Tag: medication

Chantix Champix 6

Many of the rave reviews of Chantix (Champix) are posted early on in the smoker’s use of the drug. Short-term smoking cessation with this drug is quite common, but the success-rate at 6 months is much lower. Bad reactions often happen after many weeks, not always straight away, so some of the sufferers of serious side effects may have already posted rave reviews of the very drug that then went on to damage them, innocently encouraging others to decide to try it. Some sufferers report only becoming ill during a second course of the drug.

Chantix Champix Reviews: How long does the suffering have to go on?

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

**Update 2, 4th November 2011:

The American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) were reported in the Business section of the Washington Post as reassuring smokers that Chantix (known as Champix everywhere outside the USA) does not increase psychiatric problems, according to two small studies involving 26,000 smokers.  Since this flies in the face of everything else they know about Chantix already, it is surely irresponsible to say such a thing at this time, because the caveats added to the story further down do not carry anything like the weight of the inevitable headline.  Meanwhile, this article in the Daily Mail reports a study which states exactly the opposite.

Why?  Because the Daily Mail is not bending over backward to assist the pharmaceutical industry – even at the expense of smokers’ lives, if that’s what it takes – whereas the FDA very clearly is.  The testing and approvals system is corrupt as hell, using every possible means of dragging their feet so that Chantix/Champix stays on the market and remains ‘approved’ regardless of how many individual smokers’ lives are ruined by the drug.

The Truth Will Out Campaign has been trying to alert smokers (and doctors) to the dangers of this drug since Autumn of 2008, but just imagine the frustration of this commentator on the new Daily Mail report:

“Oh now they make this a huge statement. My mom used it in mid 2007. She ended up in a mental hospital. Thanks Champix. This stuff shouldn’t even be on the market!!! I still can’t understand why it is, with all these accounts of suicide! I read horror story’s back then after this happened to my mom about people killing themselves or having illness such as bi-polar disorder activated in them. My rule with all drugs is, if it hasn’t been on the market for more then 10 years…DO NOT take it. You never want to be the guinea pig. Sorry for all those who ended their lives because they were manipulated this drug.

– Danielle, USA,
3/11/2011 6:08″**

 

Chantix Champix 6

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Recently a couple of contributors to this blog – who have started to take Champix or Chantix themselves and feel fine on it – have commented that the page they are reading here “seems very negative”.

This is my sixth blog post on Champix/Chantix. I check all comments that come in, and with the obvious exception of spam each comment is added to the site, which means that what you read here is exactly what I have received. If I suspect a comment is bogus I will still add it to the site, and then say why I think it is bogus. Even when it seems I’m mistaken about that, I leave the whole exchange up there for everyone to read, I don’t cover it up. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is genuine and what is not.

So if someone suggests that it seems too negative, I suggest that they read all the comments that follow all six blog posts, the majority of which follow the original post entitled “Champix/Chantix” and the fourth one “Champix/Chantix 4: Enough Already”.

Now look at this:

Review Centre

You might reasonably ask the question “Why do these reviews mostly seem very positive when the ones on some other blogs like Truth Will Out mostly seem pretty negative, often alarmingly so?”

The answer seems to lie in the fact that many of these ‘rave’ reviews are posted very early on in the Champix users experience.  The fact that they feel no urge to smoke at that stage makes a very big impression, and if side effects are minimal at that point it is not surprising that the review they post is bordering on ecstatic.

But we know from the trials that at least half of those smokers will start again when they come off the medication, so this kind of early assessment is premature.  We also know from the comments that have come in to truth Will Out that although nasty side effects can kick in quite quickly, it is more common for them to happen with prolonged use beyond the six-week or eight-week point.

Now read the latest comment to pop up in my mailbox:

Sheanin wrote:

“I’m so glad I found this website – I only wish I had found it a little sooner.

You have confirmed what I had started to suspect myself as a user of Champix. Although I had only smoked on and off for about 6 years, I was prescribed the drug to help me quit a few weeks ago. As I was desperate to quit once and for all, I went for it. I soon wished I hadn’t.

Last week, I had to admit to myself that I was quickly becoming ill on so many fronts that I had to see my doctor again – and fast. I was told to stop taking Champix immediately. I had spent just over a week feeling as though I had been locked into a tiny little cocoon somewhere in the furthest corners of my mind while a robot took me over.

