Do You Think You Get Less Nicotine From Vaping Than Smoking?

Hey folks, I've recently created a website E-Liquid Nicotine Consumption/Absorption Calculator to calculate equivalent of how many analog 'regular' cigarettes (in terms of nicotine) we're inhaling when vaping on e-juice.

I've got some really nice feedback from you, so I've decided to give it a shot and also create a mobile version of the website. For now, it's only available for Android.

Android app is called 'E-Liquid Nicotine Calculator' and it calculates above details, as well as it allows you to estimates monthly savings of switching from regular analog cigarettes to vaping.

Please let me know what you think or how I can make it better.

You can download it from Google Play:
E-Liquid Nicotine Calculator - Android Apps on Google Play
(as long as you have an Android device it should work)

Some Screenshots:
 

Since I do all my vaping shopping online and will soon not be able to get eliquid containing nicotine by mail in the US, can one buy liquid nicotine now, store it and add it to pre made liquid? I know that I would have to probably use one of the apps out there to figure out how much to add to 30 or 60 mg of liquid to obtain a 3 mg amount. I don't even know if this is possible. I don't want to go the route of making my own since I have certain flavors I like from a couple of vendors and can probably not match these flavors doing it myself.
I have been vaping for 6 years now and am afraid that I will be forced back to smoking cigarettes when I run out of my current supply.  

So I've been mouth to lung vaping since I started vaping. Started at 24 mg with the Halo Triton and when I upgraded to the iStick and the Nautilus I lowered my nicotine down to 15 mg. It's been fine.......getting enough nicotine so I don't crave analogs, not getting too much nicotine so that I start feeling sick. Throat hit has been fine and not uncomfortable.

Yesterday I started doing lung hits with the iStick and the Nautilus and with the greater amount of vapor I can produce, I stepped the nicotine down to 12 mg since I also started to get a little lightheaded (I suppose with the greater amount of vapor I am also taking in more nicotine, even though nicotine absorption through the lungs is not supposed to be as good as through the mouth and nose). The juice that I am using is also a 70VG/30PG mix as compared to the 50/50 I was vaping before. However this morning I woke up with an irritated throat and the vape (even when switching back to mouth to lung) feels more harsh.

Do I need to step down the nicotine level even more to 6 mg? Is this normal when going from mouth to lung to direct lung hits? I'm not subohming, so I didn't expect that I would need to drop it down that much. I'm afraid that if I drop it down too much, then I'm going to have more cravings and will need to vape constantly.  

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!  

hey guys.
as we all know the vaping industry hits on some interesting topics in harm reduction. we are seeing the reality of regulation more and more these days and with that comes a whole new wave of statistics and reasons for and against advocacy of this industry. one thing that i have noticed is that while addressing various concerns as vaping gains popularity is the subject of where minors lie. anticipating regulation it became important to not grant minors access to this technology. more and more often an article will come out admitting the advantages of vaping and the benefits of placing some restrictions on vaping that are consistent with tobacco regulations. these articles admit that as popularity of vaping rises that the number of adolescent smokers is also decreasing, but adolescents who have tried vaping rises.
to me this isn't that bad? i don't believe that nicotine liquid should be available to minors. if a teen is thinking about picking up a disposable nicotine free e-cig, isn't that just one less teen trying to get a cigarette? if anything i believe that it is definitely preferable that this technology be available to a minor that is seriously considering smoking. again, e-cigs are proving to be beneficial to asthmatic users. does no one remember the e-cigs that were produced to sate appetites for sweets and touted as a weight loss aid?
i am seeing this ammendment being made in otherwise positive articles about vaping. it takes me right back to being 16 when i accompanied a younger friend trying to buy nicorette so he could quit smoking. after a very short conversation with the pharmacist he refused to sell the gum to my friend. his response is that he could just get his mom to buy the quit smoking aid like she bought his cigarettes.
i know it is a slippery slope and i would definitely not freely offer nicotine free e-cigs to minors, but isn't the decline in teen smoking worth it?  

I was in a bar / restaurant a couple of days ago and noticed another person vaping (guy looked to be in his late 60s). The guy was using what looked like a non-adjustable EGO style stick battery with what looked like an 'old-school' Kanger T3 clearomizer on top.

I struck up a conversation with him for just a moment and asked him what type of juice he was vaping ... The guy never told me the brand or flavor, but said it was 0mg Nic when I asked him.

That was basically the end of our conversation.

My question to you folks is this .... Why would anyone keep vaping if they had no nicotine in there juice? For me, the reason I vape in the first place is to keep off cigarettes. I am obviously addicted to nicotine, and have replaced the nicotine from cigarettes for the nicotine found in my juice.

If I could wean myself completely off nicotine, I think at that point I would just give up on vaping altogether. Someday I would like to be nicotine free, but for now, I just can't see it in my future.

BTW .... I have not smoked a cigarette for 15 months, but I am still vaping on my fairly strong 16mg Nic DIY juice.  

Hi guys! First of all sorry for my bad english. I started to vape at February and I love it, thanks to the e-cig I don't want a tobacco cigarette anymore. By the way, for some reason, about 15 days ago I realized that e-liquid nicotine gives me agitation and jittery that I've never had before. Sure, nicotine is a stimulant like coffeine but as we know it's a relaxant, too. And this stimulant/relaxant combo is what I've had with tobacco cigarettes and with vaping until 15 days ago. To be sure that (liquid) nicotine is the culprit, I've tried everything. With nic free e-liquid I have no agitation, even though I become a little sad because actually I can't stay without nicotine for a whole day. You may say: "reduce the nic dosage" and that's what I did, but unfortunately even with 1.5 mg/ml I have this issue And I don't vape too much. So I decided to do another test: for one day I smoked tobacco cigarettes. Guess what? No agitation and jittery. This is so weird, I can't believe it! Because I can expect it if I vape too much at high nic dosage, but I vape at only 3 mg/ml and not too much. And as I said before even with 1.5 mg/ml. I started to vape at February with 9 mg/ml, then I gradually lowered the dose without any problem (until 15 days ago). Also, I've tried different nicotine e-liquids but nothing has changed. Now I don't know what to think other than I suddenly become intolerant to liquid nicotine, even though I don't have nausea, dizziness, headache, stomach problems and other symptoms that make me think: "you're intolerant for sure". What do you think guys? Is there something that I can do? I don't want stop vaping, especially because I don't want to smoke again Thank you so much in advance guys.  

First published study showing that Juul can deliver a higher and faster boost in blood nicotine than most other e-cigarettes and similar to a cigarette. Nicotine Absorption Profile Among Pod-Based Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Users Any thoughts?  

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.  

Seeking relief from nicotine addiction, some e-cigarette users turn to cigarettes - CNN

Even though McClain knows the dangers of cigarettes — lung cancer runs in his family — he thinks it might be easier to kick cigarettes than his Juul. Plus, his mom keeps warning him about the mysterious vaping-related illnesses that have sickened hundreds across the country.
So last month, McClain bought his first pack of cigarettes in years. Then he tweeted about it.
"Bought a juul to quit smoking cigarettes," he wrote, "now I'm smoking cigarettes to quit the juul." He ended with this hashtag: #circleoflife.
Click to expand...

By the time the anti-vaping zealots figure out what they've done it will be to late to undo. Actually, it probably is too late.