"Chantix Overwhelmed Me"

"It's funny that everything started at the same time—nausea, pressure on my chest and all my mental problems; these symptoms happened almost immediately after I started to take Chantix," says Angie.

"About a few days after I started taking Chantix I was getting ready for work and had an 'episode'," says Angie. "I was drying my hair and all of a sudden I couldn't hold the hair dryer, my arms wouldn't work and I had this horrible pressure on my chest. I thought I was having a heart attack, then extreme fatigue just overwhelmed me.

Chantix Overwhelmed

I phoned the 24-hour nurse hotline and she told me to get to ER immediately. I only live a mile away so I drove myself but it was a scary ride. The doctor was waiting for me.
He did a thorough exam and said it wasn't a heart attack but they didn't know what it was. He advised me to stay overnight but I got a family member to take me home—I didn't want to stay there.

I started taking Chantix around July 2007 but only took it for three weeks; I quit because I was so nauseous and I was even projectile vomiting. I was so sick I had to sit in one spot for a few hours, or I would throw up. Then this incident at the hospital happened right after I quit.

When I got back from the hospital it got worse: I had a chronic chest pain and it went into to my neck, shoulders, my whole body ached. Then they thought it was my gallbladder and I had ultrasounds. Negative.

I'd heard about Chantix from people at work and they had successfully quit smoking. But nobody knew about the side effects. Now I am smoking twice as much because this illness caused so much stress and my nerves are shot.

I tried to quit on and off since I was 15—hypnosis, the patch, pills. I really need to quit but I don't think I can right now. I cried at anything while I took this drug and can't quite pull myself together. I still have these physical symptoms but I am not nauseous anymore.

Then I started hearing stories about the side effects of Chantix. I went on the internet and found someone on a local forum; he posted the warnings about Chantix and he had the same symptoms as me. He said the public needs to know about this drug. We started talking back and forth about my depression and how my nerves are shot. At least I know what caused it now.

'I blew all that money on that stuff and you didn't even take it all, now look at you,' my husband said. After everything I have read, throwing up may have saved my life—I would have likely taken the whole box to try and quit smoking. I wish we could get the money back from Chantix – I paid $89 for one prescription."

Since its approval, more than 6 million people have taken Chantix but prescriptions are decreasing as more users like Angie have suffered adverse side effects, from nausea and heart problems to depression to suicide. And more recent reports link Chantix to loss of consciousness, leading to injuries. Despite so many reports of trouble, Pfizer stands by its smoking-cessation pill.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, due to a lull in sales, Pfizer launched a huge advertising campaign to play up the dangers of smoking and play down the dangerous side effects of Chantix. To date, the FDA has reported heart irregularities, seizures and more than 100 accidents linked to the use of Chantix.

"Chantix Overwhelmed Me"

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