The Naltrexone Mystery

[differenceblog]

A preliminary study by the University of Chicago (2006) suggests that the opiate blocker naltrexone may help women quit smoking, but not men. In addition, men had a higher quit-success rate without the drug than women (about 2/3 as compares to 39%). Researcher Andrea King told the Chicago Tribune (10/17/2006) that it is suspected that low

Comments

[rarkrarkrark]

I think maybe it being easy makes it harder to stay quit. For me, quitting cigs was hell. Highlights of that month of my life include a suicide attempt (not a common issue for me), bashing my own head with a steel thermos (thermos dented, head apparently unharmed), doing a whole bunch of obsessive body work on a vehicle that never had a prayer of passing safety, and a lot of neurological pain and whatnot (I've got various confounding issues here)...it was hellish. So hellish in fact, that having gone through it, I never ever ever want to go through it again, which means never having another cigarette again. I think if it had been easy that siren song of "just one. It'll make you feel better" would be a lot harder to ignore.

The best part, not only do I have asthma (and have since childhood) but every morning I'd deal with nausea and dizziness that often required lying down for a few minutes after that first cigarette. However, I did not function well without them. I'm not sure I function as well now without them as I did on them, though I function a whole lot better than when I was smoking-but-unable-to-smoke/feeming. Nicotine is known to affect neurotransmitters in a significant way, and has been shown by at least one study to be specifically helpful with one of the list of diags I can claim.

I am unable to have aspertame at all. It does very very bad things to my head. So far I haven't had any significant reaction to any of the other artificial sweetners.