Smokie's E-Cig Vaping, and Lung breathing issue 3/2012

[SMOKIE]

Smokie's E-Cig Vaping, and Lung breathing issue 3/2012

As many of you know I have been vaping for over 3 years with loving it. I have weened down over the years to 10 - 12 mg of nicotine but started using a 70/30 PG, VG mix or straight VG, and vaping about 5 mls a day in different Mods using 4.5 to 5 volts on all sorts of attys, and cartos.

Over the past 3 months I have a hard time breathing at night time when trying to fall asleep, and have some minor lung simulation during the day time that comes, and goes.
So I decided to do my own testing before seeking medical advice.

1. I cut down on vaping for a week by only using ego bats with dripping on to a LR 2.0 ohm atty.
RESULTS: Felt 100% better

2. I tried for only 1 day not to vape at all, and during that afternoon I had to buy some Nicotine Gum 2mg at a local CVS store because it was almost like trying to quit analogs, with having some of the same type of withdrawals.
RESULTS: Felt 100% better.

Now after these two self tests, plus a Exam with my primary doctor, and a full check up with a cardiologist including a $3000.00 FULL BLOOD TEST, from cells to things that I never knew they can tested for I went to see a Pulmonary Doctor, with not telling the doctor until after all the tests were done that I vape. I had a examination, overnight sleep study done, a chest x-ray, and multiple breathingfunction tests with a technician.

Final visit, and review: The doctor could not find a thing wrong with me! The oxygen in my blood was 99%, and the sleep study was normal with a lot of rem. So now after he told me this, that's when I told him that I vape. He replied with saying that it is great that you picked up vaping to stop smoking after 35 years of it, and that I should Stop vaping now also because the Organics ( meaning the PG, and VG ) are irritating my lungs. That was his final conclusion of my problem. Now I have to agree with him to a point because of the two self tests I did, and never mentioning a word about me vaping to him until my last visit.

So I tried now a 70% PG / 30% VG mix and guess what my issue was resolved. Seems for me that VG is too heavy on my lungs that it coats my lung receptors because of being so thick. If you are a heavy chain vaper using a lot of VG while in your car you will see after a short time that your cars windshield has a heavy film, and even using the best window cleaner it is hard to come off the windshield, have to go over it several times before clear.

Today I use mostly vape a 50/50 PG VG mix with my nic level at 6 mg, and I do not have the breathing problem unless I attend a cloud competition being a spectator breathing in all that high VG vapor or use higher VG all day.

Just to let you know I still get winded during extreme physical activities but Not like when I was smoking which gave a lot worst problems such as bronchitis every year with being on inhalers. After 35 years of smoking my lungs have been so abused that they will never heal 100% as a none smoker but have healed enough to feel a hell of a lot better then when I smoked.

Now I am not saying this will happen to you, different things effect individuals in different ways.
I really enjoy vaping, and will continue, so if anyone out their has or had a similar problem please let me know, and what you did for it.

 

[Smoky Blue]

i'd love to be able to do that, Smokie.. but.. with my allergy to pg it makes it impossible
and after all this time.. i still try and tinker.. but i pay for it dearly

 

[AmandaD]

I have the same problem if I vape high VG. I really prefer high vg flavorwise, but my lungs disagree!

 

[Lefty]

I'm 60 and smoked for 40+ years. When I first started vaping I was using the Johnson Creek VG line. My lungs would feel stressed particularly in the mornings. I nearly gave it up at first. How much of that was from cutting way back on smoking? IDK. When I started using other juices in a 50/50 mix the stressing stopped. I now use mostly 50/50 and 40/60 with no issues. My wind is much better as well. When I last saw my cardiologist I told him that I'd pretty much quit. He said "great". I told him that depended on how he felt about vaping. He said he was absolutely pleased to hear I'd switched to vaping. It's pretty much an individual thing I'm sure. For some PG is an issue. For me cutting back on the VG seemed to work.

 

[wally]

Have had the same problems using higher vg. I have been vaping 50/50 with much better results. I plan on going to a higher PG to see if I have even better results. I remember vaping 70% vg when I laid down I could hardly breath so changed to 50/50 with no problems.

