I’m Quitting Smokeless Tobacco, How Long Will Nicotine, Cotinine, Etc. Show Up on a Blood Test?
Question by Tim F: I’m quitting smokeless tobacco, how long will nicotine, cotinine, etc. show up on a blood test?
Best answer:
Answer by Max_Gio
Question 1 – How long does nicotine stay in the system?
Answer Nicotine is a short-acting drug that is eliminated from the body relatively quickly (i.e., within a day or so). However, the effects of acute nicotine withdrawal can be felt for as much as two weeks or more. In addition, the byproducts of nicotine can be detected in the blood for up to a month after you stop smoking. This is only of concern if you are in a situation where someone else might want to test you for the presence of nicotine or nicotine byproducts in your system. – Source: Blair’s Newsletter, 7/10/00. Unfortunately, he didn’t cite a source. Blair’s web site is at http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com.
Jim Larson Comment 1: I’ve read elsewhere that nicotine can be detected in the hair indefinitely — any hair that grew while you were a smoker. So after being quit for a few months, and if you are worried about a hair sample being tested, think about getting your hair cut!
Jim Larson Comment 2: The “How long does nicotine stay in the bloodstream?” question is a very common question on quit-smoking message boards. People seem to think that things will get much easier as soon as they eliminate nicotine from the bloodstream. In their minds, they think of nicotine addiction as being similar to heroin addiction — just get over the agony of “physical withdrawal”, and then cravings should be a lot less, and just “mental” instead of “physical”. Well, that’s not the experience of most people, at least not mine nor the hundreds of people I’ve spent hundreds of hours with on message boards and chatrooms. Most people say that days 2 and 3 (hours 24 – 72) are the worst. After that, it slow-w-w-w-ly gets easier, day by day, week by week, month by month.
The idea that getting nicotine out of the bloodstream is the express way to easy street leads many to prematurely quit using nicotine replacement aids like the patch. Rather, I believe that quitting smoking is a lot like quitting alcohol. Nobody who quits drinking for more than a day says, “Oh good, I no longer have alcohol in my bloodstream, so its going to be a lot easier now”. Rather, getting through the first day or two that is required to get alcohol out of the bloodstream is only a very small first step in quitting drinking. Likewise, I believe that getting nicotine out of the bloodstream is a fairly small part of the battle to quit smoking.
So the next time you are thinking of getting off the patch or the gum prematurely, think more of the alcohol model of addiction (where getting the addictive substance out of the bloodstream does not reduce cravings much) and less of the heroin model of addiction. I believe that quitting smoking is primarily a mental battle against old learned patterns (we’ve learned hundreds of times a day for years that a puff brings relief, so it will take a long time to unlearn that). This slow unlearning of “a puff brings relief” is a much larger and longer battle than restoring the brain chemistry to nicotine-free equilibrium.
Answer by Claire
Hi,
I really emphathise with you, I quit my 20 a day habit in a pain-free way!
No stress, no cravings, no weight gain, no pills, patches or gums.
The program I followed was recommended by a friend and now boasts a 90% success rate and is 100% fully guaranteed – can’t say fairer than that
All the best…and check this out if you’re still struggling.
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