Day 3 Experiment

What can I say folks? We're into tablet three and nothing seems to be happening.

Stayed up very late last night so slept very late this morning. Know I had some kind of dream that seemed important at the time but can't remember any of it to tell you now.

Since I appear to have absolutely no reaction I think it's time for a wee experiment. Nothing dramatic but a wee test to see if the drug is having any impact.

When I'm not working I tend to chain smoke. I probably have about one ciggy every half hour. I know however that at work I can last between an hour and a half and two hours between smokes. So what I'm going to try today is to go for two hours between two smokes to see what it feels like. I know that two hours should be long enough for my cravings to kick in several times and Champix is supposed to reduce and eventually kill those cravings. From what I've read elsewhere the cravings do happen but are easy to ignore. This should give me some clue whether Champix is achieving anything in the background.

Tomorrow sees the dose doubled to 0.5mg day and night. Tomorrow is also my first day back in the real world rather than sitting at home so that might be interesting.

If you're reading this and thinking.... I thought this was about giving up smoking....keep the faith...it will be

Cheers

Day 2

Well, it doesn't look like anyone has even seen this blog yet. Tried opening it several times myself to see if I could improve the hit rate but, when I use a search engine I don't find my blog even when I use the exact terms. What chance does the big wide world have if I can't find it and I know where it is?

OK so now it's my top secret unread blog on quitting smoking with Champix.

It's probably just as well that the site's not exactly buzzing with traffic at the moment anyhow. I'm on day two of Champix and nothing has happened. Not even the boring side effects. Still have exactly the same urge to smoke as I had without Champix. Smoking doesn't taste any different. I haven't been wildly ill or tired, or even mildly ill or tired. As far as I can see the only difference between now and last Thursday (when I wasn't taking Champix) is that now I take Champix. If you discount the giving up smoking bit it's the easiest quit regime I've ever tried.

It plays with your brain this stuff because, now I'm getting paranoid about not having any side effects and paranoia is a possible side effect. I was off work yesterday so stayed in most of the day. When I went out about five at night I felt slightly fuzzy for about 5 seconds when the fresh air hit. Could that be Champix? Could it be sitting in my office chain smoking and then suddenly discovering air? Who knows?

I bought a bottle of red wine and thought....does this wine taste funny? Since it was a brand that I've never tried before it's really pretty difficult to assess.

Now we come to the dreaming part. It's not that I don't dream but I never remember them in the morning. If I do remember a tiny bit and try to recall the rest then the tiny bit I had just runs away from me leaving me with nothing. I've been like that since I was a teenager except!!!!! The one time I tried to give up smoking with nicotine patches. Dreams like never before. Interrupted my sleep and freaked me out. Now I've only had one sleep since Champix and haven't had a dream yet but, if there's any side effect that's bound to happen when the drug takes hold, that's the one to watch for.

That's probably enough for now considering nothings happened. If you do discover this space then do me a favour and post a comment just so I know that the World Wide Web is still out there.

Cheers. More exciting drama from the world of quitting tomorrow.

Day 1

Hi There

I thought I'd add my own slant to the raft of stuff out there about Champix. Why? Well because I'm trying it because I knew someone that did well on it and they tried it because they knew folk that did well on it. Thing is when I look it up online it would appear that I should just hand myself in to the police or an assylum right now. So the aim of this blog will be to give a history of what it feels like, if it works and if that includes violence or suicidal tendancies I'll let you know.

I do not work for pfizer or any other drug company nor am I suddenly going to discredit champix and try to sell you some alternative therapy. Also I'm not a doc so any medical opinion I may express can be assumed to based on either ignorance or arrogance.

I would describe myself as quite a dedicated smoker having started at 11 and continued now pretty much uninterrupted for thirty years smoking between 30-40 a day. Here's the bit that I didnt tell the doc. I like smoking. If smoking was safe I wouldn't even consider quitting. If this works I'll miss smoking and all the aquaintances and genuine friends I've made standing out in the cold over the years. I'm only trying this cos I've got a deep rooted cough that I want to get rid of. They say that any non smoking drug will only work if you actually want to quit. Let's accept from the start that I only sort of want to quit so champix will have it's work cut out for it.

Anyway....Follow this post for an unbiased blow by blow account and let me know if it helps you.

I took pill number 1 at 10am this morning and then waited to suddenly feel sick as everyone describes. It's 11.30am now (three fags later) and nothing. Not sick, dizzy, tired or anything. No wonder folk get suicidal. Your supposed to be able to at least rely on the common side effects. If I have time later I'll post how I feel at the end of the day.

Cheers