Very Happy Doctor

Seen it mentioned over and over here that after vaping for a variable period
of time analogs start tasting 'nasty' to many (most?) people. Happened with
my father in law after about two months. Has not yet happened with a coworker
who vapes and still smokes. Think he has vaped over a year total and at
least four months with a proper rig.

So, exactly how can vaping while quitting change the taste of cigarettes when
cold turkey or the patch do not? At least they did not in the past, wife and
I quit and started back at least four times each before we finally
succeeded. Final time was almost six years ago so we were well before the
fire retardant / carpet glue was added.

Anyone quit and restart via vaping both before and after fire retardant was
added? Was the nasty taste absent back then or less pronounced?

Curious to hear from from anyone who has quit and restarted with different
methods and how the taste differs. Have read that Chantix and similar also
can cause a nasty taste. Is it the same as from vaping or different?

Never seen or found a thread devoted to this so though I would start one.  

I quit smoking to start vaping and have never once missed smoking. A little over a month ago I quit vaping all together after two years of slowly working my nicotine level down from 36mg to 0mg.

I quit vaping at zero milligrams of nicotine and never experienced nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

I guess these would all be good things except for the fact that I miss vaping. Multiple times a day since I quit the thought of having a vape pops in my head and just as soon as it does this weird feeling of loss follows as I realize I no longer vape. I would think by now these feeling would have subsided but they have not.

I wouldn't think much of it but since quitting I have gained 10lbs, have little to no energy, find myself easily frustrated and worst of all have found myself drinking a lot more than normal (which is probably why I gained 10lbs anyway). A huge part of me just wants to go back to vaping.

I guess my question is, Did anyone else quit vaping and experience weird side effects from quitting? If so, how long did it take you to feel normal again?  

A few month ago I was vaping 24mg juice, been doing that for a few years. I started strong to quit cigs. My biggest cravings happen when I wake up, and after a meal.

I made the decision to quit vaping so I cut the strength down to 10mg 2 month ago. Then a few days ago I cut down to 5mg. I plan do cut down further to 2.5mg a month from now, and then 1.25mg...etc. I do DIY juice so all I have to do is dilute my jar when I have 50% left.

Right now I still get some craving at trigger time, and each time I cut down, I need to puff more in the first few days.

I wonder if my cravings will decrease as my nic level decreases. Once I'm at 1.25mg I plan to quit cold turkey, and I wonder how hard it will be? I should also mention that I vape menthol, so each time I dilute my juice I'm also weakening the cooling sensation that I'm used to.

thanks  

Today was follow up #2 to my cardiologist. A bit over a year ago my heart got all outta whack from years of bad habits.
Dude blamed it on smoking. So my next logical step was to start vaping.

A follow visit later I showed him my Aspire Rover X30 (w/D22 tank) and he high fived me. Next visit everything was good to go. So he put me on a bi-yearly schedule. This was visit #2.

He came in the room all happy at what an ekg, and other tests showed good signs. He asked if I still smoke and I said yes but while pulling out my vape pod and showed him. "I smoke a lot less now" I said.

He said "keep on vaping and some day you'll stop smoking". Agreed. He said come back in a year and if I'm not smoking anymore he'll pay for the visit. (about $500 total with tests).

Ironically on the way into the facility I had to put out a fire from a cigarette in a landscaped area where the mulch was smoldering.

Anybody else have a doctor who approves of vaping?  

Plan to quit ecigs?

honestly i think ecigs with some willpower paved the way for me in quitting regular cigs.... I was on half a pack to a pack a day.... But now ecigs came into the picture made quitting that much easier, even though i feel healthier vaping than smoking... This thing gota have a side effect sooner or later...

i plan to quit ecigs by vaping less and less... As of now its becoming like my third arm, i have to have it everywhere... When battery is low or when i cant use it... Its like worse than having no battery on my phone...

So main question : when are u planning to quit  

History. I'm 66, smoked for more than 30 years, quit when I had a small heart attack at about 47-49 years old. BP issues requiring meds and other health issues.

About last August 2019 I had a bunch of stress come up and handled it badly. I started on mild cigars and moved to medium strong. Got in a situation where I couldn't smoke a stogie, so bummed a cigarette. That morphed into smoking more than a carton and stogies.

I knew they'd kill me so I picked up a Juul 3%, not enough moved to 5%.
Moved on to a Vinci x and 50 salt.

Have been mixing and dropping the salt and was to 25ish. Was getting a lot of choking white phlegm every morn. Vaping mostly tobacco with very little flavor. 70-30 was better than 50-50 for muscus/phlegm problem.

The purpose of vaping was to avoid analogs and eventually quit all nicotine.

I'm into the second day today. Piece of nicorette gum in one cheek and a nicorette lozenge in the other. Both 2mg. Consult your doctor on doubling up patches, gum etc.

Withdrawal wasn't bad so far at all. Don't know if vape nic absorbs different or not. It's different than quitting analogs somehow for me anyway.

Anyhow, passing it on for anyone thinking of going down the path of being nic free again. I was off everything for 15+ years and for my heart and health am going there again.

I do have to say though that vaping definitely kept me 100% off analogs once I switched. And didn't palpitate or sense any issues from it, other than a 20 count BP rise.

I vaped lightly, 100-150 2-3 second puffs per day. I still have the equipment and juice if I fail, but so far it's going well.

Dave  

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 have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow, and he had asked that I try to quit vaping and switch to nicotine gum because ecigs create formaldehyde in the lungs, which is terrible for you. I know many of you have dealt with this BS, so here's a short, easy-to-read article by a doctor explaining exactly why these studies are ridiculous and misleading. There is much more in-depth stuff out there, but for something by a medical professional that is still very scientific but still easy enough to approach that people will actually read it, I think it's pretty darn good.

The deception of measuring formaldehyde in e-cigarette aerosol: the difference between laboratory measurements and true exposure  

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  

I "successfully" quit vaping for 2 month. It actually wasn't that bad, I was able to fill the void with music/gum/walks. Right now I have 0 physical temptation to vape.

But there has been many stressful situations and I feel without the vape it made everything harder. To me, it's not that I had to have it, but it was something enjoyed. And taking it away made life a little less fun. It's like saying you can never eat candy or drink coffee again.

The only reason I quit was for the health benefits. I heard vaping can cause COPD but then I also hear it's a lot less harmful than smoking. But here's the thing that really demotivates one from quitting vaping:

We are not sure how harmful is it (if at all)

There are many other things bad for us in life, like air pollution, asbestos, etc. Is it worth giving up something that you enjoy for a marginal health benefit? I vape at a low wattage so I don't think I'm getting lots of formaldehydes.
I'm really thinking about going back to vaping. I think I'll vape a few more years and if news comes out by then that vaping is truly really bad, then I'll quit...

I don't know... it's not like we are going to live forever even if we don't vape/smoke/do anything unhealthy...