Don’t Take Chantix Until You Read This

Another attempt at making excessive profits at the expense of the vulnerable is at hand with the drug Chantix. I have reported on this drug and their ridiculous advertisement where they showed the success with those using the drug was only a few percentage points above those who did not use the drug. The drug company responsible promptly changed their advertisement to show a higher percentage of success after additional time on the drug.

Remember, the drug companies have only one group they are beholden to and that is their investors. It is not the people who trust their doctors and take a new drug when it is prescribed. We would all like to assume that the drug companies and the doctors and the medical boards have our best interest in mind but they obviously do not.

The FDA began reviewing the drug’s safety in 2007 after hundreds of reports were received detailing unpredictable behavior including excessive aggressiveness and suicide. Between May 2006 and December 2007 the FDA received 227 reports of suicidal acts, thoughts or behaviors, 397 cases of phychosis and 525 reports of excessive aggression. Sadly, these included 28 cases of suicide.

While many of these reports showed patients experiencing multiple adverse side effects, the most serious were never mentioned in the advertisements for the drug. During the last quarter of 2007 varenicline, the active ingredient in Chantix, was shown responsible for 988 serious injuries according to the FDA.

When it is all said and done it is important to recognize that research revealed that only 1 in 5 patients actually benefit from this drug. This means 80% do not benefit and their doctors are still willing to put them at risk for suicide and excessive aggressiveness reported to the FDA beginning nearly three years ago.

The FDA’s response so far was ordering Pfizer, the manufacturer of Chantix, to include a strong “black box” warning on the drug to highlight these serious side effects. Pfizer claims there has not been a direct link established between phychiatric problems and Chantix in clinical trials. The FDA did issue a warning to healthcare professionals alerting them to potential suicidal and homicidal thoughts and actions among those being prescribed Chantix. Pfizer continues to advertise this drug and fails to mention these dangers in their advertisements where they mention considerably less severe potential side effects.

In January of 2008, The Healthier Life web site outlined some of the side effects of this drug. In the two years since publishing thousands have commented on the negative side effects they have experienced from taking it. I cut and pasted these comments into a Word file which totaled over 205 full pages.

For a useful method of quitting smoking you may want to try nicotine inhalers. After 30 years of continual smoking and many attempts at quitting including the utilization of aversion therapy, hypnosis, nicotine patches and nicorette gum with no success the nicotine inhalers actually worked. 

If you would like additional information, please visit our website at:

https://www.emphysema-treatments.com.

For a complete understanding of these treatments, visit our latest video on YouTube,

“The Overlooked Cause of COPD”

Links:

http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/natural-health-articles/healthy-living/champix-side-effects-quit-smoking-01005.html

Smoking Cessation Product That Actually Works

When my mother was diagnosed with emphysema and copd I was reminded again just how dangerous smoking is. I had tried to quit many times using a variety of methods. I first tried the classic nicorette gum which I had a little success with but I did not quit smoking. I did manage to slow down the smoking each day I used it and that certainly accounted for something. I then tried the patches thinking maybe it would take away my desire for cigarettes altogether but I got fidgety and eventually I was smoking a pack a day again.

I then decided to try hypnosis thinking I just needed to train my brain to not want or crave nicotine. That worked for 3 days, well almost 3 days. I was getting desperate and running out of smoking cessation options when I found aversion therapy. 

The idea was to associate smoking with such unpleasant stimuli that it would almost make you sick just to think about smoking. I tried educating myself with information from the “quit smoking” phone lines that are present in all states now, I think. Along with this education I found pictures of diseased lungs that was caused from smoking. This made me nervous and you guessed it, I smoked even more.

I was talking to a friend of mine who after moving out of the state with his wife had called me. He had smoked a pack or more of Marlboro reds daily. He told me the only way to quit was using the nicotine inhalers. I had never heard of nicotine inhalers but I was determined to find them so I got in the car and headed for Wal Mart. 

Much to my disappointment they were not available at Wal Mart and the pharmacist said they were not available without a prescription. Every other country in the world allow you to purchase this effective smoking cessation product but ours.

In the U. S. instead of spending $50 and buying a box of 42 cartridges like you can everywhere else you need a visit to your doctor $75 and then a prescription for the nicotine inhalers ($95). Instead of getting ripped off I went online and found Kiwi Drugs in New Zealand. 

