Chantix /Champix use in Scotland ?

BBC Scotland

"It was launched as a wonder drug. A tablet to take the pain out of kicking the killer weed. Since it appeared on the market two years ago in the UK, almost 400,000 prescriptions for Champix have been written. Across the world, that figure is currently sitting at nine million. Champix, or varenicline, to give it its clinical name, was first licensed here in December 2006.

It mimics the effects of nicotine on the body so it both reduces the urge to smoke and relieves withdrawal symptoms. In clinical trials, it proved more effective than alternative remedies at getting people to quit.

For its makers - Pfizer - Champix has been a huge success. In its first full year on the market, the drug brought in a staggering $883m for the company. But about a year ago, I became aware of stories emerging in the media in which people who had taken Champix were said to have suffered severe depression..."

Basic definition of COPD by the Mayo Clinic

Basic definition of COPD by the Mayo Clinic

I have found the Mayo Clinic web site to be an excellent source source for lung /respiratory related problems.

COPD Definition
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the overall term for a group of chronic lung conditions that obstruct the airways in your lungs. COPD usually refers to obstruction caused by chronic bronchitis and emphysema, but it can also refer to damage caused by asthmatic bronchitis. In all forms of COPD, there's a blockage within the tubes and air sacs that make up your lungs, which hinders your ability to exhale. And, when you can't properly exhale, air gets trapped in your lungs and makes it difficult for you to breathe in normally.

COPD is very common. It's a major cause of death and illness worldwide, and it's the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States. In the majority of cases, COPD is caused by long-term smoking and could be prevented by not smoking or quitting smoking. However, once symptoms begin, the damage to your lungs can't be reversed, and there's no cure. Treatments for COPD focus primarily on controlling symptoms and preventing further damage.

Best of luck, I hope this medical info helps your particular medical condition or at least points you in the right direction,




heres the link to the offical Mayo Clinic web site

Looking At How The Lungs Work

LUNG DISORDERS: Looking At How The Lungs Work


What else is so essential, so continuous, and yet so unnoticed? When all goes well, you breathe in and out about 25,000 times each day.

Every inward breath carries oxygen into your lungs, where it passes into your bloodstream and is pumped with each heartbeat throughout your body, powering the chemical energy that keeps you alive and operating. An exhalation always follows, ridding your body of a waste product: carbon dioxide

Committee Adds Champix / Chantix to Health Basket

Israel: Committee Adds 89 New Pharmaceuticals to Health Basket

The committee responsible for approving new pharmaceuticals to be included in the national health basket, which permits HMOs to offer the drugs, last week added 89 new drugs to that basket.


Some of the hopefuls which were not included in the health basket are Zyban, Champix (to stop smoking), Tykerb, Avastin (breast cancer),

how to make a smokers "acid soup"

still working with the "My stop smoking coach"
by allen carr Easyway to stop smoking.


This game exercise to help you quit smoking you have to
make an "acid soup" with a list of supplied ingredients.

After a while I guessed the correct ingredients were arsenic
carbon dioxide and tartaric acid.

this may appear as a childish mental exercise but it really seems to be working on me.


This exercise is from the Nintendo DS game cartridge by Allen Carr
created bu UBI software.

donate to the American Lung Association.

The year is almost over, and so is your opportunity to get a tax deduction for 2008 by making a generous online donation to the American Lung Association.

Your generous year-end gift sent by December 31 will qualify as a 2008 tax deduction to the full extent allowed by law. What's more, your gift now will help us fight lung disease by:

Warning our children about the terrible dangers of smoking.
Strengthening our environmental laws to maintain healthy outdoor air, and smokefree air laws to keep our workplaces and public spaces free from secondhand smoke.
Advancing research to beat lung diseases like lung cancer,
asthma and emphysema.
Enhancing programs and services to improve the quality of life for individuals with chronic lung diseases and their families.
ed, please be as generous as you can in the spirit of the season to help us continue our
lifesaving work.

Thanks again, and happy holidays from all of us at the American Lung Association!

Sincerely,



Stephen J. Nolan
National Volunteer Chair

still working on my my stop smoking coach

still working on my my stop smoking coach

this is the Nintendo ds cartgide to help ME quit smoking,
I been religious in doing some of the games exercises. Some
of them seem stupid at times, but i keep plugging away.

One game/excerise is to select out ingredients to make a tobacco soup, seemed a little childish but I am going along with the program.

will time will tell, I am decreasing my smoking slowly everyday.

informed choice between using smokeless and a drug such as Chantix/Champix.

A short comment on the letters from the virtuous anti-tobacco activists who have written in indignation to Professor Carl Phillips's letter regarding tobacco-funded research studies.

The day universities will stop accepting Big Pharma money to finance research, the alleged ''not-for-profit'' anti-tobacco crowd might be taken seriously on their stance against Big Tobacco funding.

Meantime, smokers who wish to quit, should indeed be given the informed choice between using smokeless and a dangerous drug such as Chantix/Champix.


picked up this commenty from a health blog in Canada.

