I should ask my doctor if Chantix is right for me.

I like lucid dreaming. Maybe I should start smoking so I can get some of this.

I'm not big into appliance rape though, so maybe not.

There is an asthma version of these faux self help ads. I think it was for Advair. Advair is one of those with some nasty side effects they failed to mention until after it was on the market. Like that it can make your asthma more reactive and more likely to give you a major attack than other drugs.

The faux fibromyalgia website is promoting a drug that has a high incidence of causing suicidal behavior. Of course they don't mention this to people when handing it out like candy.

Can this whole "lucid dreaming" thing be good for you? Does that mean your body doesn't get to hit REM sleep? Not healthy.

Plus, I imagine they don't mention it's a drug b/c of how friggin difficult it is to actually quit smoking for good. I'd like to see some true relapse numbers after 1 year of using Chantix.

I just stopped taking Chantix after completing 2 weeks of the treatment. Very strange side effects. The first few days weren't too bad - crazy dreams though. After the first week, you start to take the full dose of the medication - that's when the weirdness starts.

Days 8-15: I found myself becoming increasingly apathetic. I was never fully awake - constant Zombie mode. Did nothing but work and sleep. I generally slept 12+ hours a day.

It took 5 days after I stopped taking the meds to be completely void of side effects.

Fun times.

After staying awake for about 2 straight days doing school work, I had a paranoid delusion that a bag of "Gold Medal Flour" sitting on the counter was going to get me. Not the flour itself, but the shadows around the bag. I had this overwhelming fear that if I stopped looking at it, demons would come out of the shadows and get me, so I stood there staring at the bag of flour for like 15 minutes while I heard whispering voices all around me. So yeah, I totally get mental appliance rape.

Jamie Hirsh has rather endearing midwestern accent, and she sounds like she has braces for some reason. I think its totally cute!

This article, and past medical articles on consumerist, are why this blog should stay away from the topic. I assume no one from the editing team is a physician and therefore should not be giving advice on medications and their "side effects".

I do not propose that Chantix is such an amazing drug, but among the side effects mentioned, abnormal dreaming = 10% of patients and insomnia 18%. The drug does not cause delusions or paranoia.

Now considering how effective the drug is in terms of stopping people from smoking, and it's relatively short term use, it's side effects profile is quiet tolerable compared to years of cigarette use (heart attacks, strokes, cancers, etc...)

@invisiblenemies: Would you say it messes you up enough that driving while on it would be unsafe?

@facted: It sounds like the effects are the same as chaining yourself down for a few weeks to physically prevent yourself from smoking. You are just trading the chains for hallucinations.

So you think it's ok for drug companies to advertise only the positive effects, but wrong for the consumerist to point out the negative side effects? Why?

"The most unsettling thing about sleeping on Chantix is that I never felt like I was truly asleep. Some part of me remained on guard. It was more like lucid dreaming, what I thought it might feel like to be hypnotized. And it didn't entirely go away come morning. As I showered, shaved, and scrambled into clothes, I tried to shake a weird, paranoid sense that I'd just been psychically raped by a household appliance."

10 years later, Beck finally reveals how he conceived the idea for his 1999 video, "Sexx Laws":

ideation??? doublespeak for "thoughts"

"To form an idea of; imagine or conceive"

@facted: 10% and 18% are BIG numbers in terms of clinical relevance.

I don't believe the purpose of posting this is to deter people from taking Chantix to quit smoking (although some stories here would definitely make me think twice), but to highlight how drug companies get away with marketing their product without full disclosure of what it can do to your body. They know that people desperately try to quit smoking all the time - many unsuccessfully - and showing them the good without the creepy bad stuff will make them more likely to go for it.

"changes in behavior, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal ideation and attempted and completed suicide"

These are very, very serious side effects - even in numbers less than 10%.

FDA regulations require drug companies to mention the side effects if they talk about the benefits of a drug. There are two ways around this: one is to talk about the ailment but not mention the name of the drug. The other, which was exemplified by those baffling Claritin ads of the mid-90s(talk about lucid dreams!), is to mention the name of the drug over and over again, but not ever mention what it was for. See., e.g.:

Hello Everyone,
My wife was finally able to kick the habit before she got pregnant with our now first born beautiful baby girl, so I thought I'll share the resource that she has used to help her quit the smoking habit with as many people as I can.
She was a heavy smoker for about ten years and just a couple of weeks after finding out about the program that I have researched online, she was able to quit smoking permanently and now can't stop telling people about how she had kicked the habit for good.
Anyway if you want to check it out, here is the site that my wife has used to help her quit smoking; www.invisismoke.com

I've been on Chantix for 2 months now and it definitely has helped me quit smoking.

