Nicotine Gum Gave Me Jaw Pain So I Switched to Lozenges

I’m Damon Price. I’m 47 years old, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. I’ve been a factory supervisor at an auto parts plant for the last sixteen years. And I smoked for twenty-five of my forty-seven years on this earth. Marlboro Reds. Not the lights, not the menthols. Reds. Every single day, rain or shine, summer or winter, standing outside the plant on my breaks or sitting on my porch after a shift. Twenty-five years.

I want to be real with you about something. I’m not writing this because I had some smooth, easy quit. I didn’t pop a piece of gum and ride off into the sunset. My quit was messy. The first thing I tried, nicotine gum, caused me so much jaw pain that I almost went back to smoking just to make it stop. But I found something else that worked, and I’m here now, eleven months without a cigarette, and I think my story might help somebody who’s going through something similar.

Let me give you the background. I started smoking at 22. I was working at a different plant back then, smaller operation, and every single guy on the floor smoked. That was 2001. People smoked everywhere. On the floor, in the break room before they cracked down on it, in their trucks during lunch. I picked it up because everyone around me was doing it, and because the job was physical and boring and a cigarette break was the only thing that broke up the monotony.

By the time I was 30, I was at a pack and a half a day. That’s about 30 cigarettes. You don’t even enjoy them at that point. Half of them you light out of pure habit. You finish one task, you light up. You get in the truck, you light up. You finish eating, you light up. It’s automatic. Like blinking.

I tried quitting three times before the one that stuck. The first time was in 2012 when my daughter was born. I told my wife Denise I was done. Went cold turkey. Made it six days. The withdrawal was brutal. Headaches, irritability, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus at work. I was supervising a crew of twelve guys and I almost bit someone’s head off over nothing. A guy named Marcus dropped a tray of bolts and I went off on him like he’d crashed a forklift. That wasn’t me. I went back to smoking that night.

Second time was 2017. Tried the patch. It worked okay for the cravings, but I broke out in a rash on my arm where I stuck it. Moved it to my chest, same thing. The adhesive or something in it just didn’t agree with my skin. Lasted about three weeks before I gave up.

Third time was 2020, right when COVID hit. Figured if there was ever a time to protect my lungs, it was then. Tried cold turkey again. Made it eleven days. Then the stress of the pandemic, the fear of the plant shutting down, worrying about Denise who’s a home health aide and was out there exposed every day. I caved. Bought a pack from the gas station on Michigan Avenue and smoked three in a row in the parking lot.

The fourth time was March 2025. I turned 47 and I went to the doctor for a routine physical. My blood pressure was high. Not dangerously high, but higher than it should be. The doctor, Dr. Okafor, he’s been my doctor for years, he looked at me and said, “Damon, your heart is working harder than it needs to because of the smoking. You’re 47 now, not 27. Your body can’t keep absorbing this the way it used to.” He didn’t say it in a scary way. More matter of fact. Like he was reading me the weather. But something about his tone got to me. Like he’d been waiting for me to be ready to hear it.

He recommended nicotine gum. Said it was good for people who had that oral fixation, which I definitely did. I was the guy who always had something in his mouth. Toothpicks, sunflower seeds, pen caps. Smoking fit right into that. He suggested I start with 4mg since I was a heavy smoker, and to use the chew and park method. Chew a few times until you taste the pepper or tingle, then park it in your cheek and let it absorb.

I went to Walgreens and picked up a box of Nicorette 4mg original flavor. Not cheap. I think it was around $50 for 100 pieces. But I was spending $10 a day on Marlboros at that point, so the math made sense.

The first few days were actually promising. The gum tasted a little peppery and weird, but it wasn’t terrible. It did take the edge off the cravings. Not completely, but enough. I was chewing about 12 to 15 pieces a day. Every time I’d normally reach for a cigarette, I’d pop a piece instead. It wasn’t the same. Nothing is the same as that first drag. But it was something.

Then, around day ten, my jaw started hurting. Not a little soreness. Real pain. A deep ache on both sides, right in front of my ears, that radiated down into my teeth. It felt like I’d been clenching my jaw all night, that kind of pain. I figured it was just from all the chewing and it would pass.

It didn’t pass. By day fourteen, I could barely eat breakfast without wincing. The pain was worst in the morning, which makes sense because I’d usually chew my last piece of gum around 10pm and my jaw had been working hard all day. I was chewing the gum aggressively too. Not doing the chew and park like I was supposed to. I was grinding on it like regular gum because it felt more like smoking that way, having my jaw moving constantly.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I had a history of TMJ issues. Temporomandibular joint disorder. I’d had some clicking and popping in my jaw for years, mostly on the left side, but it never really bothered me. Apparently, the constant gum chewing aggravated it severely. My jaw joint was inflamed and angry and letting me know about it in no uncertain terms.

I went to a dentist, Dr. Rivera, and she took one look at me trying to open my mouth for the exam and said, “How much gum are you chewing?” When I told her I was on nicotine gum, twelve-plus pieces a day, she nodded and said she’d seen this before. People with TMJ or even borderline TMJ issues who start chewing nicotine gum heavily can trigger a serious flare-up. She told me I needed to stop the gum immediately and gave me some jaw exercises and said to use warm compresses.

