Personal Update on Chantix (Champix)

Categorized: stop smoking pills | No comments

: Image via Wikipedia

Back in January of 2010 I published an article titled Quit Smoking Pills Actually Worked For Us. That article raved about how good Chantix was and how easy it was to use these quit smoking pills. Now, almost a year has passed and an update is in order.

We first heard about Chantix from several friends who had quit smoking effortlessly using it. They were hardcore smokers, so we figured it would work for us too. Of course, the painless part was a pretty good incentive. Anyway, at this point in time, all the people who raved about Chantix are back on the butts. The longest smoke free interval was six months.

Interesting sidebar: One of the strongest recommendations for Chantix came from a pair of female friends. Both of them quit at the same time. They do everything together, so this was no surprise. We only found out recently that only one of them quit smoking using pills. The other just went along with her friend cold turkey. She was just as successful. When her friend went back to smoking she did too. That’s a great illustration of the social factor in smoking.

My wife and I are also back smoking. Stressful times and social factors dragged us down. The fact that the pills worked so well was actually a drawback in the long run. Because there was no effort involved in our accomplishment it was easy to think that we had smoking mastered, so it would be safe to have a cigarette with friends. One led to two. Borrowing led to buying and soon we were right back where we started.

There were a lot of side-effects from the Chantix, too. Here is a list of the most common side-effects people have reported:

nausea
changes in dreaming
constipation
gas
vomiting
depressive behavior
increased risk of suicide

Nobody gets all of these effects, of course. In fact, I wasn’t aware of any except for the nausea. My wife had almost all of them. The psychiatric ones are the most dangerous, and she had them in spades, but she kept them from me. She thought that the depression and suicidal thoughts were just a reaction to being deprived of nicotine (she calls it whining). Only now do we discover that the drug manufacturers are being sued for these side-effects and warnings are now required in the labeling of this drug in Canada. Here’s a clip:

Chantix patients in Canada have been informed by Canadian health officials about the possibility of serious side effects associated with the medication. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has linked the smoking cessation drug to several psychiatric episodes in patients as far back as February 2008.In the United States, more than 400 episodes of irrational behavior, depression, suicidal tendencies and ideation have been reported among Chantix patients as well as at least 98 suicide-related deaths associated with the drug since 2009. The drug is still on the market. Nicotine-replacement have not been linked with similar statistics, according to the FDA.

Chantix and its sister drug Zyban were ordered by the FDA in July 2009 to carry an additional warning label cautioning patients of the potential risk of hazardous side effects. In lieu of a recall, the warning label is the harshest caution the FDA can issue. Furthermore, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration removed the drug from a list of medications considered safe for pilots and air traffic controllers after reports linked it to loss of consciousness.

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

I hope this report of our own experience with this popular stop smoking aid will be helpful to people. Bottom line is to always check out how patients are doing around a year after they quit. Have they gone back to smoking? In most cases, the answer will be yes.

Pills are not a panacea to stop smoking cigarettes. They are powerful, psychoactive drugs that can really screw some people up. Use them with caution, and don’t expect too much of a benefit. My final opinion one year later is that they are and expensive and dangerous waste of time.

There were a lot of side-effects from the Chantix, too. Here is a list of the most common side-effects people have reported: