My doctor gave me a prescription for Chantix yesterday, saying it was the most success he’d seen any quit-smoking medication have. I found some posts in which Lsura credits it with quitting, but before filling it I was wanting to do some additional research. (Web pages range from wildly enthusiastic to “meh, works for some, not most”.) Anyone else have any experience with it or know anyone who has?
My husband has several friends who quit using this, so we looked into it, as I have been begging him to quit for years. It is pretty expensive, as most insurance companies do not cover it, but let me tell you – IT WORKS! My husband took it for almost 2 months before he quit. He has since allowed some stress to get him to pick up one or two cigarettes but mostly, he’s done.
This is a huge accomplishment, as he really didn’t want to quit. You are actually supposed to continue smoking while you take the stuff, and it just works. Good luck with it.
I quit for 2 months on Chantix. It did take away my desire to smoke, but it also took away my desire to get out of bed, to work, to pretty much do anything. It kinda zombified me. I was tired all the time and just felt lethargic.
I know of three other people that tried it. All three quit for a period of time, and all three are now back smoking. From what I’ve heard, it does have a 40% success rate and that’s better than must stop smoking methods.
If you want to try it, best of luck to you! It does work for some people. Quitting smoking is the best thing I’ve ever done. For me, the only thing that worked was reading “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking”.
my boss, smoker of 20 years got on it a few months ago, and other than the two-week grace period where you’re supposed to smoke, hasn’t had one since and doesn’t seem to be missing it at all.
His only complaint was the fact that it made him loopy for a month.
I filled a scrip a couple of months back, got it at Costco for $100. and change, much cheaper than other places I called. Haven’t taken it yet, but I intend to start soon.
Sampiro, is this your loony-tunes doctor who wouldn’t prescribe anything at all, but sent you to hypnotists and acupuncturists and voodoo practitioners and the like? Either he changed his tune or you’re seeing a different M.D. now.
The latter. To my knowledge the last doctor is still tossing chicken bones in the air and suggesting blistering.
My dad tried it, after smoking for 50 years, this Christmas. It turned him into a zombie. He was out of it for most of the holiday.
About a month ago, he, my mom, and my sister went to Nashville to be hypontized, a stop smoking program. It took on him and my sister. The guy couldn’t put my mom under. She wouldn’t relax.
-Lil
Two methods worked for me, and the fact that I’m smoking again is my fault, not theirs. Hypnotism – I had five one-hour sessions and quit smoking after the first session, with no side effects or withdrawal symptoms. That lasted about ten years. The Allen Carr book also worked, for about three years, again no side effects or withdrawal.
A friend took Chantix but said she couldn’t sleep, and lowering the dose didn’t help. My doctor says several of her patients have quit using Chantix, one of them a 40-year-smoker.
I’ll wait until they work the bugs out.
My wife started it about 2.5 weeks ago. She had a brief period of being tired and a bit out of it, but shook that off after the first week.
It works by blocking the recptors in your nervous system that respond to nicotine. So she hasn’t had any cravings… what she finds herself wanting is the “physical habit” of smoking. She’s doing ok resisting that, and has recently caught herself smelling habitual smokers and being horrified that she smelled like that.
So it’s working for her, and it worked for her father as well.
Be advised, one side-effect, and one which they both have had, is some bizarre, vivid dreams.
I picked up a pack of these little puppies too. Free, too, on the UK’s NHS, bless its heart.
They’re sitting in a cupboard in my kitchen. :mad:
I’m waiting for the “right time” to become a zombie. Since I’ve just started a new job with a major deadline looming, now is not the “right time”. Of course, there never is a right time, is there? January, I think.
My dad (smoker for 40+ years) quit smoking this year with Chantix. He had a few of the “normal” side effects (loopy, intense dreams) but otherwise had a great experience. I’m so proud of him, it means that we can actually spend time together without me sneezing, coughing, and wheezing (I’m allergic.)
I took it and was successful. When my doc said most people take it for three months, I kinda panicked and asked her if I could refill it after that (I was thinking there was no fucking way I’d be quit in three months). I thought I’d need to take it for a year.
