I'm really new at this!

Hi LJ, I think that you are so strong and so amazing for taking this big step towards quitting. Besides the Chantix, it seems that your mind and body are going through a huge life change and adjustment. Those who love you will understand and support you if you can explain to them what you are going through. It's such a short period of time in comparison to the incredible benefits of quitting. I am here to help and support you in any way that I can. Please keep sharing and let me know how things are progressing for you. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Hey LJ, I just joined the group and I hope you are doing VERY well. Let me know how it's working for you?

Kat

All symptoms do eventually go away. How did you make out? It's been 8 weeks clean for me. i am scared to go off the chantix. Afraid the old cravings will come back.

I would think after three days of not smoking all nicotine is out of the system and it will get easier. I plan to stop the chantrix after the 4 week period. lollipops getting some action now.

Dont stop taking chantix until you are completely smoke free. I went nearly a year without smoking using chantix. It was fantastic not having that habit. I literally did not know what I was going to with my hands without a cigarette but the medicine helped me overcome that. I could breathe easier and didnt have that phleghm smoker cough thing and I could walk twice as far!

But, a word to the wise, when you have stopped and are no longer taking chantix try very hard to stay away from smokers. My whole family smokes so it was kind of impossible at that time and slowly, sneaking a smoke here and there, I got back in the habit. My second round last summer with chantix did not work at all.

Because of other problems Im having and the limited time I got to talk with my doctor, I wasnt sure if a booster prescription would have kept me smoke free.

The only side effects I experienced were the awesome vivid dreams, I miss that!

Man wish i was getting the dreams. LOL No one smokes in my family anymore so I think that will make it easier. I will see how the first month goes but I kind of think that its 72 hrs and bye nicotine so that's probably the most difficult but I am strong willed and will quit . I have too no choices anymore not to quit. need the surgery and don't want the bladder cancer to come back I am 3yrs clean there.

On Jan. 3 it will be 4 months without a cigarette. Right before Thanksgiving I was in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia. The weird thing is the doctor thinks I got sick because I quit smoking and the tar that had been in my lungs was covering up this infection and once the tar was gone it could grow and flourish. If I had been still smoking and showed up at the hospital one day later i would have had sepsis and died. I had been on Chantix since August and didn't take it with me to the hospital and they don't have it. I was feeling so lousy that I didn't miss the Chantix or the cigarettes. I had done research about how long nicotine stays in your system. It takes 21 days for it to leave your system. So theoretically you could get off Chantix after 21 days of being clean. But I recommend that you take it for several months as the longer you take it the more of the habit part you tend to lose. Remember most of the cigarettes we smoked were the habit ones, the reaching for them and the motions that go along with smoking. I have been on Chantix several times and I realize that the hand to mouth issue, and what to do with your hands problem is totally controlled with the Chantix, so understand that if you go off the medicine too early, those problems will come back to some degree. Just now for some unknown reason I have been thinking about wanting a cigarette and I think it's because I am off the Chantix. I am debating whether to go back on it and staying on it till I have been using it for a year. I really do not want to go back to smoking but find my resolve is slipping. I haven't acted on it yet, but that's because i don't go near places that sell them. The Chantix fools my brain into thinking that I never smoked and so I don't feel like I have to fight any cravings. The real test will be when I go out to Las Vegas in a week to spend New Years with my son and his family. They all smoke like chimneys (outside the house). I hope it doesn't make me miserable watching them. Think I will take the pills with me just in case I am tempted. I recommend that you stay on it till you don'tfeel like you willo be tempted and that takes several months. Good luck and stick with it.