[chuckw951]

I am a smoker that has not had a cigarette since September 6, 2009. I am 39 and started smoking when I was in high school.

I tried to quit in 2008 but was not successful. I tried the patch and then Zyban. The patch didn't give me the nicotine that I needed and Zyban didn't seem to do anything. So I gave up with my effort to quit smoking..

After the birth of my second son in August 2009 I decided it was time to quit for real. It has not been easy.

I used the nicotine lozenges to quit smoking. The lozenges worked well for me because they give a jolt of nicotine just like a cigarette does. With the patch the nicotine is distributed evenly throughout the day. That didn't do it for me the first time around.

I was on the lozenges from September until January 2010 which was longer than recommended. I was still addicted to the nicotine. I noticed that the lozenges were creating some problems with my oral health so I switched to the patches for about a week. I should note that both lozenges and patches can cause dry mouth. For me the lozenges created some red spots so I knew it was time to give them up but I did not want to go back to smoking. So I tried the patch again.
The patches did not meet my nicotine needs. I was extremely iritatable.

I did some more reading about Zyban online and convinced myself that I should try it again. My doctor wrote me a prescription for 3 months worth of Zyban and I started the drug. The doctor warned me that at the end of the 3 month that I may have to step down my dose before quiting Zyban. I didn't understand why that was important...more later on that.

I started taking Zyban and gave up the patch. That was not an easy process. While the Zyban helped, I still went through nicotine withdrawal for about a week. That was not fun at all.

After getting through the nicotine withdrawal, things really started to improve. I was on 300 mg (two 150 mg tablets) a day. I could feel the Zyban "building" up in my system. It is hard to describe. Zyban took the edge off big time. I am now convinced that it is a very powerful drug. For some reason I had expected Zyban to make me not want to smoke. Instead it helped with the withdraw symptons from nicotine.

I did have some side effects. I continued to have dry mouth so my oral health continued to decline. I started going to the dentist and then the periodontist. I can't prove that these things caused my problems, but I know that I didn't have a problem until I quit smoking and started taking them. Anyway, in addition to the dry mouth, I think that zyban was starting to make me a little nutty. It is hard to describe, I just didn't feel like myself any more. So I decided that I needed to quit Zyban and stopped taking the pills cold turkey.

That was a mistake. I went a day without my 300mg of Zyban and I started to go through zyban withdraw. I asked google, and sure enough, zyban withdraw exists. I became extremely iritatable, just like after I gave up nicotine. So I restarted taking the Zyban, except I dropped down to 150mg per day as the doctor suggested. I stayed on the 150 mg dose for two weeks, then stopped taking the pills completely.

I did more research into Zyban, the drug can stay in your system and still have an effect for up to a week. So it took a while for the effects of the drug to fully wear off.

I have been Zyban free for about two weeks now and my head is back to normal.

I have not had a cigarette since September 2009 and I refuse to go back. I hope that maybe after a year I will not think about smoking or nicotine. I've only been smoke free for 7 months. I hope that I can keep this up.

Good luck to the original poster and to anyone that is trying to quit.