan for the first weeks without smoking, and the app reminds them to take the medicine and extends access to the programme as a reward for taking doses regularly. If nicotine cravings do not ease or the medicine causes side effects, there is no need to wait for the follow-up appointment. The appointment can be brought forward and held at our practice at Kopernika 44 or online, including at the weekend.