Chantix suicide numbers are out

( I wrote... "This is not a joke")
I want to thank everyone who responded with compassion to the story about my father's suicide. Also thank you for writing about your own negative experiences with Chantix. I am very happy that it has helped some people quit smoking with no negative effects, but people do need to know about this deadly side effect and have to be on the alert for suicidal thoughts and depression.
Pfizer just placed a suicide warning in their Chantix package literature as of January 18, and this may be the first positive step towards people being aware of these risks.
I am sick of pharm. companies weighing the risks and benefits of thoroughly testing their medications before release. They figure that after some basic testing with a few hundred people over the course of a few years, they are ready to release the drug, and the potential profits will outweigh the potential lawsuits that will happen if there is a flaw in the drug. Testing needs to be regulated more closely and needs to be with a much broader range of people and a greater number of people before a drug is released. How many times will this type of thing need to happen for the drug companies or the FDA to take action?

 

That's because the FDA is bought off to make sure enough money is being made before it gets a black box warning, or so it gets approved in the first place.

 

The big pharmaceutical industry has turned into an unethical and lying propaganda machine that will do anything for profit. After the first few breakthroughs like antibiotics, penicillin and others, the pharma industry captured the western world with unbelievable speed, but it does more bad than good now.

 

Quitting smoking reduces your chances for heart disease
NOT cancer. You still have the huge risk for cancer. If you are
promoting CHANTIX to reduce a patients risk of Cancer then you are
promoting chantix off label.

 

you say 1/3 of chantix rx go out with an antianxiety med?
You would not be promoting zoloft for smoking cessation would you?

 

I wonder how many of the chantix rx suicides were really chantix/ zoloft scripts!

 

Why would I promote a drug that is now generic and wouldn't be the right choice anyway. Klonopin & Lorazepam seem to be the biggest used and I do tell PC docs what other docs in area are doing. I am genuinely interested in my physician's patient's success in quitting as I am a ex-smoker too.

 

quitting smoking doesn't reduce cancer risk? who the fuck are you?

 

I don't know where all you pfizer dicks get off acting all high and mighty now Chantix is killing people!!!!!!! Oh your all over SP and MRK but when the finger is poited at you SPIN SPIN SPIN. Torceptapizzzle ???? I see dead people! You are also sickeningly over confident about lipitor YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE OUTCOMES FOR LIPITOR!!!! Get outcomes and get back to me.

 

I agree with you very strongly about the pharmaceutical industry.
I also agree with the person who said someone should calculate the suicide rate amongst smokers. Media does play into this too.
I'm on Chantix. I have quit smoking successfully. (23 days!!! And 30 days on the prescription.) I have been a smoker for 21 years. I consider myself a strong, spiritual person who is addicted to a horrible drug. The ultimate oxymoron. A vegetarian yogi who smokes! How stupid huh? Before Chantix, I tried cold turkey, gum, patch, hypnosis and acupuncture... more than once! I think many smokers tend to be more empathic and sensitive in the first place which is why they lean so heavily on a numbing drug like nicotene.
That said, I DO FEEL VERY DEPRESSED... more than the other times I tried to quit. I have had MORE suicidal thoughts than usual but that does not mean I have to act on it. But like another person posted, I've also done mushrooms and LSD and have the ability to tell myself "I'm on a drug I'm on a drug I'm on a drug..." I am having a hard time concentrating and do feel helpless. But I DEFINITELY had a concentration problem every time I quit, even without Chantix. The hard part is that I know myself the best and if I have tried all these other mechanisms to try and be smoke free, I am fairly sure I will fail without some stronger method, like Chantix. I have had suicidal thoughts but I also had them before I started taking Chantix. Perhaps that's PART OF THE EQUATION people should consider when trying to discover whether or not Chantix is tentatively harmful to a particular person. I mean, I don't think most people share the fact that they're having suicidal thoughts as smokers. And since you're on a numbing drug like nicotene, the thoughts are farther back in the background. You remove the nicotene, start to withdraw and all hell breaks loose. Chantix or no Chantix. And I'm an artist and theirs a writers strike and the economy sucks and people are losing their houses and the biotech companies are doing experiments in Hawaii and the voting booths are all fucked up... (All those years of stuffing down emotions and dealing with them is so hard.) Additionally, one of the things that made me feel suicidal when I was a smoker was the feeling of being a loser because I was a smoker!
It's hard guys. I'm having to weigh dying from smoking or dying from Chantix.
Godspeed to all of you.

