Taking It A Step Further

I posted this in 2016 in this thread: Starting to smell smoke after years of vaping?

Some of the replies freaked me out and the phantom smoke smell went away eventually though I don't know exactly how. I received some questions from other people so I thought I should follow up on what happened in my situation.

About three years ago I ended up going to the doctor because I couldn't sleep and was referred to a sleep specialist and found out I had sleep apnea. I had a week on their sleep monitor and was told I stopped breathing hundreds (or thousands? can't remember, but a lot!) of times a night and could suffocate and die at any time. Then they wanted me to buy a cpap machine and be hooked up to this thing for the rest of my life, like a pod in The Matrix, and pay for all these supplies regularly. After a week on the cpap machine I was almost suffocated by the machine multiple times and I woke up gasping for air, either because I knocked the mask loose in my sleep or because they said they had to adjust settings over the internet.

I knew the cpap wasn't going to work for me so I took it all back and never went back to the doctor (I was "only" out the $1000 or so for all the testing and what not). From reading about sleep apnea and my own logic, it made sense if I was overweight that my nasal passages and throat could be enlarged also and could be causing my breathing problems. I totally changed my diet and never ate fast food or processed food again and had to cut back to 1500-1700 calories a day to lose about 2-6 lbs of weight a week. I lost almost half of my body weight over the course of 1.5 years and my sleep apnea went away. Over that period I also switched up my vaping hardware and juice so I don't know when the phantom smoke smell disappeared, but it did, and luckily I didn't have brain cancer or anything else some people suggested.

I know weight isn't the only thing that causes sleep apnea, but in my case it did. Now I actually get REM sleep and when I get to bed on time, I'm fully rested. From what the doctors told me, before all this I was being woken constantly trying to breath. I was tired 24 hours a day no matter how much "sleep" I got and would fall asleep just sitting down for a few minutes anywhere. Sometimes I had to pull off the road for a 10 minute nap or risk falling asleep while driving. Driving long distances was misery. Now when I think back I can only describe those years as a walking dream. That's what it felt like being deprived of sleep for years.

It's hard to believe that obstructed breathing wouldn't have contributed to the sense of smell, but it was either that or just switching up my vaping. I believe the weight had something to do with it.  

This past week marks 5 years since I smoked a cigarette. It honestly doesn't seem that long, it seems like yesterday I was huddled out in the cold at work with the smokers. I had been a smoker for 28 years.

Unlike many I see posting here, I cannot say vaping helped me quit. I quit cold turkey, and never tried an ecig until about a year after I quit smoking. At that point I was still doing well as a non-smoker, I didn't physically crave smoking, but I missed the 28 year habit of lighting up, having something to fiddle with, and just the relaxing feeling of the inhale/exhale. I had been eating a lot more to make up for the void, and having been underweight all my life I started packing on pounds (too many!). I sorely needed a non-food substitute for the comfort I was missing, but wasn't about to go back to smoking.

I tried a junky convenience store ecig after that first year, and thought "if this was what they were like than forget it". I continued on not smoking, but still missing the habit. About two years after that I began seeing the new advanced products coming out, and did a lot of research. I bought my first starter kit in 2013, and slowly advanced up to bigger and better gear.

People ask why would start vaping after I had already kicked the cigarette habit, and I say, "Why not?". Other than nicotine I'm not getting any of the negative things I got with cigarettes. And in my opinion, there's really nothing wrong with a little nicotine. Nicotine is not what was killing me, it was the smoke that was delivering the nicotine that was killing me.

So I'm 5 years smoke free, I no longer hack in the mornings, my chest never hurts and my clothes, car and hair don't stink anymore.
I have no intentions on giving up vaping, as it has no negative impact on my life, and i enjoy it, so why stop?

I have since gotten my son, my step-son, and his wife to all trade vaping for smoking, so bonus points for saving all their lives too!  

I've already done it, but was just making sure it was ok. I tend to mix down my liquids quite a bit, adding VG into an 18mg base to end up with a 6mg blend with light taste. I do that for my All day vaping, so I don't overpower my taste buds. The problem is, the last two colors I got were colorless, so it was hard to tell which bottle I picked up or was in which tank.

So, I came up with the idea... put one drop of food coloring in one bottle (30ml). I chose blue. I filled 1/3rd with my juice choice, filled the rest of the bottle with VG, and added one drop of blue food coloring. One drop went a long way and turned it quite blue.

Besides coloring the cotton, is there any adverse affects of doing this? I don't think one drop of food coloring over a half a weeks time to vape the bottle is enough to worry, but I just wanted to run across this to you guys. I know it will discolor the cotton, but I rewick it myself anyways. I color it for identification, so there is a reason to do it, and It seems it's easier to tell the liquid level as well. It doesn't color the vape or my mouth, but the only thing I'd be afraid of, is if ejuice leaked, it would dye whatever it got on.

