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What Is Snuff- Important Things To Know Beforehand!
Do you know what is snuff? If you know you might also know if it is safe or not right? If you think smoking cigarettes is bad for your health but snuff is a healthy and safer option, think again. Snuff is a tobacco product. Similar to cigarettes, it has harmful addictive chemicals that may increase the risk of acquiring many heart issues.
To produce snuff, the tobacco used is dried and then grounded finely. There are two different types of snuff, dried snuff, and moist snuff. If you wish to use dried snuff, the ground tobacco is inhaled inside the nasal cavity. For using moist snuff, the tobacco is inserted between the lower lip or gum and cheek. The nicotine is then absorbed through the lining of the mouth or nose.
Like pipe tobacco, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco, snuff is also an addictive and dangerous product. Now that you know a little bit about what is snuff, here is more information you must have a look at for safety.
Is Snuff Harmful?
Now that you know what is snuff, you might also know that it is harmful as it is a product of tobacco and tobacco is injurious to health. Snuff is not only a highly addictive substance but it is also dangerous for health. You might have a perception that using snuff is the safer option and that it is not as harmful as smoking is because in smoking you inhale smoke into your lungs but it is not so with snuff.
However, snuff is also known to have negative impacts n your body.
Like other tobacco types and forms, snuff also contains many cancer-causing chemicals. When you use snuff a lot, it can raise the risk of development of several cancers in your body, including these:
- Oral cancers
- Nose and snus cacers.
- Esophageal cancers.
- Pancreatic cancer
Not only cancer, when you use snuff, but you are also more likely to be at risk of other conditions too like high blood pressure, strokes, heart attack, and other heart diseases.
If you are pregnant and expecting soon, it can increase the chances or probably of stillbirth and premature birth.
When you use most snuff, your teeth are likely to become yellow and your breath becomes sour. It further leads to gum infections and tooth decay. In some cases, you might also start losing your teeth. You may develop health problems deep inside the jaw that further results in bone loss disguising your face.
Once you are familiar with what is snuff and its harmful effects, you might want to learn how this habit can be kicked. You can go through some tips and ways using which you can kick this issue to the core.
Types Of Snuff
When you hear snuff or read it anywhere, know that it mostly refers to dry snuff, but there are others forms of it that people use and are equally dangerous and addictive.
Dry snuff
It is a powdered tobacco product that involves fermenting and curing selected leaves of tobacco. The leaves are then ground down to format fine powder. Traditional fine snuff highlights the taste of various tobacco blends but most of the snuff sold these days has a flavor and scent added to it.
Some common flavors include coffee, plum, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, honey, rose, mint, apricot, orange, and camphor. Even other flavors like bourbon, cola, and whiskey are available in the market as per the choice of customers. Moist snuff is often aged to allow the flavors inside of it to settle and develop before they are ready for market purposes.
Dry snuff is sniffed or snorted into the nasal cavity where it sends nicotine hits into your bloodstream quickly. This action will produce a sneeze especially in those people who have started using snuff recently.
Wet Snuff
When it comes to wet snuff, there are a few flavors and kinds of wet snuff. When it is placed in the mouth, it produces saliva laden with nicotine. Different types of wet snuff include:
- Snus: this is a type of Swedish moist snuff product sold in small packets. This snuff is slipped in between gums and upper lip where it resides for some time mixing with your saliva. This leaches the nicotine-containing juice of tobacco into the mouth. Most snus packets have only 30% of tobacco and the rest 70% is flavorings mixed with water.
- Dipping tobacco- This one is an American snuff product. It is comprised of loose bits or ground-up shredded tobacco that users take a pinch of and place between gum and cheeks. Ad the juice of tobacco builds up, it is either swallowed or spit out.
- Chew or chewing tobacco- Chewing tobacco comes in various forms. These may be loose, pellets, plugs, and leaves. Some of these may be sweetened or flavored and all the forms are always chewed in the mouth for releasing the tobacco juices. Both chew and dip are not swallowed and discarded when they finish.
