New Year's resolutions: Sedating the desire to smoke
Being a smoker for 41 years, Jeff Haney of Dickinson knows how difficult it is to quit. “I tried quitting on my own, but I actually cheated all the time,” he said. “I’d have one or two cigarettes a day, and think I was doing pretty well.”
- Dr. Sailer
Being a smoker for 41 years, Jeff Haney of Dickinson knows how difficult it is to quit.
“I tried quitting on my own, but I actually cheated all the time,” he said. “I’d have one or two cigarettes a day, and think I was doing pretty well.”
Haney, 54, who works as a dispatcher and truck driver for Power Fuels, has smoked for 41 years. He averaged 1 1/2 packs a day.
He heard about a procedure offered by Dr. Dennis Sailer with the Chiropractic Care Centre in Bismarck, in which microvolts at acupuncture points are to sedate the body’s desire for nicotine.
Haney made an appointment for the procedure with the encouragement of his son-in-law, Wyatt Yorgensen.
“I smoked 20 years every single day,” Yorgensen said. “I’d get out of bed to buy cigarettes.”
Yorgensen had the procedure done a month earlier.
“For the first couple days, I hung out and watched TV after the procedure,” he said. “Monday rolled around and I went to work and never looked back. I didn’t have any cravings or side effects, except having a lot more money.”
Haney remembers the procedure as being pain-free.
“You don’t feel much — a tickle charge comes through a system,” Haney said.
While the patient holds a ground piece, a probe sends electricity to the acupuncture points.
“There’s actually no needles,” Sailer said. “We have acupuncture points on the wrist, four in the ear and one on the nose,” he said.
He said the procedure is simple.
“We start with the wrist, the opposite ear, the opposite side of the nose, the other wrist, ear and nose,” he said. “Each point is 30 seconds. We do the procedure in about six minutes.”
The procedure sedates the body’s desire for nicotine, Sailer said.
“This takes the edge off — by doing this the body no longer desires nicotine,” he said. “That’s what makes it easier to quit smoking.”
Sailer graduated from chiropractic school in 1982, and took additional post-graduate training in Bismarck to become certified in acupuncture.
“Acupuncture works together with the body rather than something the body has to fight against,” he said.
Sailer has been doing the acupuncture smoking cessions since 1989, and invested in a Dynatron electric stimulator at that time.
Clients may experience several side effects of the procedure — most are gone within 72 hours, Sailer said.
The side effects include a taste of metal in the mouth, the heart feels like it’s beating stronger and the digestive system feels slower, he said.
The procedure is the easy part of quitting. The patient still has to break the habits associated with smoking, Sailer said.
“They still have a lot of work to do,” he added.
Sailer is rewarded for his work with the letters and comments he gets from former patients — sometimes years later.
“One lady wrote me a letter a couple years ago,” he said. “She had the procedure done in 1989 and she’s now 82 years old. She said she’d probably not have lived to see her grandkids or great-grandkids if not for the procedure.”
After the procedure, Haney and Yorgensen stopped for refreshments, but Haney realized he didn’t want a cigarette.
“On the way back home, I told him I felt different,” he said.
That was four months ago.
Haney learned that if he smokes just one cigarette, the craving will return. And his fellow employees are watching him.
“We’re having fun with it,” he said. “I tell them, if it works for me it will work for you if you want to quit.”
Thirty fellow employees have registered for the procedure, which was done by Sailer in the Power Fuels office on Friday. The company coordinated the schedule to coincide with New Year’s resolutions to stop smoking.
Admitting that he’s not extremely religious, Haney said he’s praying it helps the other employees.
Yorgensen also endorses the procedure because of its health benefits.
“It’s practically a miracle,” he said.
For more information regarding the procedure, people may call Sailer at the office, 701-222-2252.
Tags: lifestyle, dickinson, smoking
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