This is the moment I almost gave up on quitting entirely. I was seventeen days in. The gum had been working for the cravings but now I couldn’t use it. Cold turkey hadn’t worked for me before. I sat in my truck in the dentist’s parking lot and genuinely considered driving to the gas station. I had my hand on the ignition. I could taste the phantom cigarette already.

But then I called Denise. And she said something that stuck with me. She said, “Damon, the gum isn’t the only option. Call Dr. Okafor. Ask him what else there is.” Simple as that. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself. I think when you’re in the middle of quitting and something goes wrong, your brain narrows down to two choices: smoke or don’t smoke. You forget there’s a whole spectrum of tools out there.

I called the doctor’s office from the parking lot. The nurse called me back within an hour and suggested Nicorette mini lozenges. She said they deliver nicotine the same way, through the lining of your mouth, but there’s no chewing involved. You just put the lozenge between your gum and cheek and let it dissolve. She said it takes about 20 to 30 minutes and the nicotine absorbs slowly. She called in a recommendation, and I picked up a box from Walgreens that same afternoon. 4mg mini lozenges, mint flavor.

The first lozenge was a revelation. I sat in my truck and tucked one into my cheek and within a few minutes I felt that same slow release of nicotine I’d gotten from the gum. But my jaw was doing zero work. The lozenge just sat there dissolving on its own. I almost laughed. Why hadn’t I tried this from the start?

Over the next few days, I transitioned completely from gum to lozenges. The jaw pain started to subside within a week. I was still doing the warm compresses and the exercises Dr. Rivera gave me, and between those and stopping the gum, the TMJ calmed down significantly. Within three weeks, the jaw pain was basically gone.

The lozenges became my new thing. I was using about 10 to 12 a day in the beginning, which is within the recommended range. I kept a tin of them in my pocket at all times. At the plant, nobody even noticed. You can have a lozenge in your cheek and talk to people and they don’t know. With the gum, the constant chewing was obvious. Guys on my crew would say, “You chewing on something, D?” With the lozenges, nothing. Totally discreet.

The routine replacement worked like this. When I used to step outside for a smoke break, I’d instead pop a lozenge and take a short walk around the inside of the plant. I’d check on different stations, talk to my guys, just move around. The lozenge would dissolve over 20 or 30 minutes and by the time it was done, the craving had passed. It wasn’t as dramatic as that first inhale of a cigarette. But the cravings were manageable.

The hardest times were after dinner and in the morning with coffee. Those were my deepest habits. After dinner, I’d always go sit on the porch with a cigarette. That was my unwinding ritual. Denise and I would talk about the day, the kids, whatever. I replaced the cigarette with a lozenge and a glass of sweet tea. Not the same, but it worked. The morning coffee trigger was tougher because there’s something about nicotine and caffeine together that my brain was just wired for. I’d have a lozenge going while I drank my coffee and it wasn’t the same magic, but it quieted the craving enough.

By month three, I was down to about 6 lozenges a day. By month five, I was at 3 or 4. By month seven, I was down to 2, one in the morning and one after dinner. I started stretching those out. Seeing how long I could go without one. There were days I’d forget the morning one and not notice until lunch. That’s when I knew I was getting close to being done.

I stopped using the lozenges entirely around month nine. Just ran out of a box and didn’t buy another one. The first couple days without them I was a little antsy, but nothing like the withdrawal from quitting cigarettes. More like a mild itch than a scream.

Some things I want to be straight about. I gained weight. About fifteen pounds over the first six months. I was eating more. Snacking, especially. Denise started buying those big bags of almonds from Costco and I’d go through them like they were nothing. The doctor said weight gain is normal and that the health benefits of quitting smoking far outweigh the risks of carrying a few extra pounds. I’ve since lost about half of it by being more careful about what I eat, but I’m still heavier than I was when I smoked. I’m okay with that.

The money savings have been real. A pack of Marlboro Reds in Detroit was running me about $9.50 to $10. At a pack a day, that’s roughly $300 a month or $3,600 a year. The lozenges cost me maybe $120 a month at their peak, and that went down as I tapered. Even factoring in the gum I bought before switching, I saved a significant amount of money in the first year.

My daughter, she’s 13 now, she made me a card when I hit six months. Drew a picture of lungs with a smiley face. I keep it in my wallet. That might be the best thing to come out of all of this. Not just the health stuff, but showing her that you can do hard things. That you can try something, have it fail, and try again differently. The gum didn’t work for me. That doesn’t mean quitting didn’t work. It just meant I needed a different tool.

If you’re reading this and you tried nicotine gum and it caused you jaw pain or TMJ problems, don’t give up on quitting. Don’t let one method failing make you think you can’t do it. Lozenges work on the same principle but without the jaw strain. They deliver nicotine through your mouth lining. They’re discreet, they’re easy, and they don’t make your jaw feel like you’ve been chewing on a tire.

I’m Damon Price. I smoked for twenty-five years. I tried cold turkey twice, the patch once, and gum once. The gum hurt my jaw and I almost quit quitting. But I switched to lozenges and now I’m eleven months without a cigarette. My blood pressure is down. My doctor is happy. My wife is happy. My daughter made me a card with smiling lungs. I’d say it worked out.

Talk to your doctor. Try different things. Don’t let one setback send you back to the gas station. There’s more than one way to do this, and one of them is going to be the right one for you.