How To Get Over Snuff
For everyone that knows what is snuff, you know it’s highly addictive and can be as challenging to quit as smoking is. If you have developed any sort of habit or addiction to snuff, it is highly recommended to make an appointment with health care providers. They can help you frame a plan to quit snuff. For example, they may suggest you a combination of counseling, prescription drugs, nicotine replacement therapy, and some other helpful options.
Here’s a small piece of information on these quitting strategies you can take a look at to know slightly more about each of these.
Nicotine replacement therapy
Nicotine withdrawal is likely to cause unpleasant symptoms that make you start smoking and taking snuff again. To manage all the signs and symptoms, the doctors often recommend taking nicotine replacement therapy. In this there, doses of nicotine are provided to the patients without any harmful substance and chemicals that are prevalent in tobacco.
You can find lozenges, nicotine patches, gums, and some other nicotine replacement products at the nearest drugstores. You do not require a prescription to use them or buy them from pharma and drug stores.
Counseling
Counseling is also a great option to overcome the habit of smoking and snuff. A mental health counselor can help you throughout the process of overcoming addiction and helps develop healthy habits that are good for your health. They also help you manage the withdrawal symptoms, control your triggers, and maintain your motivation.
You can always the doctors to recommend a counselor to help you deal with symptoms. In Columbia, every state offers a phone-based tobacco cessation program. These services are great to connect you with well-known and expert health professionals. They will help you find ways o deal with the situation and cope up with the situation without using tobacco or any other predict harmful substance.
They provide you with a safe place to share everything and talk about all the concerns you have. It is a great way to point you towards free resources that helps you give up on tobacco for the rest of your life for good.
Prescription medication
Not only counseling and nicotine replacement therapy but there are some prescription drugs also available that help quit using tobacco and snuff. You can visit health care providers to talk about your concerns and know what to use. For example, once you visit your doctor, they might prescribe bupropion or varenicline, or Chantix as a prescription drug against or in place of tobacco.
Ask the doctors more n information about the risks of the medications and what potential benefits they have once you take them. Also, make sure you complete your research without proceeding with any of the drugs with a prescription from healthcare providers.
Social support
While some people go for one on one counseling to leave their habits after understanding what is snuff, you can also go for social support. Some people often find success in later groups after sharing their struggles. For example, there are programs like Nicotine anonymous. It offers support group sessions to all those people coping with snuff and nicotine addiction.
In all the sessions you attend, you will be able to connect with other people who are in the same situation as yours and are trying to stop their habit of consuming tobacco. You can provide each other with social support and motivation to give up on tobacco.
They also share concrete stages for changing their lifestyles and leading to a healthier life.
Give Up On Snuff
When you stop using snuff after knowing what is snuff, you are likely to experience withdrawal symptoms. Some of the withdrawal symptoms are given below:
- Anger
- depression
- anxiety
- restlessness
- insomnia
- headaches
- weight gain
With time, all the symptoms mentioned here will begin to subside and disappear and you will start feeling a lot better than usual. In the meantime, visit your doctor and ask them about how you can limit and manage these symptoms using any of the strategies mentioned earlier in this article.
Quitting also comes with other health benefits. Cutting snuff and all the other tobacco products from your habits and life will also lower the chances of developing heart diseases, high blood pressure, and cancer-like severe diseases. It also provides your mouth the opportunity to get normal and heal if you have developed an infection or sores previously due to snuff on your gums, cheeks, and lips.
The Bottom Line
After knowing what is snuff and what it can lead to, you very well understand it is not at all easy to break a snuff addiction. But you should know that it is not impossible. With the support of your doctors, family, and friends, you can cope up with the symptoms and kick the habit for good.
With a combination of counseling, nicotine replacement therapy, and other treatments, the chances of recovery always increase. There are many examples you have succeeded in leaving tobacco for good, so you can do it too!
Just remember that this doesn’t happen in one day, but if you start believing in yourself and stick to tobacco cessation programs, you will be able to develop and incorporate healthier habits into your lifestyle.
Now that you understand what is snuff, it is time to leave it for good and lead a healthier lifestyle.
