Question Title: Fear of Getting Help

You need to get those chest pains checked out, pronto. Chest pains, even minor ones, can be a sign of serious underlying heart disease and they need to be checked out thoroughly as soon as possible!

Ignorant physicians tend to blame their patients for addictions like smoking which most doctors lack the training, knowledge, skill and time to pay adequate attention to. That's not your fault - it's the fault of a medical system which taught me 100 times more about scleroderma and myasthenia gravis (2 important, but rare conditions) than it taught me (in medical school and residency) about smoking - the biggest public health problem in the country. Go figure!

Anyone who believes that its easy for every smoker to quit doesn't know what he or she is talking about. I have met addicts who have quit heroin but couldn't give up tobacco, even though they desperately wanted to.

After you get your chest pain checked out, do some leg work to find a good primary care doctor, one who listens, cares, and who collaborates with you and doesn't blame you for an addiction which was caused by other peoples' greed and by advertising designed to entrap impressionable young people.

If your contacts in your community cannot help you locate a doc who knows how to help people quit smoking, try calling your local American Lung Association or contacting the American Society of Addiction Medicine (www.asam.org). Good luck!

For a lot more information about tobacco dependence and smoking cessation, check out my Ask DrSteve web site, conveniently hyperlinked below. Good luck!

Steve Adelman, M.D. (a.k.a. DrSteve)

This information is for general medical education purposes only. Please consult your physician for diagnostic and treatment options pertaining to your specific medical condition.

Keywords: smoking cessation, medical education

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