Only side effects I've had are upset stomach (be sure to take with milk or food) and intense dreams. No nightmares though.

If you're looking for a way to quit, check it out.

@Vanilla5: lucid dreaming means you ARE in REM sleep. you can't dream without being in REM sleep.

I don't think Canadian pharmaceutical companies are technically allowed to "advertise" drugs up here. I am used to incredible vague drug commercials.

@Landru:

Yes, suicidal thoughts... which can cause people to attempt or complete suicide.

@invisiblenemies:

I had none of these side effects. Just nausea for the first three days, and a weird feeling for the next two that I was aware of the receptors in my brain. Then that went away and I felt perfectly normal. No weird dreams even. (Well, my dreams are pretty weird anyway.)

It's been almost a year and I haven't smoked. That's not to say I still don't WANT to, but I haven't done it.

What probably made it worse for some people was that they were not informed of the scary dreams and hallucinations. Mr. Bohemian was one of the early people to use this when it came out. The pharmacy didn't mention those side effects and neither did the doctor. If it was in the literature it was buried in one of those white sheets that pharmacies rarely give the patients. Someone else who had taken it relayed they had the same side effects. That would have to be really disturbing to have dreams and hallucinations not knowing you might or what is causing them.

The "stealth" DTC ads used by gargantuan pharmaceutical companies are not a recent phenomenon.

The editor over at the Consumer Reports blog is spot on with their short blurb:

"Help-seeking ads can come in handy for drugs that have a particularly nasty list of side effects, since not mentioning the drug by name means you don't have to list the side effects either, according to the U.S Food and Drug Administration."

Aside from not having to mention side effects, pharmaceutical companies almost always strategically leave out their drug names when they are the market leader/innovator (i.e. the patent is still alive and kicking).

Remember the "ask about the purple pill" ads? This is no different.

@Vanilla5:You wrote: " Plus, I imagine they don't mention it's a drug b/c of how friggin difficult it is to actually quit smoking for good. I'd like to see some true relapse numbers after 1 year of using Chantix."

It's been two years for me. I quit by using Chantix. I'd tried the patch, nicotine gum, cold turkey, youi name it. Nothing worked. But Chantix did. I didn't experience any side effects. My husband quit at the same time, using Chantix. He didn't experience any side effects either. For us, it was positive and successful.

I took Champix -- as it's known in Canada -- last year. After two days, I stopped smoking outright, even though I had a few more days of puffing available on my schedule. After 6 days, I stopped taking the drug and haven't smoked since.

Why the abbreviated regimen? I had no anxiety attacks or sleeplessness. Yes, it was the dreams. I don't ever want to have another one of those insanely fucked-up dreams, like, ever again. Alejandro Jodorowsky movies seem like Mister Rogers Neighborhood in comparison.

I've been on it for about 2 months and quit smoking in the second week. I've smoked for 15 years and this is the only thing that works. Period. I took it for a few weeks last year but I wasn't committed. This time I was.

I did have crazy dreams for the first few weeks but then I started taking it earlier in the evening and they went away for the most part. The worst is the stomach upset but if you eat a meal right after you take it it's not so bad.

I too read a lot of crazy things online before I took it which scared me but the patch, gum, and anti-depressants did nothing. This worked for me and I'm glad it did.

@VOIDMunashii: I can't help but picture the horny robot in Robot Chicken humping away at the washing machine ... so futile ...

@embean: This is probably not real lucid dreaming.

@themicah: I've got it! Name your drug such that it's obvious what it does. "Claritin" is close ... it "clears" something, and there's a lot of visual attention to the woman's nose, which is almost cheating.

I'm thinking along the lines of "Antisnotin", "Notofungus", or "Getitup Tunite"

@bstewart23: You guys have gotten me really curious about these dreams. Do you have to be a smoker to use Chantix/Champix?

@bohemian: Not to mention the anti-depression drugs that can make depression worse.

I took Chantix for three weeks and the only side effect I had was being really tired. I quit smoking after the first week and quit the Chantix after the third week. I've been smoke free for 1 year , 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 day and 20 hours and have saved 1895 dollars according to my silkquit meter. I tired to quit many times in the past and Chantix really helped me.

@invisiblenemies: I'm getting the feeling that the drug sometimes blocks an area of your brain from resting during sleep that actually needs the rest. Sort of like a super specific type of sleep deprivation, which can also cause psychotic episodes.

