The best way to quit smoking

Chantix helps ease nicotine withdrawal symptoms and also blocks the effects of nicotine if you begin to smoke again. Initially prescribed for twelve weeks, if it isn't having the desired effect your doctor may prescribe another twelve week course. Side effects may include nausea, vomiting, gas, headache and insomnia. Unfortunately health officials in Canada might disagree. They have recently demanded that a warning appear on every box of the Pfizer smoking cessation drug alerting consumers to the risk of neuropsychiatric side effects. In other words there is some risk of mental disorder. The Pfizer drug is also under fire in the U.S. (where it is marketed under the trade name Chantix) It seems that health alarms similar to those raised by Health Canada have already been sounded by the FDA. As early as 2009 the FDA issued a warning. Those people who seemingly clicked some magic switch and never wanted to smoke again.

Now we have Chantix available and Pfizer, its manufacturer, are claiming up to 44% of smokers quit using it. The truth of the matter though is that these claims are highly exaggerated. It is thought to help 1 in 7 initial quit attempts succeed over and above the ones that would have succeeded anyway. Quitting smoking for a short period of time is a good thing for your body, but smokers don't want breaks from smoking, they want to quit smoking for good. Hypnosis is a proven method for quitting smoking and can be used in many areas of ones life to change ones approach to things. Although statistical evidence is hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that hypnosis can be a very good method for quitting smoking.

People who quit using this method often report 'knowing' that they will never smoke another cigarette again. In terms of long-term success, if you quit using this method, you usually stay quit for good. Whenever it is time to have yet another go at quitting smoking, it is useful to understand which quit smoking support options are best to help you on your way to being a long term non-smoker. The most common pharmaceutical therapies for quit smoking support are nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), zyban which is also known as wellbutrin or bupropion and chantix, also known as varenicline or champix. These drugs have been developed at great cost so there is a lot of money at stake for the pharmaceutical giants. The problem with all these drugs as quit smoking support therapies is that whilst they help deal with the psychoactive effects of nicotine (apart from NRT which just prolongs nicotine addiction), they don't deal with the emotional relationship you have with cigarettes.

There are of course other treatments such as hypnosis and acupuncture and laser therapy. There are even 'mystery' herbal remedies to help you quit smoking. None of these of course have ever been proven to be effective in the long term, but anecdotally, there have been successes of course. Alternatively, you can turn to quit smoking support forums to help you overcome your nicotine addiction, but as I have written before, these forums merely serve to prolong your deprivation and feeling of loss when you quit smoking. Chantix or Champix as it is known in Europe and Canada is the latest of the top quit smoking aids to be heavily advertised around the world. According to boasts by Pfizer, the drug's maker, "approximately one-in-five" users quit smoking for a year. Pfizer's five clinical trials of varenicline were published in July and August 2006. Three are comparable in that they involved a 12-week treatment period using 1mg of Chantix twice daily. Another favorite method to quit smoking is hypnotherapy. There are literally hundreds of hypnotherapists advertising their services on the internet. Nicotine replacement therapy and stop smoking drugs are not the answer.

Articles