This will be brief for now. I must go for a walk…one of the few things I can make myself do these days that seems to help me.
I am A 59 Y/O MARRIED MAN WHO SMOKED FOR YEARS AND last December, was ready to give up the nasty habit. My doctor prescribed Chantix, which I began taking. My last cigarette was on 12/19/09.
I had read all of the warnings, but I figured that so long as I wasn’t chasing my wife down the street with a meat clever, my symptoms would be manageable. I took Chantix for two months and then quit due to symptoms I was having. Ugly psychotic symptoms.
I should mention that I have worked in the insurance industry for more than three decades of continuous employment until recently.
I didn’t ever have the dreams some have described, but I found that my waking thoughts turned inward. I began having suicidal ideation for the first time in my life. I was afraid I was loosing my ability to perform my job duties.
On March 26th, 2010, I called my boss and told her that I was unable to work. I have not worked since that time. After a sleepless night that day, I drove myself to my doctor’s office and had determined that if he couldn’t see me, I would drive myself to the E.R.
I introduced my reason for being at his office that day by telling him that I had good news and bad news for him. The good news was that I had quit smoking. But the bad news was that I was beginning to consider that suicide was an acceptable solution to the way I had been feeling.
Since March I have seen two counselors, a neurophycologist, a psychiatrist and a neurologist. I have been on at least six different anti-depressant drugs, none of which seem to be working entirely. I also take a sleeping pill to TRY to sleep at night. I have taken days of neuropsych tests, had a brain MRI, and yet, nobody has a good explanation for why I find myself in such a state today.
I was on track to retire comfortably in about five years, but I now feel that I am on a self destructive path that I am powerless to avoid. I have not tasted alcohol in nearly ten years, but am now considering that returning to drinking may be a slower more socially acceptable way of killing myself slowly.
My wife still smokes. As bad as the health consequences of smoking are, I can’t recommend Chantix to her or to anyone else. Because like I told my doctor, the good news is that I have stopped smoking. But the bad news is that I still consider suicide as an acceptable solution to the hopeless, disparate state I find myself in today, six months after discontinuing Chantix.
Besides depression and anxiety, my focus, concentration and short term memory suck. People tell me I need to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. I am fearful of any of the possible options. Even considering the choices sends me further into the downward spiral that began when I started taking Chantix.
I am not particularly interested in suing the makers of Chantix. I am however, concerned for anyone who may be considering Chantix as an acceptable method of getting off nicotine.
I could go on but I sense my window of clarity closing in.
