Bipolar Disorder and Chantix?

Hi All,

I was wondering is anyone else dx with Bipolar Disorder has also had a bad reaction to the quit smoking med Chantix?

I was on it about 5+ years ago and I was fine with taking it then but this time around it didn't work out well. I started taking it last Tuesday and ended up having, well, pretty much having a mental break down after it was in my system for a few hours. After I took the first dose of Chantix I ended up also dissociating/blacking out from Tuesday evening until Wednesday evening. I had also made an ER psych appt on Wed but I can't remember a single thing that I told the nurse or what happened during that appt. I just know that when I talked to the nurse again the next day over the phone they advised me to stop taking Chantix and they added an extra 100mg of seroquel to my AM meds.

And.. to make a long story even shorter; I was just wondering if anyone else had a bad reaction to the Chantix as well or had anything similar happen to them?

I was really looking forward to trying to quit smoking but I know that I don't have the will power to go "cold turkey" as well.

Yes. Very much so!

Took it a few years back and it made me incredibly manic.

However, I wasn't on a mood stabiliser back then.

I've just picked up my new pack, now that I'm more "stable" and have been for quite a few months. I wouldn't personally take it without some sort of med acting as a mood stabiliser.

I had a horrible time with chantix.

I stopped smoking 114 days ago. I use an ecig now. When I first stopped smoking I wore the patch for 2 weeks and used the ecig, which i don't advise. I was smoking 25+ cigs a day though.

The doc that I was getting my smoking cessation stuff from flat out said I wasn't taking Chantix because I had bipolar. Something about it acting like an AD.

My friend (who has no diagnoses) had a horrible time with chaotic. It made him freak out for months, irritable, angry, depressed. He almost divorced his wife during that time. He finally figured out it was the chantix doing it and stopped taking it. I would never take it because I've heard too many stories of it ****ing up neurotypical people so I'd be too afraid it would mess me up even worse.

((Trigger)) my friends mom killed herself when taking chantix. Not that I'm blaming it all on the meds. I've heard chantix is the same as Wellbutrin which makes me nuts

I took it long before I was diagnosed Bipolar, I felt horrible so hard to explain tbh.

I took half the typical dose, for a total of 4 weeks .

I haven't smoke since.

My husband took it also ... he felt very depressed and overly emotional , he has no MI

I'm glad I took it as it did allow me to finally quit for good !

Anyone with a MI or not needs to watch for problems on this med. There are loads of warnings on it now.