Last warning: Asthma inhalers go "green" on Dec. 31

Asthma Inhalers To Go 'green' On Dec. 31


(AP) Last warning: Asthma inhalers go "green" on Dec. 31, forcing patients still using the old-fashioned kind to make a pricey and even confusing switch. The medicine inside these rescue inhalers _ the albuterol that quickly opens airways during an asthma attack _ isn't changing. But the chemicals used to puff that drug into your lungs are.

No more chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that damage Earth's protective ozone layer. By year's end, all albuterol inhalers must be powered by the more eco-friendly chemical HFA, or hydrofluoroalkane.

The down side: The new inhalers cost more, $30 to $60 compared to as little as $5 or $10 for the disappearing generic CFC inhalers.

And patients face a learning curve. HFA inhalers must be used differently than the old-fashioned kind. The medicine feels and tastes different, sometimes alarming new users despite doctors' assurances that it works just as well.

"There's still significant confusion," says Dr. Harvey Leo of the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. "Patients will tell you, 'I don't feel the puff anymore.'"

Calls from parents unsure how to use the new inhalers, or even what they are, have increased in the past two months as more drugstores run out of CFC-powered inhalers and automatically switch people who'd been expecting a mere refill, he adds.

The change shouldn't be a surprise. The Food and Drug Administration has long warned it was coming, and lung specialists have spent the past year easing many of the nation's 20 million asthma patients _ as well as millions of emphysema sufferers who also use albuterol to ease breathing _ into it.

But industry figures show that in mid-November, 20 percent of all albuterol prescriptions still were being filled with CFC versions.

Some patients may purposefully be buying up cheaper CFC inhalers before the sales ban. But many patients don't see a lung specialist, or their prescription may not expire until next year so they haven't been seen recently enough to be told.

Reaching the last fraction "is, as you can imagine, a very difficult task," says Dr. Bidrul Chowdhury, FDA's pulmonary drugs chief. "How to get to somebody who is not tuned in?"

The CFC-free options: GlaxoSmithKline's Ventolin HFA, Schering Plough's Proventil HFA and Teva Specialty Pharmaceuticals' ProAir HFA all contain albuterol. Also, Sepracor's Xopenex HFA contains the similar medication levalbuterol.

Albuterol inhalers are for emergencies, for quick relief of wheezing. Patients also need daily medication to control their asthma and prevent flare-ups. Someone who's using the albuterol inhaler more than a few times a month isn't well-controlled, and his or her doctor needs to determine why, stresses Dr. Paul Greenberger of Northwestern University, president-elect of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

FTC: so-called “light” and “low-tar” cigarettes

Recision of “FTC Method” Ends 40-Plus Years of Tobacco Industry Deception

11/26/2008

American Lung Association Applauds Unanimous Decision by FTC

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 26, 2008—Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) correctly—and finally—rescinded the Cambridge Filter Method or the “FTC Method,” a ratings system that was manipulated by tobacco companies to obscure the harmful effects of smoking so-called “light” and “low-tar” cigarettes. The tobacco companies will no longer be able to claim reduced tar and nicotine levels based on this test. In 2001, the National Cancer Institute found that smokers who use products that score lower in the Cambridge Filter Method do not reduce the risk for developing lung cancer and other smoking-caused diseases.

While this is an important step, it also highlights the need for Congress to act quickly in 2009 to pass legislation that will grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. The legislation would, among other things, prohibit the tobacco companies from using the terms “light,” “low-tar” and “mild,” as well as other misleading health descriptors. This legislation overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July with a vote of 326 to 102. Despite having 60 sponsors the U.S. Senate did not act on the legislation this year.

In September, the American Lung Association and other public health organizations urged the FTC to rescind the 1966 Cambridge Filter Method, stating that “machine-based measures of tar and nicotine based on the Cambridge Filter Method do not provide meaningful information about how much tar and nicotine are actually received by the smoker or about the relative health risks of different cigarettes.”

About the American Lung Association: Beginning our second century, the American Lung Association is the leading organization working to prevent lung disease and promote lung health. Lung disease death rates are currently increasing while other major causes of death are declining. The American Lung Association funds vital research on the causes of and treatments for lung disease. With the generous support of the public, the American Lung Association is “Improving life, one breath at a time.” For more information about the American Lung Association, a Charity Navigator Four Star Charity, or to support the work it does, call 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872) or log on to www.lungusa.org.

my work with the "My stop smoking coach"

my work with the "My stop smoking coach"

started using the Nintendo cartridge by UBIsoft by Allen Carr.
I had thought that some of the exercises / games were foolish and childish, but today i sort of realized that the repetitive games/exercises do really sink in. the game were your make a nicotine bowl. adding all the harmful and fatal ingredients to make up a bowl of nicotine soup. You have to select and insert the nasty ingredients of a cigarette and then stir the pot. Thought it was stupid at first but this morning it had an impact on how i looked at my cigarette and smoking the nasty stick of tobacco.
So far this approach to stop smoking may work for me, after 40 years plus of smoking, I sure hope so.

oh well, time will tell, talk you you later

increase in nicotine levels ?

increase in nicotine levels ?

Thought I saw something in the news that the tabocco companies quietly increased the amount of nicotine in thier cigarettees.

This is the addictive substance that creates the need / desire for smoking.


has anyone else seen this in the news ?