They are very friendly and very quick to ship. $49 and 10 days later I had my nicotine inhalers. I quit smoking that day just trying one of the cartridges and have not smoked since. I actually like these better than cigarettes. I have my nicotine inhaler with my coffee (when I drink coffee which is rare these days) and even have one with my occasional beer. I am amazed at how wonderfully these things work. I get craving a cigarette thinking there is no way the inhaler will work on this very strong craving but low and behold they do every time.

When I first started on these nicotine inhalers two weeks ago I used 6 cartridges each day but now, only two weeks later, I am down to only 2 cartridges. A very quick taper unlike what I experienced with the gum or the patches.

If you would like additional information, please visit our website at:

https://www.emphysema-treatments.com.

For a complete understanding of these treatments, visit our latest video on YouTube,

“The Overlooked Cause of COPD”

COPD and Emphysema Treatments that Work

My mother was diagnosed with emphysema and COPD over 5 years ago. She began the usual emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen that all emphysema and COPD patients are prescribed. This emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen included albuterol sulfate, Advair™, Spiriva™ and regular prescriptions for prednisone and antibiotics to treat inflammation and the secondary infections that often occur with COPD and emphysema.

All of the components of the emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen seemed to work to varying degrees at the beginning however, the disease continued to progress. My mother had stopped smoking and still the disease  progressed. The doctors said that smoking had caused the emphysema and COPD yet even after quitting the disease worsened at a steady pace.

During 2005 I noticed that she was given 3 prescriptions for prednisone and 7 prescriptions for antibiotics and her condition worsened at an accelerated rate. The progression of the disease seemed to advance at a steady pace until that year. I began to wonder,

“is the emphysema treatment and the COPD treatment causing her emphysema and COPD to progress? Could the emphysema treatment and the COPD treatment that were designed to slow the progression of COPD and emphysema actually be making it worse?”

That was hard to believe since the emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen had gone through vigorous clinical trials and been approved by the FDA as medications that would slow the progression of COPD and emphysema. Was it just a coincidence that the emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen were present and emphysema and COPD just at that stage where it was overtaking her ability to fight it off?

As each component of the emphysema treatment and the COPD treatment stopped working my mother one by one refused to use them. First the albuterol sulfate stopped working so the doctor changed it to DuoNeb™ which was albuterol sulfate with ipratropium bromide, the same medication that is active in Combivent™. Next the Spiriva™ quit working and last the Advair™ stopped working for her. These major components of the emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen were no longer effective for treating her emphysema and COPD.

I decided I had to solve the mystery of why COPD and emphysema were getting worse without smoking in the picture and figure out why most of the components of the emphysema treatment and the COPD treatment were no longer working for her. The doctors didn’t seem to know and that worried me more than the progression of her emphysema and COPD did. I realized there was no where to go for answers. It would have to rely on extensive research on both emphysema and COPD and each component of the emphysema treatment regimen and the COPD treatment regimen.

The doctors had told me that there was no cure for emphysema and COPD and I watched as the medications designed to slow the progress of the disease stopped working. We truly had a serious problem and the task at hand seemed insurmountable but I persisted anyway researching every night without fail since my mother’s life depended on it.


For a complete understanding of these treatments, visit our latest video on YouTube,

“The Overlooked Cause of COPD”

If you would like additional information, please visit our website at:

https://www.emphysema-treatments.com.

Another Problem Arises: As If Emphysema Wasn't Enough!!

 

A few years after my mother’s diagnosis with emphysema and COPD another problem arose. She began having seizures and had actually collapsed at the drug store waiting in line for more prescriptions. She was put on additional medications to control the seizures. When I asked her new doctor, the neurologit, what was causing the seizures he gave me some more rhetoric. I again persisted with my questioning until I got the same response I had gotten from the pulmonary specialist.

“We don’t know what causes these seizures. We only know that these medications control the seizures.”

Another mystery?! You have got to be kidding me! I wondered why medical school took so long to get through if everything was a mystery. I also wondered how my mother had gone 72 years without any debilitating ailments and now in less than two years she had two seemingly unrelated debilitating conditions. I began to wonder if they could be related.

She told me that she had initially gone to the doctor complaining of dizziness and had actually fallen on the driveway trying to get the mail from the mailbox. Her doctor had tried a myriad of medications to solve this problem but to no avail. She was still dizzy most of the time and now had two additional problems, emphysema and COPD along with seizures.