After the first six weeks I really had to remind myself to take it, though. I still have about 95% of the third month sitting in a cupboard. My desire to smoke just… stopped. I also no longer liked smoking, I got no hit and for some reason could actually taste the real taste of the cigarette smoke as I inhaled! WHAT is that awful taste???, thought I. :smack:
It definitely worked for me. Yes, I had the weird dreams, but not for very long. I wasn’t a zombie. I have a very high stress job right now and had no issues there, either. No nicotine withdrawal. (Which I was really worried about because raging at my job right now is reallllly not a good idea.) Once I titrated up it’s just like someone calmly unplugged my craving.
Shop around if your insurance doesn’t cover it. Pharmacies price drugs competively. Walgreen’s is always the most expensive, I find, followed by Target. Try your local grocery store and the independent mom & pop’s.
I’ve had several friends and acquaintances who quit with it. All really liked it. None of them quit more than a few months ago, though, so I can’t say longterm.
A nurse I spoke with yesterday strongly recommended it based on her patients’ results.
Side effects seem to include tummy oddness from nausea to endless hunger, very vivid dreams, and temporary stupidity/spaciness. At least one person cut way, way down on the dosage and was much happier than with the full dose (she’s very sensitive to drugs).
My partner really liked it because she didn’t crave cigarettes when she was around the rest of us unregenerate smokers.
It seems to just turn off the desire for a cigarette, to the point where you forget to smoke unless you work at remembering.
Thanks to all. I think I’ll give it a shot. (My siblings are pharmacists so if my insurance doesn’t pay hopefully they can get it at cost.)
It helped Stephen Fry quit, according to his recent blog post on addiction (warning: it’s about a mile long, as are all his posts).
Has there been any serious research about the reaction of Chantix and alcohol?
A local popular musician, Carter Albrecht, was killed by a neighbor recently. He and his girlfriend were taking Chantix and had both experienced the strange dreams. They went out on the town and had some drinks then went home. He became violent, and she ran from their house. Thinking she was there, he went to the next door neighbor’s house and started pounding on the door, trying to break it down. The neighbor shot through the top of the door, intending to scare off whoever was there, but Carter was very tall and got hit in the head and died.
Everyone involved says this was extremely unusual behavior for Carter; he was never violent and had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol and his girlfriend claims he was acting very strange, almost like he was in a dream. Some have theorized it was a reaction between the Chantix and the booze. Only some of the toxicoligy reports are back, but those showed him to be 3 times over the legal limit.
FWIW, my husband is 42 and has smoked pretty much from the womb. He was up to greater than 2 packs a day this year when he decided it was time. He’s tried to quit several times over the years and he’s always been a miserable motherfucker, no matter what. I mean MISERABLE.
It has been 7 weeks now since he had his last cigarette. The Chantix helped him tremendously and he wasn’t miserable. It was not EASY and he was extremely motivated, but it certainly for him was the thing to help him through and get it to stick. For a few weeks he complained of having some nicotine fits and he’s gone through a LOT of toothpicks, but now he says he doesn’t even get craving them any more at all. He took Chantix for 1 month (they recommend that you take it longer, but we don’t have insurance and his asshole doctor only wrote for a month and wouldn’t call in a refill without going back in and paying another huge fee). I’ve heard that success rates are higher for people who stay on it longer even after they quit.
Also for Turek, the chantix site has full prescribing information on it, and under the side effects it lists:
Psychiatric disorders: Frequent: Anxiety, depression, emotional disorder, irritability, restlessness.
Infrequent: Aggression, agitation, disorientation, disassociation, libido decreased, mood swings, thinking abnormal.
RARE: Bradypherenia, Euphoric mood, hallucination, psychotic disorder, suicidal ideation.
So it doesn’t say that the drug combined with alcohol can cause something like you’re talking about, but the drug itself sounds like it could. There was no data in the sheet about it causing alcohol to metabolize slower or increasing the effects of alcohol that I saw.
In case anybody else was wondering, I looked it up. It’s not a reference to neurotic hatred of your older beautiful sister.
Chantix is the best. Smoke free since January '07. I used it for 10 weeks and haven’t had one at all. I loved it and had only mild nausea. Go for it.