Magazine Writer Experiences Chantix Side Effects

For years, people have been looking for a way to quit smoking and not start again. Many methods have been used by people, including the cold turkey method. Roughly 10 years ago, one company developed a patch to help people quit smoking. Then came the chewing gum. Now the chewing gum has mint flavor and some even have whitening agents in them. While all of this was going on, Pfizer was working on developing a quit-smoking medication. This medication is called Chantix on the United States and Champix in the United Kingdom (the FDA didn't like Champix because they felt it was too positive a name).

Chantix underwent clinical testing, as required by the FDA, and showed great promise. 44% of the people in the study that went through the program had not touched a cigarette by the end of the 12th week. The people in the study were all individuals without health problems that also had no previous history of mental problems or alcohol abuse. While this helps eliminate variables that can contribute to side effects, it does not do a good job of representing the actual people that will be taking the medication. In Chantix's case, one doctor reported that over half of his patients who were taking Chantix had some sort of alcohol problem or mental illness. Following the clinical trials, nothing pertaining to a significant risk of suicidal ideation or any other form of mental issue was mentioned.

Unfortunately, it did not take long for problems to pop up. Last fall, a Dallas-based musician suffered extreme mental problems and ended up being shot because his neighbor was so terrified. Before being shot, the man had beaten his girlfriend. Many people chalked the incidence up to his having had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system at the time. They felt that this, combined with Chantix, led to his severe problems that night.

It is now appearing that this is not the case. Many more incidences have started showing up. People in England have been committing suicide. Derek de Koff, a writer for New York Magazine, recently wrote about his experience with Chantix for his magazine. The article provides a detailed description of the problems he experienced while taking the medication. His experience started with simple nightmares but quickly progressed to hallucinations. Next up was paranoia where even the subway and the gym made him too nervous. Then the mood changes set in where he could be in the middle of a sentence and suddenly burst into tears. After the mood changes, things started getting extremely odd. He started imagining individuals (the shadow of a plant in a bar became a person that would not hand over their number) and provoking people (like skinheads) for no apparent reason at all. Through all of these stages, there were little thoughts of suicide that popped up. For the most part, Mr. de Koff managed to ignore them but he could not make these thoughts go away.

Paranoia was followed by blackouts. Mr. de Koff says he had experienced drunken evenings where he just could not remember what exactly happened the next day but this was something entirely different. The blackouts started with a few minutes but quickly progressed to blocks of hours (sometimes 6 or 7 hours at a time) that he could not remember. He'd awaken in his apartment with half-eaten sandwiches in the room and have no recollection of either buying or making the sandwich. The music in the apartment would be blaring with all the lights on and Mr. de Koff had no memory of how he got to his apartment or even why the music and lights were on.

Finally, Mr. de Koff went on a completely destructive tear and absolutely destroyed his apartment. Not in a permanent way but there were a lot of ruined items. This is when he made the decision to switch to a nicotine patch. He counts this as the second most important decision of his life, after deciding to quit smoking.

If taking Chantix has caused significant negative changes to your life, contact the lawyers of Williams Kherkher at 1-866-950-9000.