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Discomfort in chest, minor effect on breathing..

Hi guys,
(Long one sorry)
Been vaping now for over a year, got me off cigarettes. But recently whenever I vape get an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in my chest in the centre. Feels like under pressure, like a fat person is sitting on it. When I inhale it's as though I'm not getting an adequate amount of oxygen into my lungs (I know really weird and doesn't make sense).
Live in UK so our national health service is not as good as the US. Been to doctors, got told it was costocondritus, returned afterwards (2 weeks later) got referred to A&E. Had a chest X-ray, ECG and blood test done and apparently everything is fine.
Have since returned to smoking which I can do with no problems and having tried to go back to vaping several times symptoms always return pretty much instantaneously. Tried higher VG and PG liquids, 2 different sub ohm tanks and an RTA and nothing makes any difference. 6"2, 10 stone and not overly healthy/much exercise
 

JuicyLucy

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costocondritus

Had to look that one up -

As the pain is a mechanical issue that aggravates inflammation, I can't help but wonder if the pain you experience with vaping and not with smoking has to do with the way you inhale the vape vs how you inhale the cigarette
 
Had to look that one up -

As the pain is a mechanical issue that aggravates inflammation, I can't help but wonder if the pain you experience with vaping and not with smoking has to do with the way you inhale the vape vs how you inhale the cigarette

Thats actually a possibility I hadn't thought of. The annoying thing is I can tolerate the discomfort in my chest it's the breathing part that effects me more. I've been browsing through other posts on this section and found some old ones from like 2016 with people describing their breathing how mine feels. When I breathe in how much I can actually inhale feels limited, as though I'm only able to use 85% of my lung capacity. It doesn't make much sense to describe and I'm probably doing a bad job of it. Other posts from people have suggested it's higher VG juice causing the problems which most of mine is. Annoyingly vaping was the only thing that had allowed me to stop smoking without it recently I've fallen back in to smoking again.
 

Ishkabibble

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First off, welcome to VU!

The last thing we want to see is you going back to analogs! The first thing anyone would normally say is to go see a doctor but it seems you have done that and narrowed down the problem to the vapor. Did you bring this problem up to the doc and if so, did he have anything to say about it?

I had a similar feeling when I quit analogs, it was all the tar and shit getting dislodged and it went away after a week or so if that is any consolation.

Can you share the following for us?

What strength of nicotine you are currently vaping?
What flavors and e-juice have you tried so far?
What tanks and RTA are you using?
Does your RTA cause more problems than the sub-ohm tanks?
What type of coils in your RTA? Kanthal, stainless steel, nichrome?

There will need to be a process of elimination involved to figure out what is happening if you decide to go that route. Would be interesting to see if vaping un-flavored juice would help out. This would require of course probably making your own unless they sell un-flavored juice somewhere. I'm sure someone could chime in on that front.

Basically you could try and experiment to see if it is the nicotine, PG, VG, flavorings, or potentially the coils (wire type) that are causing you issues.

To finalize, I'm not a doctor and these recommendations are only coming from a logical stand point. We don't want you getting any more ill due to vaping but also would hate to see you stay on the cigs! Hopefully things work out and keep us posted! If things don't clear up see a doctor!
 

fozzy71

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But recently whenever I vape get an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in my chest in the centre. Feels like under pressure, like a fat person is sitting on it. When I inhale it's as though I'm not getting an adequate amount of oxygen into my lungs
Did you recently start using a juice with higher VG? Your description sounds like what happened to me when I bought some juice with no VG numbers on it and I found it was Max VG. Once I went back down to my normal 70VG juice all was well again.
 
Hi thanks, well analogs strangely have no effect on my chest as I'd reverted back to them briefly to try and determine if it was the vaping. I had quit them for over a year and don't enjoy them anymore. Went through all the tar and shit getting dislodged that wasn't fun.
Currently vaping between 1.5-3mg, have a wide range of different fruit flavours and some sweet flavours (gummy sweet things etc). Mainly 70/30 or 80/20 VG/PG but have also tried 50/50 recently as a test.
Cleito exo + aspire revvo sub ohms
Nudge 22mm and Castle RDA
SS wire

Don't really want to go back to normal cigarettes but trying to quit is so difficult without a good substitute as I'm sure you're aware. I'll try testing out some different things like flavourless liquid
 
Did you recently start using a juice with higher VG? Your description sounds like what happened to me when I bought some juice with no VG numbers on it and I found it was Max VG. Once I went back down to my normal 70VG juice all was well again.