Sure, I got little waves of euphoria here and there each time I reached a milestone – but with each milestone that euphoria would crash to an even deeper low. In addition, my body was going to pieces; I was constantly nauseated, constantly wishing I could curl up and sleep, suffering from aches and pains absolutely everywhere – it was never ending. As a single mum to two small children, one of whom is disabled, I knew – even from the depths of that little cocoon – that I couldn’t let things continue.

I grew up around depression and mental illness and I had always sworn to myself that my children would never be exposed to those things. So, upon seeing the doctor, I was told to come off the drug immediately, which I did four days ago. And even now, I am suffering the consequences. Since that day, I have gone through what I now know to be terrible withdrawal; every side effect suffered during those few weeks has returned with a vengeance. I have been almost permanently locked in my bathroom, unable to eat, unable to look after my children, permanently in pain. At one point, I felt like I was dying.

All I can say is that I am so relieved to have come off this drug, even if I am still suffering now. I’m sure this sickness will pass and I’m positive that I need no crutches whatsoever to stop me from smoking at this stage, I haven’t had a smoke in almost a month and now associate cigarettes with the sheer torture I’ve gone through during the last few days. If I’d never started smoking in the first place, I’d never have been introduced to the absolute terror that is Champix and I wouldn’t be sitting here now clutching my abdomen with tears in my eyes. This drug should be banned completely; the government slaps scary pictures on cigarette packets but continues to sell them – while nobody gets thoroughly warned about Champix and what it’s highly likely to do to your body.

I’d sooner spend the rest of my life licking tar from the footpath.”

Not Worth The Risk

My point about Champix is really very simple: why risk a hideous experience like that if you have not already tried all the methods that CANNOT POSSIBLY do that to you?  Especially when hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr method and acupuncture all produce better results anyway! (See Evidence section.)

To save money?

And to all those sweet innocents who have suggested brightly that if they feel a bit funny they’ll simply stop taking it, over to Sheanin:

“I was told to come off the drug immediately, which I did four days ago. And even now, I am suffering the consequences. Since that day, I have gone through what I now know to be terrible withdrawal; every side effect suffered during those few weeks has returned with a vengeance. I have been almost permanently locked in my bathroom, unable to eat, unable to look after my children, permanently in pain. At one point, I felt like I was dying.”

And some people have.  Take risks if you want, people, but don’t kid yourself this could never happen to you.  I mean even with Russian Roulette, if there’s six chambers and only one bullet, the odds are very much in your favour that you won’t die the first time you pull that trigger.  Wanna play?

Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was

safer alternative

Related posts:

The truth about why this drug is misconceived anyway, like NRT

Two weeks on Champix

Champix Chantix murders and suicide

Champix Chantix suicide

Champix Chantix seizures and epilepsy

44% success rate? No, 86% failure rate for Champix Chantix

More smokers’ comments follow this post

More smokers’ reviews of Champix Chantix

My original post on Champix Chantix April 2008, and almost 300 comments that followed

Article: Why willpower is irrelevant!

The Truth Will Out, Pfizer!

Are Medical Authorities Secretly Reading This?

by Chris Holmes

Since the launch of this site in March 2008 I have been urging medical authorities to press governments to do something about the madness of ‘internet pharmacies’ from which people can buy prescription medications without any doctors or prescriptions being involved.  Occasionally I had heard people like Dr Chris Steele ( a TV Doctor here in the U.K.) gently warning the public that some of the medicines might be fake, and that is why it’s not a good idea.

That is just one of the reasons it is not a good idea. Someone just deciding that they could do with some Valium, some hydrocodone and maybe some anti-depressants but they can’t be bothered to consult a medical professional about whether or not that’s safe or appropriate… but they have a credit card, and the people who push drugs on the internet have certainly got the greed if not the scruples to be concerned that their customer might be about to end up like Heath Ledger… these are some of the other reasons that internet drug shops are not a good idea.

Anyway I have suggested a number of times that the medical profession should be very seriously concerned about this and move to oppose it, mainly because it is dangerous and unethical but also because if people don’t need a prescription they might soon conclude that they don’t need doctors either, or that they can be their own doctor now by reading up about their condition on the internet and simply buying a treatment – without any objective, experienced, wise or properly-qualified opinion being involved.

