Thoughts on vaping

[thumper45]

I was never a smoker but I tried a friends vape and liked it about 18 months ago and have vaped since. I’ll preface this by saying I don’t need people telling how stupid I am. I know that. I don’t know what possessed me to do it but I suppose what possesses anyone to try something they know is not only bad for their health but addictive too? Your first drink, your first cigarette. Anyway I did it and enjoyed it and now im addicted.

I don’t take my vape out of the house because I do find it embarrassing and I also don’t want family to find out. A handful of friends know but that’s it. I vape at home and can go without it for the 8 hours a day I’m at work but am always craving it by the time I get in. I especially want it if I’ve had a drink or two.

I am looking to quit purely because the potential long term health issues scare me. I find it so baffling that this is something the NHS actively recommends (yes to people trying to quit smoking) but the fact or myth NHS page seems to highly defend vaping. Yet there are constant articles in the press about people whose lungs have exploded or whatever. Which is it?

I think I was very dumb naive when I started and believed that it was pretty harmless. Although I haven’t experienced any worrying symptoms yet I don’t want it to emerge years down the line that I’ve given myself health issues over something so stupid. So yes I’ll be trying to quit but I know it’ll be tough.

Just wondering what other people’s thoughts and experiences have been. I know MN can be quite judgey about this sort of thing so I reiterate, I know I was stupid to start. I know it can look silly and be antisocial to have to walk through clouds of vape. I don’t need lecturing on these things. I’m just interested in people who have experience of it and may have tips to quit.

Yes, the only people iv known to vape who have never smoked are children iv never known an adult who never smoked to just start vaping

I know quite a few. As I said, it’s the same logic as why would you pick up your first cigarette? People are curious, they enjoy it and before they know it they are addicted. That’s all there is to it. I recognise it wasn’t the cleverest thing to do but I don’t think it’s unusual. I know plenty of people who have done it.

Vaping like smoking is your own choice and it does not bother me unless you impact on me.

I find though so many vapers thinking there vaping is more important than anyone else. Where I live all the public buildings have banned vaping indoors including my workplace. However the vapers are constantly sneaking a puff in the kitchen, meeting rooms or stairways.

I vape and have done for some time.

I am quitting because its expensive, and I worry about the long term risks involved.

I am going on holiday this afternoon - and plan to use this break to stop vaping. We have lots of activities planned, I wont have any stress of work etc, so it'll be easier to stop.

I have done it before on holiday and went cold turkey for a week, then stupidly went and bought one once back home for no reason.

The withdrawals are bad for like 2 days (headache, thoughts etc) then taper off from day 3 onwards, as long as you keep your mind busy!

I find withdrawals easier to cope with whilst lying in the sun sipping a cocktail, hence my plan!

You know how bad you smell?

I think it's dangerous to get addicted to anything. And of course the long-term affects of this are a mystery at this point. And of course your clothes and hair smell like it even if you're just at home with it. But you have free will here to quit or not - I would just be wary of the experience of 'craving it as soon as I get home' as that is a slippery slope for sure.

(I have a lot of issues with food and I don't love feeling out of control of it. So if you're at the point of being able to quit without drama then you should consider it)

What a vile thing to say in response to that particular comment.

I'd much rather smell bad than be so nasty, especially to someone who's clearly been having a hard time.

But again most people pick up their first cigarette when they're teenagers it would be odd for an adult to suddenly start smoking randomly

@thumper45 ex hospice staff here

1. if you are a smoker than it’s far far far better to vape than smoke, no contest! 2/3 of longer term smokers will die from a smoking related illness and having cared for people dying from lung cancer in their 30’s and 40’s (with young children ) I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.However I have had patients return to smoking because they become so addicted to their vapes they can’t keep it out of their mouths…..so if you are a smoker, consider moving to eg. Patches or other nicotine delivery devices if you wish to become nicotine free
2. as you are not and have never been a smoker, then it is not recommended to start! nicotine is a highly addictive drug and any addiction can have consequences. problems related to vaping currently known are ….

eg. What Are the Health Effects of Vaping? (Taken from:https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/e-cigarettes.html#:~:text=addiction%3A%20E%2Dcigarettes%20contain%20nicotine,attention%2C%20especially%20in%20developing%20brains.)
The health risks of vaping include:

• addiction: E-cigarettes contain nicotine, a drug that’s highly addictive. You don’t have to vape every day to get addicted.
• anxiety and depression: Nicotine makes anxiety and depression worse. It also affects memory, concentration, self-control, and attention, especially in developing brains.
• becoming a smoker: People who vape are more likely to start smoking regular (tobacco) cigarettes and may be more likely to develop other addictions in the future.
• impotence: There is some evidence that vaping can cause sexual dysfunction in men.
• sleep problems
• exposure to cancer-causing chemicals
• chronic bronchitis
• lung damage that can be life-threatening

-For Issues with regards to addiction ,please see https://www.ukat.co.uk/blog/substance-abuse/vaping-can-your-life-go-up-in-smoke/
unless you are likely to get yourself addicted to something worse, and as you currently can go 8 hrs without vaping, you are in a great position to give up if you so chose….people do this by eg. Reducing their nicotine strength down slowly or by replacing vaping with eg. Patches. Here’s an ad from Nicolette about helping people to stop vaping ( I’m not paid by them!) https://www.nicorette.co.uk/quitting-vaping or look at resources on here https://smokefree.gov/quit-vaping-resources

I found your survey a bit odd. There were lots of questions about vaping 'sessions' and numbers of puffs. Nobody I know counts puffs and most people I know don't have vaping 'sessions' as such, it's a much more 'little and often' habit than smoking.