Any input?  

So I'm trying to quit smoking, it's only been a few days now but ever since I started vaping I haven't been sleeping.. at all.. maybe 2-3 hours a night. I believe it's because I used to have a smoke before I go to bed then I'd be headrocked to sleep.

does anyone have any tips for me. I don't want to smoke but I feel like that's the only way I'll be able to sleep.  

So I got some great super clearance deals on some dual coil RTAs but I'm a single coil kinda vaper.

My thought was that surely I could buy some little blocks of food grade silicone to whittle down so I could make plugs to plug up the juice ports, air ports and take up air space on the side of the RTA chamber I won't be coiling and wicking. To do this I would need extruded blocks or sticks of silicone about 2 inches thick.

I thought this would be easy to find, but I'm at a loss. I tried ebay then google but no one sells little blocks or sticks of extruded silicone.

But maybe I'm using the wrong keywords?

Anyone know where I can find something like this?

EDITED TO ADD: I am open to other ideas. I'm not set on the idea of using silicone. It's the only thing I can think of that would work well enough to seal up air and juice ports as well as to block the air space in the chamber where the second coil will not be installed. But I am keeping an open mind.  

I just returned from my biannual Doctor's visit. While there I told her that I was over 90 days cigarette free. She asked me if I had gone cold turkey. I told her about vaping and how it had allowed me to quit. She was very happy that I had quit. She did not mention anything about vaping, positive or negative. She just focused on my quitting and ask about food taste and smells. Continuing through the visit, while she was renewing my med prescriptions, she continued to reinforce my decision to quit and all of the positive things along quitting. As she left she was still smiling and happy. I also talked to one of her nurses about vaping and quitting and gave her my number and told her that I could set her up with a beginners kit from my gear that I don't use. Now I will sit back and see if I have recruited a new convert. Overall, I left the doctor's office with a smile on my face, too.  

So I am on a business trip in Madison, WI. I am staying in a hotel (a Hilton to be exact) and I was just hanging out in my room, watching TV, and doing a bit of vaping in my boxers. Then it happened.... the fire alarm went off. I about pooped my pants it caught me so off guard. I ran down to the lobby to explain what happened when the fire department showed up and started asking questions. When they found out that my room was the one that tripped the alarm, they instantly started treating me like a criminal. You would have thought I just murdered their first born child.

Eventually I got the "you shouldn't smoke inside, it's against the law" lecture from one of the firefighters and when I told him I didn't realize it was an issue in a private room where I'm not actually smoking, he went off on me. He told me that regardless of what it is, any type of "smoking" is against the law and that I should have just told someone I was smoking and it would have saved everyone from a headache. He just could not comprehend why I was confused as to why the alarm went off when there was no smoke present. He got my name, phone number, and date of birth from me right before he left, not sure what that was about. The hotel attendant was much more understanding, to whom I apologized profusely for the chaos I caused. She said it's not the first time it has happened and that she is going to talk to the building manager about some new signs addressing the issue of vaping in the rooms.

After doing some research on my own, I found a few things to be true.

1. Smoke alarms arent necessarily built to only detect smoke. Some can be set off by steam, dust, or any type of aerosol.
2. Dane County, WI just recently (Jan 2015) enacted a ban on vaping indoors and that apparently applies to private hotel rooms as well.
3. Public fire alarms are really fracking loud!!!

Be sure to do a bit of research on local vape laws when you travel, it could save you some trouble and legal issues. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me in the butt, it was an honest mistake and had I known, I wouldn't have vaped inside in the first place.

Just thought I would share my story so others may learn from my stupid mistake. Save yourself the embarrassment and look up the laws, ask an employee about rules involving vaping, and for the love of God and all that is holy, don't vape near a smoke detector.  

Now that most of the stocking up is behind us, what would be a suitable procedure for maintaining items in storage?

For regulated mods, keeping them dry is probably all that is needed. But should the sealed wrap be removed to avoid condensation inside?

How about atomizers? I had a problem in removing the cap from a used RDA after it was in storage for two years. Had to resort to using WD40 because the o-rings became adhered to the metal surfaces. I ruined the o-rings in the process. Would it make sense to go through and disassemble/reassemble things at certain time intervals? Should items be stored disassembled? Will o-rings become permanently compressed over time? Maybe put some vg on the o-rings for storage? Or should o-rings be removed? It's already been said that things should be cleaned/soaked before going into storage.

I have one RDA that gets sticky while in use. I remove the cap about once a week, just so I can.

What do you do? What do you think?  

I've been thinking on why vaping with flavored eliquid is so effective at tobacco smoking cessation.

Smoking cigarettes was more than just a physical dependence for me, it also consisted of breaking the bad habits. I wanted to stop using tobacco, but there was more to quitting, and staying quit, than I first thought.