I know a lot of people read this website, in fact it is increasing all the time.  Some of those people are smokers.  Some are therapists.  I know this because they send me comments and messages, some for publication on the site.  As yet, no doctor has ever sent me a message of any description via the Truth Will Out site, although I do have some contact with doctors and other medical people through my hypnotherapy practice.  (I even did some work for the NHS last year – unheard of!)  But that doesn’t mean medical folk never read this stuff.

So I was interested to see a new billboard, whilst travelling in to the office this morning, featuring a corpse on a gurney in what I suppose was an autopsy room, covered over with a sheet.   It said “You might pay with more than a credit card, if you buy medications on the internet.”  Then the slogan: Get Real – Get a Prescription.

Elsewhere on this site I have mentioned alarming figures about the harm done by medications that have been prescribed by doctors anyway, but I think it is important to get these things in perspective. I don’t expect everyone to turn away from drug therapies and embrace alternative therapies en masse – nor should they.  It would be a much better idea to establish which methods are genuinely most useful and safest for the wide variety of symptoms requiring treatment, so people can benefit from all forms of therapy, not just drug treatments.

But I certainly don’t want to see doctors being edged out of the picture by the drug industry via internet drug shops, so it is nice to see somebody is finally doing something about it.  It’s not enough, but it’s a start and I really welcome that.  Well done, whoever is behind that one.  Good on you.  Doctors are not expendable, and when I got that email last year from an internet pharmacy that was titled: “Prescriptions are a thing of the past!” I just had to write about that (See Posting Comments 2 if you want to read it).

It may be, of course, that the people behind this new billboard campaign just came to the same conclusions as I did, without reading any of my ranting about it here on the Truth Will Out site.  But if so, they took a hell of a long time to come to that conclusion considering that these drug shops have been flogging dangerous drugs for years now, and although none of that affects me directly it certainly affects them.  And also, although I wrote the original rant about that back in June 2008, according to my stats package it remains, surprisingly, the most frequently read page on the site after the homepage.

Now, that’s not because of any links that I’m aware of, so it does suggest that people are sending that link quietly to each other.  And people do have to have a shared interest in that subject to do that, don’t they?  So that rules out smokers and hypnotherapists for a start.

So – hope you’re keeping well, Doc.  All the best.

Pharma Skeptics

by Chris Holmes

Support continues to pour in daily:

“Have seen the website and it’s great! We were wondering if we could include it in our newsletter website of the month feature? It is very much in line with our thinking… We will also link your site to ours as it’s the sort of information we want potential clients to see.”

“Hi Chris! As a group of hypnotherapists/stress managers with great success supporting clients to stop smoking we can support your comments totally. On a personal note I totally agree about the drug addicted medical profession – what about statins??? Another example of ‘managing a condition’ which in my opinion is not there… Well done! I’ll be informing our members.”

There’s a movement growing, folks. A generally Pharma Skeptic movement, and it is really a result of colossal over-medication which is fast becoming a global phenomenon. It is not restricted to the over-prescribing of medications any more, now you can buy just about anything from internet pharmacies and have it shipped by post from Canada, from the U.S. and many other places – and the marketing, Jesus! I get emails every day, offering me hydrocodone, Xanax, Valium… all without prescription. In case you don’t know, hydrocodone is a very powerful synthetic opiate quite similar to heroin.

But it’s the Viagra and Cialis that are really being pushed, and I heard on the radio this morning that in the United States, medications are advertised on television!  This is an idea that seems incredible here in the U.K.  They played a soundtrack of people singing “Viva Viagra!” to the tune of “Viva Las Vegas”, which had me gaping. Quite apart from the fact that this is blatant drug-pushing, how symptomatic of American cultural decline is that? Once they had Elvis belting out that tune, a symbol of virility so potent he could only be shown on television from the waist up. Now it has degenerated into a song about erectile dysfunction!

A pill for every ill? No pill is gonna put that right, America. There’s no pill to give you back your soul. You have to search for that, and it’s not in the medicine cabinet, it’s not in the fucking internet pharmacy. Pills suck. Look what they did to Elvis.

safer alternative