Oh god.. My ex-boyfriend already slept walked on his own. Doesn't sound like Chantix is the right drug for him either!

@courtarro: Well I'm sure thats the legaly prefered method of acquireing Chantix

@bstewart23: Congrats on quitting, in spite of the weird side-effects.

@facted: You've got a point about steering clear of medical advice, but this is about a company marketing a product, and in doing so, skirts the spirit of a law intended to protect the consumer.

@bohemian: Don't forget Advair's increased chance of death for certain racial groups as well.

@courtarro:

hahahaha. im quite 'curious' as well

So you quit smoking but in the process go crazy and kill yourself. Man, there just isn't pleasing some people.

I quit smoking 17 months ago via Chantix. My dreams were somewhat strange and "vivid" while using the drug, though I must say the most annoying side effect was constipation...talk about compounding the difficulties of quitting.

All in all, I have to admit that without the drug (at least psychologically) I could not have quit...I tried several time cold turkey and I always relapsed.

Nowadays I never feel the urge to smoke, though it does pop into my head every now and then...it helps to stay a non-smoker when you find the smell of smokers to be vile and you have a 2.5 year old kid to impress/keep form asking awkward questions.

Suicide - There's no future in it.

Another reason I'm so grateful for my children. I quit cold turkey the minute I found out I was pregnant. Wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise.

Aside from a few Tylenol a year, I don't take ANY drugs. I've had bad experiences with nearly everything I've ever taken, which hasn't been much anyway (BC pills, Demerol for an outpatient procedure, novocaine). I'd have to be DYING with a guarantee of success before I'd take a newly-released drug. It's not a personal judgment against anyone who does, but I don't trust the FDA anymore. The whole pharma industry and the government agency that "regulates" it is corrupt and criminal.

I took Chantix and was able to quit. I found it very effective. I would not however want to use it again due to the side effects I experienced such as changes in behavior,agitation, losing the ability to focus for more then a few seconds and upset stomach (minor). I didn't have the lucid dreams or suicidal stuff going on.
Funny thing is the doctor told me there were no side effects but I had already researched it and knew better so I was prepared for them.

I'm on the Chantix now, second time around. I was off cigarettes for over a year, but then cheated because I thought I could get away with it - nope.

So here, I'm starting it again. 5 days in right now, and the dreams are getting wilder by the night! Woo-hoo!

When my doctor examined me and started to go through the side effects, he turned off his game face for a moment, stepped back and said: "You know, I know you're one of those that had a pretty wild youth. Be honest with me, have you ever tried hallucinogenic drugs?"

Me: "Uhh..well...uhh... *sheepish* yeah..."

Dr: "Ok - did you handle it well?"

Me: "Well if you mean did I do anything exceptionally stupid while on it, no I was quite responsible outside of taking the drugs themselves and knew the difference between the high and reality."

Dr: "Good. This stuff (Chantix) is going to bring you back to those days a bit. Enjoy the buzz and don't be a dumbass."

@se7a7n7: +1

I used Chantix for 2 weeks to help me quit. I had some interesting dreams, but the only negative side effect I encountered was CRANKINESS... But then again, any smoker would be cranky if their cigs weren't working... 9 months later and I have yet to even want to smoke another cigarette. My wife still smokes around me- but I'm done. Given a choice, I'd take it again, (but I'd warn everyone close to me that I was about to become the biggest douche for the next 2 weeks)....

Or be tough, suck it up and quit cold turkey. I did nearly 5 years ago. Nowadays the smell alone can make my head spin and stomach turn. I smoked over a pack a day for 30+ years. Hell if I can do it anyone can!

I feel like my husband and I must have been very lucky, or it isn't as bad as it's made out. We took it over a year and a half ago, for a period of about 2 months. We quit smoking in the second week. Neither of us had any side effects and have been smoke free ever since. We've saved over $5000 and couldn't be happier.

Keep in mind, even if one person has a bad reaction to a drug - they have to put it in their ads.

Just about every single drug out there has "freaky" side effects.

BTW - I took Chantix for about three weeks and stopped(I forgot to take the pill and realized I was OK - I didn't need it anymore). It was 1000x better than cold turkey or the patch (which gave me wild nightmares and soreness where I had it).

I had a roommate take this drug. He turned into a violent threatening lunatic in two weeks. He would fly into fits of rage at the drop of a hat, as well as becoming paranoid. I eventually had to call the police. The drug is dangerous!!!