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Day 1 on Chantix

 Today I filled a prescription for Chantix. I've been advised for years to avoid the medication due to my underlying mental health disorder and the potential side effects of the medication. The last time I spoke with my Medication Manager, Nicole... it was finally time to take the risk and try it. According to the pamphlet that came with it... It's 3 days on .5 milligrams, then .5 every morning and night for 12-24 weeks. My insurance doesn't cover it. But at $95 dollars for a one month supply... it is dramatically cheaper than continuing to smoke cigarettes for 24 weeks. With that said i am hoping that the 12 weeks is enough for me to quit for good. It's a little after 8:00 PM here in New England and i took my normal dose of pills... along with the Chantix just before 8:00 PM. What i can tell you is that the immediate side effects is a bit of light headedness. While this isn't cause for too much concern... the question will be how it will effect me if i were to take it in the morning as directed after day 3. Additionally... the question will be how much will it effect me once i bump up to 1 milligram. 

At the risk of having an issue due to the medication i still feel that it's a better option to take it rather than not. I was talking to a Med student the other day and we were discussing Smoking Cigarettes. He said the likelihood of dying from Lung cancer is dramatically reduced compared to 20 years ago. With regular Lung screenings once you hit 25 pack years (1 Pack per day / per year). It's often caught early and treatable in a large amount of cases now. The thing that he warned about most was the danger and damage to the lungs and esophagus from the heat of the smoke. He indicated that leads to COPD, Emphysema, and other breathing related disorders. The actually are some of the easiest to prevent. Immediately after quitting smoking... the body starts a repair process that takes between 10-14 years to complete. Breathing improves dramatically after 90 days and throat and lungs continue to repair themselves for years. By year 14 your odds of contracting any of those problems is that of a non-smoker. At that point... you can consider yourself a true ex-smoker.

It's been about ten minutes since i started writing... and the initial lightheadedness of taking my medication has largely worn off. Then again I'm not standing at the moment so that may have some impact on my overall health at the moment . With this change I'm hoping to put forth some additional changes that will help in the near term. Getting regular exercise is something that will help with overall health and well being. Katie is now going to a yoga class (on average) twice a week. So i feel that on nights she goes to Yoga i should be in a good position to go to the gym. And if i can go once on the weekends that wouldn't be bad either. While i prefer the quite atmosphere of a smaller gym. I haven't found one that works just yet. I had enjoyed going to Anytime fitness a couple of years ago when i was going regularly... but when attempting to sign up for them earlier today... I received a notification saying there was an issue with either my payment method... or their system. I tried two cards and two different bank accounts... So i highly doubt that its something on my end. I may look around for additional (small) gyms... or just bite the bullet and go back to Planet Fitness again. My only problem with Planet Fitness is i constantly feel like I'm being judged while inside... As if a 38 year old White male who's over weight with tattoos really is the greatest threat to American freedom. Usually it's people that are just "hanging out" at the gym... rather than actually working out for 30-45 minutes and then leaving. I guess i never saw gym's as being a place to make friends... But then again it could be a hallucination and the people really are not saying anything. 

"Don't let anyone weaponize your Disorder against you." That was a near quote (best as i can remember it) from my therapist. It makes sense... but if keep walking people around the diamond... then eventually someone will score. I guess this is where i'll end it. It's about 8:40PM now. And I'm ready to sleep.

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