Asking about strength is a bit meaningless unless you also ask how much liquid people get through and what power they vape at. There are different styles of vaping - some people use low strength at high power and get through a lot of liquid. Others use low power and high strength and use very little liquid, and everything inbetween. Over the course of a day, their nicotine intake can be roughly the same.

I'm not sure how useful the money questions are because you didn't ask about people's income or whether they had any financial worries. I would have answered completely differently if I was strapped for cash and not sure how to pay this month's rent, for example. I think the 'marshmallow test' has been criticised for socioeconomic bias - this is the same.

You'll likely get a lot of people choosing 'other' for your 'Do you identify as ...' question and using the box to explain they don't 'identify as' anything. An 'N/A' option would be helpful to separate these people from those with one of the countless gender identities you did not list, who would also choose 'other'.

Sex is not assigned at birth, it is fixed at conception and recorded at birth. 'Intersex' is not a sex it's an outdated term that many people with DSD find offensive. People with a DSD are all either male or female. They are the only people who were ever 'assigned' a sex at birth - male or female, never 'intersex' - in the days before genetic testing and other medical advances. Frequently this 'assigning' went hand in hand with traumatic, non-consensual surgeries. It's high time everyone stopped using this term.

Finally, these sorts of surveys are supposed to go in a topic called Non-member requests (which probably needs renaming because it's not obvious).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/nonmember_requests

You might want to repost there because your post is likely to be deleted from this thread if someone reports it.

However I have had patients return to smoking because they become so addicted to their vapes they can’t keep it out of their mouths…..so if you are a smoker, consider moving to eg. Patches or other nicotine delivery devices if you wish to become nicotine free

Yes, quitting smoking is tough and most smokers make numerous failed attempts before they finally quit. However your advice is wrong - patches and other forms of NRT have a very poor success rate compared with vaping.

https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/latest-cochrane-review-finds-high-certainty-evidence-nicotine-e-cigarettes-are-more-effective

Of course Nicorette are plugging their products to vapers! Their profits have taken an absolute hammering thanks to the much greater popularity and effectiveness of vapes.

I see you have linked to a page from the US full of unreferenced bobbins on the risks of vaping. Without knowing what their assertions are based on they are difficult to comment on, however there are a couple of points that can be instantly challenged:

The effects of nicotine on developing brains
All the data we have on this comes from smoking studies:

No data were available on direct effects of nicotine exposure in human adolescents, so the evidence in the literature was drawn from data on CC, which expose the user to a range of potentially toxic substances in addition to nicotine, such as particulates, carbon monoxide and other vasoactive substances, which may not be present in ENDS aerosol, or are present at lower levels.

https://cot.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2020-09/COT%20E%28N%29NDS%20statement%202020-04.pdf

People who vape are more likely to start smoking
This is true, but it's also true that people who smoke are more likely to start vaping. There is a genetic component to nicotine addiction, as there is to other addictive and risky behaviour. Additionally there are many complex sociological and environmental factors which influence the likelihood that a young person will begin smoking, vaping or other risky behaviour.

To take one tiny aspect of this complex picture and use it to try and claim a gateway effect from vaping to smoking is asinine.

At a population level, evidence is mixed, but on balance suggests an inverse relationship between EC use or availability and smoking in young people—in other words, as ECs become more available and their use in young people increases, smoking rates decrease more than would have been expected otherwise. Similarly, as ECs become less available and their use in young people declines, smoking rates are higher than would have been expected otherwise. This evidence is consistent with more young people never starting to smoke to begin with, or quitting smoking, as a result of ECs rather than initiating via a gateway-style relationship, at this point in time.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210378/1/Published.pdf

lung damage that can be life-threatening
I can only assume that this is a reference to EVALI. Here is what Public Health England had to say about that:

Postscript on ‘E-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury' (EVALI) outbreak
The ‘EVALI’ outbreak was discussed in detail in our 2020 and 2021 reports (3, 5). The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that: ‘tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing e-cigarette, or vaping products, particularly from informal sources like friends, family, or in-person or online dealers, are linked to most EVALI cases and play a major role in the outbreak” and “Vitamin E acetate is strongly linked to the EVALI outbreak’, and this was endorsed in a subsequent published paper (53). While the advent of vaping as a novel and less harmful drug delivery device provided the conditions for EVALI, it is now clear that EVALI was not caused by nicotine vaping. Unfortunately, as discussed in chapter 15 (harm perceptions and communications), studies have shown that perceptions of the absolute harm, relative harm of vaping compared to smoking, and perceived addictiveness of vaping all increased after EVALI. This included one study carried out in the UK (54)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/633469fc8fa8f5066d28e1a2/Nicotine-vaping-in-England-2022-report.pdf (page 99)

Inaccurate perceptions of the relative harms of smoking and vaping discourage smokers from switching. Please don't add to the problem by sharing rubbishy articles.

It's much better than a dyed in the wool heavy smoker (my elderly mother) continuing to smoke. It has got her about as far away from cigarettes as we are ever likely to get her.

I think it should only be available as a smoking cessation tool though. Nobody should start it for its own sake.

My grandmother started smoking in her 40's! My mum and my auntie smoked and she decided it looked 'calming' so she started to smoke as well.

If you’re feeling fine with it and it hasn’t taken over your routines, you’re not being wild for carrying on. I got into it a bit myself and ended up trying different devices, and getting them through a vape wholesaler saved me a few quid because I could grab decent stuff in bulk without faffing around. Just keep an eye on how often you reach for it so it doesn’t creep up on you.