Because of their manifestation, chronologically, I began to think that they had to be related in some way. I didn’t know how they were related but it seemed too coincidental that they would all materialize in such a short period of time and not be coming from the same or similar sources. I realized the doctors didn’t think so but they thought everything was a mystery and at that point I didn’t have much confidence in any of them for the obvious reasons.

I remember when one doctor told me that emphysema could actually be caused genetically and I replied that I knew in rare cases emphysema was caused by an alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. I’ll never forget the blank look I got from him after that statement. I believe he realized that my knowledge of this disease had eclipsed what he knew about it. Granted he treated many diseases throughout the day and I was only researching one but nonetheless I now knew at least, if not more, than he did about this disease.

For a complete understanding of these treatments, visit our latest video on YouTube,

“The Overlooked Cause of COPD”

If you would like additional information, please visit our website at:

https://www.emphysema-treatments.com.

Chantix™: Not Much Better Than Sugar Pills

The pharmaceutical industry has, once again, done it for smokers. Their newest drug to assist smokers in quitting is called Chantix™. They show an older gentleman telling how his kids wanted him to quit smoking so bad and how he finally succeeded with Chantix™. Then, as we have all learned from repeated drug commercials, they begin their long dissertation on the side effects. When they begin outlining the  side effects which are possible for those unlucky enough to be prescribed Chantix™.  They begin with the not so problematic irritability and then proceed into the dangerous “hostility”, “suicidal thoughts or actions” and then the not so terrible allergic reactions until they say the rest which is that these allergic reactions can be “life threatening.”

They cite their research saying 22% of the research subjects had quit smoking in the 7th to 9th week of taking it. Then they tell the part I found so funny. They say that 22% of the Chantix™ users had quit and that 18% of the people who were given sugar pills had also quit. So they are willing to risk your life for 4%! You have got to be kidding me! They actually say this in their television commercial and the doctors will still prescribe it? They should be ashamed of themselves! I guess after spending all that money to develop and test Chantix™ they were willing to go ahead and sell it instead of admitting that it simply didn’t work very well and it was certainly not worth risking the patient’s life for 4%. I believe a thinking doctor would give their patient the sugar pill and forego the 4%.

Can you believe that this is the pharmaceutical industry’s solution to the smoking problem? The medical industry is still blaming smoking for the progression of emphysema and COPD even if the patient quits smoking. This makes absolutely no sense. If smoking is no longer in the equation then the mechanism driving this disease must be something other than smoking. When I asked my mother’s pulmonary specialist what that mechanism was he finally admitted, after a short rhetorical dissertation, that they simply didn’t know. They blame emphysema and COPD on smoking and I don’t doubt that it is the primary cause however, when the disease progresses after the patient quits smoking they continue to blame the progression of the disease on smoking. If the patient quits smoking and the disease is getting worse then there must be something else driving the mechanism that is causing the disease to get worse.

Finding the solution to this problem became my focus and very nearly my obsession. I researched every night, all night for a year and a half. I was scared my mother would stop breathing during the night so I couldn’t sleep anyway. After a total of three years and 6500 hours of research I found the solution and with changes to my mother’s diet along with adding supplements I proved to her new doctor that my solution was correct. He agreed to prescribe medications I requested which hastened her recovery.

All in all she had deteriorated down to 77 pounds from 103 pounds. She had gone from not needing any supplemental oxygen to requiring 4 liters and gasping for air most of the time. Her doctor put in her medical record that she was in “End Stage Emphysema” and that he was going to need to have a talk with the family about the inevitable.

Within 6 months I had her back up to 101 pounds and not requiring supplemental oxygen. She would go all day without it and even sleep without it. When she went somewhere she would  take the portable oxygen just in case. Every now and again she would get winded after over exerting herself and put the portable on set on 2 liters for maybe 20 to 30 minutes. The thing that puzzled me the most was the doctors claiming their drugs caused her to get better even though their other 599 patients were getting worse on the same drugs! What nonsense!!

My mother’s struggles and eventual recovery from this dreaded disease, literally in the 11th hour, is detailed in a book entitled, “How I Reversed My Mom’s Emphysema.” 

For a complete understanding of these treatments, visit our latest video on YouTube,

“The Overlooked Cause of COPD”


If you would like additional information, please visit our website at:

https://www.emphysema-treatments.com.