 

[Zamazam]

I've come down from 36mg nic to 9 in roughly 4 years. I vape a 30pg/70vg mix, any more PG and I tend to get itchy, an allergic sign. When I started, I vaped 10-15 ml a day in bridge less atomizers on Ego's, Carto's and 801DSE's. Now I'm at 3-4 ml a day in a Nautilus Tank, or a good rebuildable such as an Expromizer or Kayfun/Russian. Decreasing how much eqliquid I vape has been the key for me. When I smoked, I would catch every Goddamn bug that was going around, now 4 years later, the worst I've had is a case of sinusitis from a pollen allergy.

I'm not into vaping for cloud competitions even though I'll blow clouds every now and then. I don't need to have the coolest gigawatt powered vape setup. I've got a small collection of mods and attys that keep me off the smokes, after all that's what's it's all about for me - Keeping myself away from smoking.

 

[Whiskey]

I just had pulmonary tests done as well, I have asthma but that was from allergies and I have had that a long time. I did the same, waited until after my tests were done , looked at and explained before I told the Dr. I vaped after smoking 30+ years, he was amazed at how well my images looked on my lung ex rays and how well I did on my breathing tests. Once in a while I will get that twinge cough and congestion. But only when I vape high PG, which I think agrivates the allergy aspect of my asthma.

 

[UncleRJ]

Thanks for sharing Smokie!

I did go through some testing with a Pulmonary Doctor a few years ago. And I really need to get a new set of chest Xrays to compare to the old ones.

And I have noticed the whole windshield thing and I am considering going to a 70/30 mix and dropping my nic level down to 8 mg from 12mg (I started at 36).

And I feel very good when it comes to breathing. Back still sucks but I breath just fine and my doctors and my dentist are all firmly behind me with my vaping.

 

[vaperature]

I can't vape high VG. It's way too harsh. So many people believe VG is smoother and PG is what is harsh, but I think they're just confusing throat hit with just plain old being too harsh. Whenever I've made any high VG DIY it feels like it's burning the back of my throat. If I try to vape Boba's Bounty (pure VG) first thing in the morning I cough my brains out, especially if I was drinking the night before for some reason. 50/50 works best for me.

 

[AmandaD]

I can't vape high VG. It's way too harsh. So many people believe VG is smoother and PG is what is harsh, but I think they're just confusing throat hit with just plain old being too harsh. Whenever I've made any high VG DIY it feels like it's burning the back of my throat. If I try to vape Boba's Bounty (pure VG) first thing in the morning I cough my brains out, especially if I was drinking the night before for some reason. 50/50 works best for me.

Boba's Bounty is in itself very harsh. No idea what they put in it, but it's not the VG giving that harshness!

 

[wally]

It might be the vinegar that is in it. I know it does the same thing to me.

 

[Zamazam]

Boba's Bounty is in itself very harsh. No idea what they put in it, but it's not the VG giving that harshness!

There's a boatload of Tobacco Absolute in it.

 

[wally]

There's a boatload of Tobacco Absolute in it.

Different recipe than the one I have. I use the one where 15 people voted on it as being the best one. I don't remember which forum I got it from.

 

[SMOKIE]

Yep after reading all your posts seems too much PG or VG could be anyone's culprit.

 

[Giraut]

Here's my take on it: the cause of your problem IS VG, but not for the reason you think.

I vape 100% VG, because I can't vape PG. I'm a heavy vaper, too. Until recently, I'd regularly get heaviness in the chest and painful lungs in the morning. That has completely stopped overnight when I started vaping with a DNA40 and temperature control.

My theory is that some of the VG degrades into acrolein in ordinary high-power mods when you overheat the juice - not enough acrolein that you could detect it, but enough to irritates the lungs. You don't get that problem with PG, because PG doesn't degrade into anything when you overheat it: it turns into a gas and that's it. The temperature control feature in the DNA40 prevents ANY acrolein from being formed.

You say switching to PG, and vaping out of low-power Ego batteries, made your problem go away. That fits: you've simply either removed the source of acrolein (VG), or reduced the heat required to form acrolein.

 

[Mr Bungle]

I've searched high and low on the same question, all I can figure so far is that each person's reactions vary and there is still no clear culprit. I've alleviated mine by going 60/40 and dropping to 6mg on the nic. But overheating the juice on high powered mods seems to make sense.