 

Very good I agree about the two black boxes. 5 months!

 

Get help I had many manic attacks while at the end of me taking Chantix and am still suffering some mild depression after being off it for 5 weeks. The drug fucked me up dispite what many people's opinions are on this board. Good luck.

 

Hi All,

I just want to add my personal experience I am having with Chantix. I am a smoker of 18 years and 3 weeks ago I decided to try to use Chantix to help me kick the habit. I have quit once before cold turkey and was smoke free for about two months before a night out at the bar with friends led to a instant case of relapse. My dumb ass fault and I kick myself in the ass every day for picking them back up. As I said, I started my script on Chantix about three weeks ago and my physician also presribed Wellbutrin 150mg 1 tab per day to help with any "mood swings".

Today I talked with my wife because she has been telling me that I am starting to act irritated for no reason and I explained that I am aware of the short fuse and don't understand why I am acting this way. I am remodeling our bathroom and today I could not figure out hao to do a simple math problem in my head because I couldn't stay focused on 2 simple numbers I needed to multiply. I also found that I could not stay focused long enough to decide exactlly which thing I needed to do next.

I have never had these kind of issues and to put it plainly, it pissed me off to the point I thought for a while I was developing teretts (sp?) due to all the cussing I was doing trying to think straight. I told my wife I thought maybe the Wellbutrin needed to be at a higher dose and I was just irritable because of quitting smoking but this doesn't really make since because I am not 100% off the cigs yet. The depression part plays in to the mix. Not because of quitting but because I am one of the 660 at Terre Haute that just got axed due to the Exubera failure. At least thats what I figure has caused the deppression?? and today Jokingly I told my wife I wondered how far into the woods my truck would make it at 70 miles per hour on the highway. Not seriously thinking I wanted to seriously drive off the highway into a damn tree but the thought actually entered my mind as a funny topic of discussion on the way to the vets office.

I didn't even realize that people were having any issues with Chantix but I think when I return to my docs office for a follow up visit 2 weeks from now, he and I are going to have an in-depth talk.

I am starting to think maybe Chantix was a bad idea for me and that I should go back to old school cold turkey.

 

Smoking is suicide. It just takes a while. Anyone who still smokes in 2008 has some sort of mental issues to begin with. That is the hard cold truth.

 

Isn't smoking a form of suicide?

 

Yes, but so is driving in LA.

 

You can always tell when a child speaks on these forums. Listen youngster, McDonalds is a form of suicide. Alcohol is a form of suicide. If we keep rolling with your silly logic....I could argue that being born is a form of suicide, or even murder because the mother knew that giving birth was going to eventually lead to death.

And it's actually true!!! I would win that argument. But even if it is a cold hard truth, it doesn't stop it from being a really stupid thing to say.

P.S. Please don't respond with your age. If I was right, then I'm right. If you're actually 40, I'd keep it to myself if I were you because it would drive my insult home and then I would thank you for doing all the work for me.

 

OMG I think my DM must have been dipping into the zoloft samples.
Would you want to work with someone on zoloft? Would you want your children in school with someone taking Zoloft.
Should these warnings be given to patients families
and the community at large?
Should anyone be given a drug that puts innocent others at risk for harm?
Should we as employees be informed if our DM is on Zoloft?

 

Not so fast. Decades ago, in sociology class, I was told that driving an automobile in traffic was a violent, if not abhorrent soical behavior. Consider two lane highways where you are approaching an oncoming truck at 75 mph with only inches of clearance. Normal people should not be blindly accepting that. After all, thousands die every year! Let me mention just one other word, "Guns."

Obviously, lower risk situations are tolerated risks where the benefit is large enough for the user. We love mobility, hence the acceptance of automoti-cide. The risks of smoking are delayed for many years making the risk tolerable to many. I think the risk-benefit of Chantix is still pretty good. Zyban has the same issues. Maybe the compounds are similar.

 

I've been on Chantix for about a month and a half. I haven't smoked in two weeks! I haven't felt any depression, but I have started eating a bit more. Sometimes I get some sharp nausea in the first few minutes after taking a pill, more so in the first two weeks of taking it. But I've found if you take Chantix after eating there is less nausea. But, I think in those first two weeks, I would take it on an empty stomach, so you don't toss your cookies! Love the dreams too, but, 'Wow' they are so vivid. And sometimes scary. Overall though, I'm not smoking. It makes it so easy to stop. I love it.