Flint, MIPosted on the Chantix website is a litany of side effects: one of the most common is abnormal dreams. But scroll down and in smaller print the popular smoking cessation drug also lists "nightmares". Harriet didn't read the small print and neither did anyone tell her that she would have nightmares so bad she would be afraid to go to sleep, and she would sink into depression.
"I only heard about the positive side of Chantix," says Harriet (not her real name). "It was helping a few people at work to quit smoking so I asked my doctor to try it out." First, her doctor gave Harriet a smoking cessation test—a quick physical that checked her blood pressure and heart etc. and he talked about quitting smoking. But he negelected to tell Harriet of the psychological effects to look out for: they range from abnormal dreams to thoughts of suicide and in some cases, violent tendencies. "He gave me 3 packs of Chantix and I still have 2 packs in the closet," she says, adding that she is fortunate not to have taken all 3 packs.
"Soon as I started the Chantix I asked people at work who had taken the drug if they noticed any weird things happening. They had experienced mood swings, but I had nightmares. And I was more depressed than anything. I went back to my doctor—I even dreamed that I hurt one of my kids! 'I've given Chantix to several people and nobody has complained,' my doctor said. So I took it for another week but my moods got worse…
I am an outgoing person but I became reclusive and didn't want to do anything. I don't think it had anything to do with not smoking because as soon as I stopped taking Chantix my nightmares stopped and my depression lifted. And I had actually quit smoking temporarily—Chantix helped me to quit but this drug affected me mentally. Then I saw ads on TV talking about all these psychological side effects.
I saw a family interviewed on a morning talk show; they were talking about Chantix and their grandfather had committed suicide. His wife suspected it was this drug: at first he complained about nightmares. This drug takes you into a bad place. Lucky for me I didn't go down that far.
Last year sometime I started smoking again, probably a few weeks later. One girl at work stopped taking Chantix because of the psychological side effects and she also went back to smoking. When I found out the damage this drug could cause and there was a possible class action lawsuit, I wondered how the hell the drug company could make me take a drug like that and not tell me of the side effects. This stuff is crazy—the drug company should have done more research on this one. I know that nightmares are now listed on the label, but that doesn't mean people are going to read through all that fine print.
And it's a good thing I didn't listen to my doctor—he should listen to me! If I listened to him and stayed on this Chantix I might also be dead.
This is crazy—the drug company should have done more research on this one."
Chantix is already linked to suicidal behavior and terrifying nightmares, and it is once more being investigated by the Food and Drug Administration, this time for causing blackouts, vision problems, and other serious side effects. During its premarketing development of Chantix, Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer, listed abnormal dreams as one of the most common adverse events and noted nightmares in some patients.
On its website, Pfizer lists the psychiatric disorders of Chantix as the following: Frequent: Anxiety, Depression, Emotional disorder, Irritability, Restlessness. Infrequent: Aggression, Agitation, Disorientation, Dissociation, Libido decreased, Mood swings, Thinking abnormal. Rare: Bradyphrenia, Euphoric mood, Hallucination, Psychotic disorder, Suicidal ideation.
According to the number of Chantix users LawyersandSettlements has interviewed, the rare disorders may not be so rare…