 

[angus67]

it really pleases me that you guys told your doctors after the tests that you vaped, and they were happy about it. My doctor dosnt know I smoked for insurance reasons. been vaping only for 2 months now.
You guys make me want to tell my quack of a rural doctor now.
Ive noticed with all pg my breathing is like, jumpy, not smooth. but I switched to 50/50, lately, and been better. could be the stress of the holidays is over, though.
ive dropped my nic from 24mg to 18mg a month ago,and plan to drop to 12mg end of january

 

[angus67]

I've searched high and low on the same question, all I can figure so far is that each person's reactions vary and there is still no clear culprit. I've alleviated mine by going 60/40 and dropping to 6mg on the nic. But overheating the juice on high powered mods seems to make sense.

not to be a 'negative nelly' but they once thought smoking was ok ,too. We wont know the true effects of vaping for quite some time, could be years. Who really knows what happens when you heat up vg/pg and flavors, nic, and other stuff in our juice. Its all approved food ingredients, but we are still inhaling vapors.

 

[wildwildwest]

And the mods keep going up, what's next, 500W? The Aspire Atlantis is supposed to work at like 20-30W, but mine fire much lower, like 10W.

 

[Palanthis]

Hey guys. I have asthma and I find that "Max VG" stuff is fine, but high PG stuff makes me feel like I have to cough. Could be flavors or ingredients, but I am hitting them both at 20W. I guess it's true. Everyone is different.

 

[Kaleidoscope71]

Thanks for all the information. I have a heavy feeling in my chest and some irritation at times, but my breathing in general is much better and my sinuses and nasal passages are much clearer after a little over a week of vaping with no analogs. Guess I will keep experimenting with different %'s of PG/VG. The temperature control sounds like it would help to. When I first started vaping the heat and throat hit was great and I didn't miss cigarettes. Now that doesn't matter to me at all.

 

[KillaB3E]

I have been having to clear my throat a lot more now than I've had to the last 3 months or so (only been vaping since Sept). Actually, for the last 3 months, I had been vaping with lower wattage devices like the MVP 11watt and Vision Spinner II didn't have to clear my throat at all, but now it is starting to come back, like when I still smoked.

I'm wondering if it's just the amount that I vape, which has increased since I got my Sig 100W plus last week or if it's the juice or both. I only have a Subtank, so I don't go that high in wattage, around 20-25 at the most with the 0.5 ohm coils.

I was about to place a new order from Hurricane vapor and chose 50/50, but I'm wondering if I should change it to 70pg/30vg instead?

I also use 6mg nicotine, but am going to cut down to 3 for this order.

Any suggestions?
Thanks

 

[wildwildwest]

In today's vaping world, (compared to just last year) we have so many options available to us. I question the constant daily vaping at high wattage. Vaping at high wattage uses more juice, meaning more VG/PG is being inhaled and exhaled. I've read lots of comments and complaints about people who vape a higher VG juice getting the inside of their windshields coated with a film. Unfortunately perhaps, for me, I am sensitive to PG and use a high VG juice now. I've also learned (finally) that when sub-ohm vaping (I use an Atlantis tank exclusively) lowering the nicotine level really does lessen the harshness of the vapor. I stuck to my high nicotine juice as long as I could, now I've seen the light. 6mg is the highest I go now, and with some of the 50/50 juices, I have to go down to 3mg. If I can get good vapor production at 20W, why bump it up to 150W or even 100W?

 

[wildwildwest]

There's a boatload of Tobacco Absolute in it.

What is Tobacco Absolute?

 

[Iliketurtles]

Watch this it makes sense, people say yeah there are only 4 things in a juice VG PG Nic Flavour but the flavours are a complex blend of many chemicals usually, those that arent straight up esters anyway. There is a ton of stuff there that could cause you an issue if you are sensitive to it so break it down to where you can identify which part gives you an issue.

 

[kh888]

After a lot of experimenting, I am also realizing that higher VG is just not for me. Anything over 50/50 and my lungs and throat hurts tremendously. Raise the PG and my symptoms really subside.

