What Back Pain Patients Should Know about Stop-Smoking Drugs Chantix and Zyban

July 8, 2009
by: Sylvia Marten

While Chantix and Zyban may be preferred options for patients with lower back pain who need to stop smoking prior to or after back surgery, recent news merits attention when using these two drugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just announced that a black box warning will be carried on two popular, “stop-smoking” drugs – varenicline (Chantix) and buproprion (Zyban, Wellbutrin) – following a report detailing some very significant side effects with their use.

According to the FDA’s adverse event reporting system, use of these two drugs has been linked with serious changes in behavior, including:

• depression
• agitation
• hostility
• thoughts of suicide.

More specifically, the report linked:

• 98 suicides and 188 attempted suicides to use of varenicline
• 14 suicides and 17 attempted suicides to buproprion use.

While noting the importance of getting people to quit smoking, the FDA added that it simply wants closer monitoring of these two drugs.

Consequently, the FDA is going to ask the manufacturers of Chantix and Zyban – Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, respectively – to conduct clinical trials examining behavioral changes with usage of these drugs.

Smoking has long been linked to causing back pain and is often a reason why surgeons may not want to perform spinal surgery on certain patients.

Since smoking can slow down the recovery time after back surgery, many patients may have to quit smoking prior to surgery.

If you have recently quit smoking in wake of a scheduled back surgery, or have stopped smoking following back surgery, it’s important that you know the risks of stop-smoking drugs, as the above information about Chantix and Zyban demonstrates.

And if you have used any of these stop-smoking drugs and noticed changes in your behavior similar to the symptoms listed above, get in touch with your doctor as soon as possible.

More on This Topic

Chantix Helps Quit Smoking

Does Smoking Cause Low Back Pain?

Quitting Smoking: A Must for People with Back Pain

Ways to Quit Smoking

Why It Is So Hard to Quit Smoking?

Quitting Smoking before a Spinal Fusion