I tried nicotine gum, patches, chantix, etc. Nothing worked until I took up vaping. Here are my thoughts on why I think it worked, when nothing else did.

Physical needs

Tobacco contains several alkaloids and chemicals, in addition to nicotine, that change the effect nicotine has on our body and brain. Some of these alkaloids and chemicals likely have effects on their own. When changing from tobacco use to ecigarettes, I know that I initially experienced cravings that nicotine did not curb. If it was only nicotine I craved, vaping would have eliminated my cravings. This wouldn't happen for me until a little later on in vaping.

Behavior, eg. Habit

Repeating an action long enough creates a habit. Some habits can reinforce an addiction, or be a part of that addiction. Breaking those habits, in my experience, is more than half the battle when quitting.

One of the hardest habits for me to break was the ritual of smoking. It went something like this; Walk into the convenience store, buy a pack of smokes, pack them on my palm, open the cellophane, remove the top of the liner, smell that fresh pack of smokes. Take a cigarette out, light it up, smoke it, put it out. Repeat part two until your almost out, then go to the store and buy another pack.

In the beginning I had to avoid going in the store and just pay with a card at the pump. Over time this impulse has disappeared.

The act of smoking itself was the other major habit I had to change. I did this by replacement.

When I quit I found that mimicking the act of inhaling smoke, by inhaling vapor instead, helped me to satisfy the hand-to-mouth habit part of smoking. Raising my pv to my lips, taking a drag, then lowering it to my side is very similar to the way I used to smoke a cigarette. The feeling of drawing warm vapor into my mouth, then lungs, substituted for taking puffs on a cigarette.

So why are flavors so important then?

Even with the habit side of smoking more or less dealt with, I still felt I was missing something. The gnawing pull of a cigarette was still there. It only abated when I was actually vaping (and shortly after), even though I knew I had enough nic in my system.

What's going on then?

Flavors

I believe that adding flavors has a twofold benefit in successfully switching from tobacco to vaping.

When I enjoy a flavor, and I mean really enjoy it, my tastebuds and scent receptors light up in a flavorgasm. The thought of cigarettes gets pushed to the back of my mind, if only temporarily, as I focus on the sensations I'm experiencing with this vapor. That moment, and for a short time afterwards, I experience true relief from my cravings. When vaping a flavor I dislike, I don't feel as satisfied and vape more trying to fill that craving.

The two main processes that I believe are occuring to provide that relief are a shifting of focus (distraction), and pleasure.

Distraction & pleasure

Replacing an unpleasant stimulus with a pleasant one is a widely accepted method of behavior modification. Pleasure releases endorphins, sex & drugs release alot of endorphins for example. Taste & smell do this as well in smaller amounts.

I stated earlier that repeating an action long enough creates a habit. After vaping for a period of time, the association that vaping=pleasure became hardwired into my brain, and the longer that I vaped, the stronger the association grew. On the flip side the longer I avoided tobacco, the greater dissociation with the pleasure response became.

Today I don't even want to smoke, it's nasty.

Sometime later on my vape journey, heavily flavored vapor became unpleasant. I think that was after my tastebuds grew back more. I found that I used less and less flavor as time went by. Oversaturation of my tastebuds is unpleasant now.

I still enjoy flavors, but the percentages I use have been cut drastically. I regularly used 15-20% when I started, now I use from 1-5% on average. Also I started on 18-24 mg per mL of nicotine, and now use 6 mg.

I know that this stuff is common knowledge to most of y'all, same as me, but I haven't seen it presented this way in the same place before. Hopefully someone can get some good use out of this somehow.  

I smoked my last cigarette at 8:05am on May 5, 2014 . I didn't know then if it would really be the day I finally quit, but I told myself to really try to go 24 hours without smoking, a goal I had never achieved. And I made it! So then I told myself, if I could go a day, I could truly make it.

I started smoking at a very young age, and smoked 35 years. I made numerous attempts to quit going back to my college years. I tried cold turkey, cutting back, the patch, gum, a nicotine inhaler, Wellbutrin and Chantix. No matter what, I couldn't break that 24 hour goal. I would go through ashtrays and light up every disgusting butt for 1 or 2 nasty drags.

My last few years of smoking I was under a PAD, but only due to financial reasons. I just wouldn't let myself have more than 1 cigarette per hour, but I certainly smoked the heck out of each one. The filter would be collapsed by the time I was finished.

Thank you, ECF. I was so clueless when I started vaping. I didn't know which was 510 and which was ego threading on my batteries. I didn't know an atomizer from a clearomizer. I didn't know what rebuildables were, or that the ones I saw online were clones. I kept googling different things, and kept ending up here to read. Finally after 3 months of lurking, I joined.

The journey has been amazing! The technology changes alone in the 14 months I've been vaping are mind boggling. And I've met some truly kind and generous folks here, from those who give their time all day to help others, to those who give hardware and juice to those in a financial crunch. Thank you, all