I visited my doctor today to get some additional help with my quit smoking plan. As was the case last year, I have a huge amount of FSA (Flexible Spending Account) dollars to use or donate to the federal government. What could be better than a large pharmaceutical purchase to kill some FSA bucks quick.
Thanks to the advertising by the pharmacutical companies, I'm very aware of all of the magic elixers available to the quitting smoking demographic. Chantix the newest product sounded like something I'd be interested in to assist with my programme. A drug designed to "turn off" the nicotine receptors in my brain. That's what I need! Anything that shuts off those pesky little nicotine receptors has got to be good. Turns out that's not quite the way it wound up.
My doctor and I had a discussion about the merits of Chantix and Zyban and decided that Zyban was probably a better choice. Honestly, I think he swayed me based on the way he sold Zyban. He said that Chantix is basically the components of Zyban that helped smokers quit without all of the anti-depressant stuff you didn't need if you were just trying to quit smoking. Frankly, the more he talked about the other issues, the better the Zyban sounded.
So apparently the Zyban has all of these other cool "side effects". It can help you with ADD, give you energy, improve sexual performance and a host of other things that all sounded really great. Not that I had any of those problems, or a least I didn't think I did, but why not take the shotgun approach.
So for those of you that will no doubt be monitoring my progress over the next months... If you notice me smiling more and being more focused... it's the Zyban. If I'm smoking when you notice these things... then I guess that I've just officially joined the ranks of the overly medicated.
- ND
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2 comments:
Here are a couple of concerns related to your new course of action...
1. Your doctor thinks that smoking might be bad for you?
2. He recommends medication?
I have to be really honest here... I had no idea that smoking was bad. It is really amazing to me that after all the years of research into tobacco use and health that they would find that it could harm you. Next thing you know, someone will say that driving your car and heating your house were contributing to the weather.
As for the recommendation of pharmaceuticals to fix a problem, that doesn't seem sound advice at all. We can't just keep throwing pills at all of our problems here in the U.S. We need to market solutions to our brain chemistry before the Canadians come in unloading all of their "socialized" prescription drugs and attack our porous boarders with beavers and flannel clad mounties.
Your poor choices will hurt all Americans. I hope that you will reconsider, especially given the plight of Kentucky and North Carolina's tobacco farmers.
Bro. Dave.
Oh brother, what a killjoy!
More energy? Improved sexual performance? Other "really great things"? I'm sold! Sign me up!
That or we need to move back to St Louis - errah!
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