 

[tweetonthis31]

All this is really great imput I'm fairly new to vaping although i started out quite some time ago now on a very basic tank with the wick that came in a kit. Since then i have switched to alot of different setups because after being a smoker for the past 18 years i felt like i still would crave cigarettes. I even would switch between the two with my first setup and would of course feel like shit after every cig. I dropped my nic way down to 3 mgs but i use max vg and i noticed my lungs are killing me lately as well. I may try some of these other options cause otherwise it makes me wanna dial way back.

 

[Jay29]

I know this is an old post but I started to have this same problem not too long ago. I've been going for almost 3 years now and never really had any problems so I didn't relate this to vaping right away. But I noticed that the more I vaped the worse it got.

My first thought was maybe I was getting too much nicotine. So I started cutting down my wattage as I already vape 3 and 1.5mg ejuice but I vape a fairly high wattage. This actually helped a little bit so I continued to think it was the nicotine. That was until this weekend.

I had a lot of work to do on the computer this weekend and when I'm on the computer I vape the most. I was practically vaping non-stop all day. Sometimes I don't even realize I'm vaping so heavily but every once in awhile that nicotine will kick my ass and remind me. This time I had this big 120ml bottle of a watermelon juice that was 0mg and I was really wanting watermelon so that's what I was vaping. By later afternoon I realized I was having a hard time breathing again. I thought man I must be gettiing too much nicotine but then I remembered there was no nicotine. So being a complete idiot I just kept going.

By about 9pm I was really having some problems. More so than I have ever had before. I forced myself to put the mod away and stop vaping completely. But I had no idea what was going on cause I had no nicotine in the ejuice. So I started to get a bit freaked out. But my head was kind of spinning so I decided to just go lay down.

Not long after I laid down I started to feel very disoriented. I almost felt drunk. The next thing I remember was waking up about 2 hours later. Either I was very tired or I actually passed out. Which freaked me out even more. But I felt a lot better. My lungs still felt heavy and I was still feeling short of breath but it was a lot less intense and I could feel the heaviness slowly lighten over the next few hours. It never fully went away but by that afternoon I was having no breathing issues despite the tightness I was feeling. Although at this point it felt a lot more like just some congestion.

I decided to make an appointment to see my doctor that Monday. During the exam he did all the usual tests. He even gave me one of those breath tests where you breath out as hard to as you can into this thing that kinda looks like a thermometer but it measures the strength of your breathing. He told me as far as he could tell I was perfectly fine. He didn't see or hear anything irregular. He took some blood to do some blood tests but that would take a few days. When I mentioned that I vaped he didn't seem to have much of a reaction. He was actually quite happy that I had quit smoking and he suggested that was probably a big reason why this was the first time he's actually seen me since I quit smoking. Aside from a couple colds I've not been sick at all in the last 3 years, before that it was a fairly common thing for me to get sick. Generally 3 really good sicknesses every year.

He didn't seem to be entirely well educated on the whole vaping thing but he did make a similar suggestion as Smokie's doctor. There was probably a good chance that whatever I was vaping was causing some kind of irritation in my lungs that was causing a very irregular breathing pattern. I thought about maybe an allergy but I've had allergy tests and I think the only thing I was allergic to was penicillin.

So after a little sleuthing I realized that it can't really be a specific juice. Because I vape all kinds of different juices from different companies with all different flavors. I keep 4-5 devices with a different flavor in each one within reach. I vape on that all day. And sometimes I'll get tired of those flavors and I'll grab new flavors and move those into the rotation. I never vape just one juice all day. However there was one commonality between every juice I vape and that is they are all Max VG. I never vape anything below a 70vg. Hell I don't even buy anything below a 70vg. This reminded me of something Joe once said on an episode of Mod Envy about how Smokie mentioned having trouble breathing when he vaped high vg juices. So I went to the internet and eventually found this post.

I'd like to thank you for this post Smokie as it gave me some confirmation to my problem. As well as all the comments. I found the only bottle of 50/50 juice I own, which I got on accident and just never got rid of, and I started vaping just that. I've not had any breathing issues since. Although this vista vapors Crazy Berry ejuice is not at all good. Especially after vaping nothing but this for roughly 3 days straight.

The only problem I have now is that I have to completely restock. I've spent a lot of time building up a juice collection that has allowed me to never really worry about not having juice that I like or even a variety of options to keep me satisfied throughout the day. But my friends sure did enjoy all the free bottles of ejuice they got to take home.