Posted by cache-monkey on January 11, 2005, at 11:29:34
In reply to Re: Reboxetine?/day4, posted by borderliner on January 10, 2005, at 23:08:05
Hi Borderliner,
I just want to echo something that, I believe, has already been said in this thread. It's really important to get your mental health (primarily anxiety, right?) in order *before* a quit attempt.
It sounds like smoking is really contributing to your anxiety. So, I can understand the temptation to hurry up and quit. I was in the same boat a year and a few months ago. The thing for me was that quitting smoking really destabilized an already stressful situation. Sent me on a strong downward spiral into the depths of anxiety and panic. I started smoking again, and I have made a concious decision to wait until I'm in a stable place to try to quit again.
You should consider doing the same. The more anxiety you pack into your smoking habit, the harder it will be to recover mentally to a place where you're actually prepared to quit. (A kind of catch-22.) It might be useful to do something like telling yourself: this isn't a sign that I'm weak, it's just something I have to do for now. I think of it as a form of medicine almost.
Hopefully, you and I will both get medicines in place to get a basic stability from which a quit attempt seems reasonable. I, myself, am looking into Wellbutrin and low-dose selegiline. Wellbutrin (along with nortryptiline, the TCA) have been repeatedly demonstrated to show benefits for smoking cessation. There is starting to small-sampled clinical evidence on selegiline.
I don't know about Reboxetine, but since its mechanisms of action are similar to Wellbutrin it might help you out. I'd really suggest giving it a full trial, and then seeing how it's treating you once the start-up side effects diminish and it settles into whatever the therapeutic effect ends up being. This can take a few weeks, so be patient. (Which is often the hardest thing when you have so much anxiety, trust me, I know.)
Best of luck,
cache-monkey
poster:cache-monkey
thread:438440
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050108/msgs/440635.html