Bargain juice and lung hurt.

[Cuppa noodz]

Every time I vape cheaper juices my chest hurts and I generally begin to feel crappy after a few hours. I chain vape all day and night, and while I understand that a couple breaths of oxygen may help, I feel perfectly fine while vaping premium brands (lost art, kilo, ANML, boosted, etc.)
However, seems like anything on the cheaper side tend to be very harsh and scratchy, and have my chest hurting and throat tickling, policeman by OHW being the latest culprate (although OHW juices previous to PM didn't have that effect). Plus, super cheap stuff like plume juice, t-maxx, white label juice co, gets me completely sick with a respiratory infection. Anybody with similar experiences, please share.

 

[robot zombie]

Well, unless its contaminated with some sort of bacteria or virus (unlikely, as PG and VG are desiccants, meaning they take the moisture out of things - i.e. the most vital thing that bacteria needs to live and reproduce,) then it's not giving you a respiratory infection. It may feel like you have one, but its more likely just regular old inflammation and discharge from the irritation. I doubt it's making you actually sick... ...something else is going on there.

I'm sure others can chime in on this. My experience with bad juice is limited. The only thing I don't have much of a tolerance for in juice is really high PG and citrus.

I've definitely had some juices that irritated the fuck out of my lungs, though... ...like to the point where I'm just coughing and clearing my throat all day. Usually, it's from that gas station crap that's made for the shitty CE5 and Aspire BDC-style kits that they sell. It has to have a lot of PG and what would be way too much flavoring for anything more current is just enough in those things. When you try to use stuff mixed more for cheap, old fashioned setups in say, a dripper or even a sub-ohmtank with prebuilt coils, it's gonna hit ya real fast.

Could be any number of things... ...flavorings and additives that the big-time guys steer away from. Premium juicemakers also source their PG, VG, and nic bases more carefully. All of those can have impurities that really mess with your respiratory system. Additionally, improper treatment or storage can induce chemical changes in bases and flavorings that can be irritating at best and potentially harmful at worst. It typically costs more time, manpower and money to source and properly store/handle high-quality bases and these are all practices you may find lacking in cheaper juicemakers' labs.

Are these cheaper juices thinner? As in, are they high PG? That could be it right there. PG is a strong desiccant and a moderate irritant. It contributes quite a lot to throat hit. Juices high in PG will generally feel very harsh and astringent through any non MTL setup. If you have an allergy to it on top of that, then it can really mess you up. I'm not even allergic to it, but vaping juice with too much PG messes me up pretty bad by the end of the day. If you're dehydrated, it'll make it worse by pulling moisture out of your lungs and airways. The moisture latches onto that PG and leaves your body as a part of the vapor. It can take a little while for them to get back up to where they need to be if too much moisture is lost.

I dunno... ...just a few possibilities. The only advice I can give you is to not vape juice that you have a bad reaction to. Try to isolate the cause and avoid it like the plague.

 

[AndriaD]

I was thinking just the opposite... too much VG, so that even broke people can blow "cloudz, bra". Anything over 15% VG makes me feel like I have a hairball in my lungs that I CANNOT cough up by any means, and it makes my asthma much, much worse, just constant wheezing/rattling noises from my lungs. The only ill effects I've gotten from PG was once when I tried 90% PG, after about a week, just at the time it was getting to be cold enough to run the furnace (which dries the air massively), my throat got cherry-red, and the inside of my nose and sinuses felt raw and burned, like at the beginning of a cold... but I didn't have a cold, just irritation from too much PG coupled with too much dryness from the furnace.

Or, as noted, could be additive(s) of some kind. Or cheapie nicotine.

Andria

 

[freemind]

Too much VG could be it. Seriously.

Those "premium" juice have a lot of flavorings (PG based) and are likely a 30/70 blend. You can get stuff in the 80-90% VG range, but generally, I think "premiums" are around 70% VG.

When I vape super high VG, and ALOT of it, my lungs hurt.