Side effects in taking Champix

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Champix Side Effects – Dangers Of Popular Drug Used To Quit Smoking

Date: 07/01/08

Keywords: Smoking

As you might suspect, Champix users pay the piper with the risk of side effects. Common side effects listed on the drugs web site (under the US name Chantix) include nausea, constipation, gas, vomiting and changes in dreaming. (No specifics about what those 'changes' might be.) Since the launch of Champix, the side effect that's emerged as the most troubling is 'emotional disorder.' Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to healthcare professionals...

Champix, the drug that reduces a smoker's desire for cigarettes, was launched in the UK a few months back.

I first told you about Champix in the spring of 2006, just as Pfizer was preparing to launch the new drug in the US (where it is known as Chantix). At that time, all systems were go based on long-term studies that found the drug to be effective for about 20 percent of subjects, compared to only 16 percent of subjects who used Zyban, another smoking cessation drug.

Unlike nicotine-replacement drugs, Champix takes the opposite strategy, blocking nicotine from binding to certain brain receptors. This action keeps nicotine from prompting the release of dopamine in the brain's pleasure centers - derailing the craving for another cigarette, and another, and another...

Champix Side Effects

As you might suspect, Champix users pay the piper with the risk of side effects. Common side effects listed on the drugs web site (under the US name Chantix) include nausea, constipation, gas, vomiting and changes in dreaming. (No specifics about what those 'changes' might be.)

But that list just gets things started. Side effects listed as 'frequent,' include diarrhoea, gingivitis, chest pain, back pain, dizziness, anxiety, depression, emotional disorder, polyuria (excessive urination), menstrual disorder, and hypertension.

That's a pretty daunting list, considering the drug is only effective in the long term for about one in five users. But on the upside, a few Champix users may feel like they've hit the jackpot with an infrequent side effect described this way: 'Fewer than 1 out of 1,000 patients reported euphoria.'

For some smokers it might end up being easier to kick the cigarette habit than give up Champix-induced euphoria.

Champix Side Effects - Bad ideation

Since the launch of Champix, the side effect that's emerged as the most troubling is 'emotional disorder.'

Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to healthcare professionals, alerting them to 'reports of suicidal thoughts and aggressive and erratic behaviour in patients who have taken Chantix [Champix].' According to the warning, many of these cases will experience 'depressed mood, suicidal ideation, and changes in emotion and behaviour within days to weeks of initiating Chantix treatment.'



The warning also directs doctors to monitor patients taking the drug for behaviour and mood changes, and cautions patients to be careful when driving or using heavy machinery. And yet, in a three-page Champix advertisement that appears in an issue of a popular magazine published this month, the caution about driving and using machinery is noted, but there's no mention of behavioural changes, depression, or suicidal ideation.

Champix is sure to be a popular drug, so if you know any smokers who are thinking of taking it, fill them in on this disturbing side effect they might not be aware of.

Better yet, let them know there are safer techniques to help them put down their cigarettes and never look back.