What is the best path to take? Patches, pills, gum? I'm searching for the right answer. I know some of these options are less likely to work for a woman and also cause more side effects in women than in men. Have you taken any of these and what works best?

I've sort of experimented  with patches before and also the chewing gum.  But I am also a very fragile person, so the effects may be magnified to some degree.  So a while ago, I started using the Nicoterm CQ patches, but they gave me cold sweats and headaches, I felt like the only thing that could relieve my new stress was a cigarette and they didn't do so much for my cravings.  But later I tried the smaller patches and they worked a lot better, I also used the chewing gum at the same time. 

I would talk to your doctor about that. If you could be on all three at once (I'm not sure if you could or not) then thats what I would do.