I had recently tried some 80/20 but 70/30 is my usual vape
 

jwill

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Do you prefer warm vapes?
 

bobnat

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Hi guys,
(Long one sorry)
Been vaping now for over a year, got me off cigarettes. But recently whenever I vape get an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in my chest in the centre. Feels like under pressure, like a fat person is sitting on it. When I inhale it's as though I'm not getting an adequate amount of oxygen into my lungs (I know really weird and doesn't make sense).
Live in UK so our national health service is not as good as the US. Been to doctors, got told it was costocondritus, returned afterwards (2 weeks later) got referred to A&E. Had a chest X-ray, ECG and blood test done and apparently everything is fine.
Have since returned to smoking which I can do with no problems and having tried to go back to vaping several times symptoms always return pretty much instantaneously. Tried higher VG and PG liquids, 2 different sub ohm tanks and an RTA and nothing makes any difference. 6"2, 10 stone and not overly healthy/much exercise


I recently went through the same. I exercise quite a bit and when swimming I began to notice that my breathing was becoming shallower. Then I noticed it when just resting. I also felt my airway as being irritated in that I had a burning sensation when I inhaled. I can't remember what it was but I read something about cinnamon. I was vaping a lot of it, specifically FLV Rich Cinnamon at .4-.5% (trust me, that's a lot). I had been vaping it for about 3 months literally every day when this started. So, I stopped. Within a few days my breathing returned to normal and the irritation ceased. Many people have reactions to things in vape juice, so you need to look at everything involved with your vaping. Good luck.
 

jwill

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How hot do you like your vape?

I get pleurisy pretty regularly (which was originally misdiagnosed as costochondritus). I dial back the power, keep the vape cool and french inhale in very small doses letting most of what I draw into my mouth go.

Warmer or hot vapes will make it worse and more painful.
 
Thanks, I usually find myself alternating flavours quite regularly so I don't get sick of a nice flavour, loved Heisenberg when I first started vaping, vaped it for months and went off and can't stand it now. I'll investigate them closer and stick to the same one
 

Ishkabibble

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Have you tried higher PG than 50? I've tried 30 VG and that's even pushing it for me. Most comfortably, I vape 80 PG, which works out well, since I prefer throat hit, over vapor production.
Wow really huck? Guess you are in the minority of VG sensitivity :(

@WillT91 I have a sensitivity to a lot of sucralose / sweetener, hence why I make my own juice. A lot of retail juice is loaded with it, so just a thought.
 

JuicyLucy

My name is Lucy and I am a squonkaholic
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Wow really huck? Guess you are in the minority of VG sensitivity :(

@WillT91 I have a sensitivity to a lot of sucralose / sweetener, hence why I make my own juice. A lot of retail juice is loaded with it, so just a thought.

There are quite a few of us here that are very sensitive to VG
 

David Wolf

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Hi guys,
(Long one sorry)
Been vaping now for over a year, got me off cigarettes. But recently whenever I vape get an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in my chest in the centre. Feels like under pressure, like a fat person is sitting on it. When I inhale it's as though I'm not getting an adequate amount of oxygen into my lungs (I know really weird and doesn't make sense).
Live in UK so our national health service is not as good as the US. Been to doctors, got told it was costocondritus, returned afterwards (2 weeks later) got referred to A&E. Had a chest X-ray, ECG and blood test done and apparently everything is fine.
Have since returned to smoking which I can do with no problems and having tried to go back to vaping several times symptoms always return pretty much instantaneously. Tried higher VG and PG liquids, 2 different sub ohm tanks and an RTA and nothing makes any difference. 6"2, 10 stone and not overly healthy/much exercise
High VG causes that tight chest feeling for me. In fact even 50/50 does. I vaped 70pg/30vg for a while and now vape 80PG/20VG and all is well. The problem is finding ejuice with a high PG, I diy. If you haven’t tried anything higher than 50% PG you haven’t tried high PG. Back in the day 70pg/30vg was common and 50/50 was high VG. I read so many complaints nowadays about wheezing and tight chests... and believe it’s the high VG in many cases. You have to try more ratios to know what’s best for you.
 

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