Townsville laser treatment for quit smoking
We are offering our Laser to Quit smoking program to the Townsville region. Approximately 15% of the Townsville region are considered smokers. Townsville had a 6% higher percentage of smokers than QLD and a 4% higher percentage than Australia. These statistics were part of the fifth report of the chief health officer of Queensland regarding the health of Queenslanders in 2014 as part of the Townsville Hospital and Health Service.
AVAILABILITY UPDATE
We are no longer offering our Laser to Quit Smoking treatment in Townsville. Our available clinics are located in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
Stop your smoking habit for good
The AcuQuit® treatment is Laser Acupuncture therapy (without needles). It is our intention to reduce your cravings for cigarettes and stop the addiction.
AcuQuit® is performed by AcuQuit® therapists who are health practitioners registered with the Australian Government. They are qualified and experienced to perform this treatment.
For information on how AcuQuit® works click here.
The treatment objective is to reduce the physical symptoms of nicotine addiction and withdrawal (such as cravings) to enable people to quit smoking. The overall treatment time is approximately 45-60 minutes.
Our treatment is drug free and we do not use any quit smoking hypnosis or quit smoking hypnotherapy techniques.
Does Laser to Stop Smoking really work?
There are many research articles available examining Acupuncture’s role in addiction and the potential for treatment to reduce and eliminate dependency.
Laser Acupuncture had an 84% success rate in recent research (Lim 2018) with many participants reporting they no longer had the urge to smoke. [1]
Laser acupoint stimulation does indeed modify the physical symptoms of withdrawal and makes it possible for motivated persons to succeed in overcoming habitual smoking of tobacco, concluded a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized study. [2]
The most recent Cochrane Systematic Review (White 2014) states that the 2008 Kerr study on laser stimulation is strongly positive at both short and long-term outcomes. [3]
Earlier research had shown that Laser Acupuncture had a 71% success rate in heavy smoking patients. [4]
This external research suggests that Laser Acupuncture treatments and protocols may provide beneficial outcomes however other papers did not have the same findings so the evidence is regarded as mixed. The AcuQuit treatment is unique and so treatment methods and results will vary from available research. We encourage patients to make an informed decision knowing that success cannot be guaranteed with our treatment.
References
[1] Painless Laser Acupuncture for Smoking Cessation. Rodney Choon Huat Lim. Med Acupunct. 2018 Jun 1; 30(3): 159–162. Link
[2] Low level laser for the stimulation of acupoints for smoking cessation: a double blind, placebo controlled randomised trial and semi structured interviews. Catherine M. Kerr, Paul B. Lowe & Neil I. Spielholz. Link
[3] White AR, Rampes H, Liu JP, Stead LF, Campbell J. Acupuncture and related interventions for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014(1):Cd000009. Link
[4] Laser-acupuncture reduces cigarette smoking: a preliminary report. Zalesskiy VN, Belousova IA, Frolov GV. Acupunct Electrother Res. 1983;8(3-4):297-302. Link
