CHANTIXXX

Okay, so I kind of figured the title would get your attention!  You’ll have to forgive me–it’s for a good reason. 

I want to warn you about the potentially harmful side-effects of using CHANTIX, a prescription smoking cessation drug.  I have been tobacco-free for 3 weeks now and I attribute my success to the effectiveness of CHANTIX.  But you haven’t heard the rest of the story….

At the beginning of last week I found myself distraught and in tears at work.  Every little thing that occurred–I seemed to take personally.  I thought it was just that my recovery program was lacking or that perhaps I needed to have more time with my Higher Power–a stronger focus on spirituality. 

I told myself a long list of platitudes:  “cheer up”, “don’t take things so seriously”, “relax”, “don’t sweat the small stuff”.  But no matter what “self-talk” I tried, it came up short.  I felt alone, despondent and worst of all for an analytical Virgo, I did not know why. 

I told my boss I was going home sick.  I told a friend that I needed a “mental health” day.  I cried all the way home and then cried some more. 

It wasn’t until later that evening that I remembered something my Mother had told me months before about CHANTIX.  It had been linked, in a growing number of cases, to suicide.  But you hear a lot of things about different drugs, so it went in one ear and out the other.  (I have since learned that there is a growing body of evidence to support the a correlation between CHANTIX and suicide.)

I knew that my mood had not been this low nor had I been this depressed since before going to treatment in November of 2007.  I went back and counted the length of time I had been taking the drug:  4 weeks.  Hindsight is 20-20 right?  I could directly correlate, at least for myself, the use of the prescription drug, CHANTIX, with an onset of mild depression–and if I were to continue–a greater level of depression as time progressed.

The doctor’s orders were to continue taking CHANTIX for 2 more months.  It’s astonishing to me now that even though I was reporting signs of depression, my doctor did not suggest that I stop taking CHANTIX.  In fairness to her, I don’t think she knows me well enough to judge whether I was feeling “low” or “very low”.  She could have also thought that my depressed mood was related to PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome)–very common for people in recovery from methamphetamine addiction. 

This past Monday I stopped taking CHANTIX.  My mood began to lighten within a day or two.  Within 3 days I was starting to feel like myself again. 

CHANTIX did help me stop smoking.  But I fear that the side effects have been/will be deadly for some people.  If you decide to use CHANTIX, please use it with caution.  This is only my personal opinion and I am not a medical professional, so take this–as you would with anything you read on the Internet–with a grain of salt. 

And one last word on this:  the words FDA Approved are not a substitute for good judgment.