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Old Wed, Jun-27-07, 16:06
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LOOPS LOOPS is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 3,225
 
Plan: LCHF
Stats: 74/76/67 Female 5ft 6.5 inches
BF:29/31/25
Progress: -29%
Location: LA SERENA, CHILE
Default My experince so far with Chantix

I copied this from my journal in case anyone is interested - I will update as well -

I am on my 9th day of Chantix. I have not smoked or chewed any nicorette (hurrah for sugar-free Orbit chewing gum!) for a WHOLE 24 HOURS. Actually I just went past my record of 24 hours and made it 25. And I'm FINE.

When I say fine, I feel a bit weird - I feel different. Last night I was really euphoric and excited - yesterday was supposed to be my 'quit' day, but in reality I still found myself getting something out of my nicorettes and so smoked a total of 2 cigarettes and chewed 2 nicorettes (compare this to my usual 10 nicorettes and 7 smokes though). But I chewed my last nicorette at 5pm and after that felt I could make the jump into official nicotine withdrawal! What fun!!

So today was the day of the official doin it quit. I have a tension issue in my left shoulder, and I am terrified of bingeing on food, but so far I seem to be fine as long as I have SOMETHING to munch on - and I am choosing orbit chewing gum. With 1g of sugar alcohols a piece I figure it is far preferable to stuffing myself with every zero carb luxury available to man - believe me, insulin release or not, I am quite sure 10 zillion calories a day will in fact make me gain. If I am wrong someone please correct me!

And for me that balance is critical - I do not want to go back to bulimia land just because I have quit tobacco.

So that's it. Finally something that really helps me. I had my various doubts concerning this drug, but in the end, what the hell? This is indeed making it possible.

What am I feeling? Well - this drug does a great job of as someone else pointed out - 'backing you into a corner'. For the first week you smoke and take an ever increasing amount of Chantix (derived from Citisine - a very toxic plant chemical with hallucinogenic affects at high doseages - woopee). Meanwhile your brain no longer gets a 'hit' of all those pleasure chemicals like dopamine whilst you are still smoking - hence completely breaking the reward system process which always 'makes you go back to smoking'.

After one week of this downer (or more if your brain still isn't completely convinced) on smoking - you quit. By this point, usually the drug has occupied most of the nicotine sites in your brain - so there is no longer a need to 'fill' them with your nicotine delivery of choice.

There is still of course the mental side of smoking - the memories, the 'spaces' in time which used to be filled with hand-to-mouth rewards, but it seems FAR EASIER TO REMEMBER THE REASONS WHY ONE QUIT IN THE FIRST PLACE with this drug. Apologies for the capital letters, but the truth is, I for one always lost sight of these reasons once faced with the incredible discomfort of withdrawal.

Anyway I do believe this time I might be successful. What I am looking forward to is coming off the Chantix (not!!). Well I have read lots of people's experiences and many of them quit the Chantix 'cold turkey' without any problems. A few have had problems, but this seems to have been resolved by a gradual ramping down in dose.

So I am so far a convert.
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