If you're one of the Great Ones of Iron who quit your 10 pack a day 200 year smoking habit cold turkey despite having the entire ICD manual engraved on your medalert bracelet, being older than Eric the vampire, and so poor that you just got evicted from your van down by the river, all props and praise be upon you and your house.
Now click the back button. There's nothing for you here.
Unless you happen to have a cigarette-smokin' loved one who is old, ailing, or both, in which case, please stay.
While I hope to type something that might be useful to you, all I can promise is that it will be sporadic, disjointed, at times repetitive, and not always entirely coherent.
I'll try to keep it from being too boring, but I know when I was 21, I'd be bored to tears already.
Like the sketchy old politician used to say, "Let me make one thing perfectly clear."
Until a few days ago, I'd never even seen an e-cigarette in person.
I'm just getting acquainted with my very first e-cigarette. I'm off to an auspicious start, but I have no information to add to the body of knowledge.
I'm just taking my first steps up that learning curve, on stilts. Those stilts are the shoulders of all the knowledgeable people here.
I can only sit at their feet and mix them into incomprehensible metaphors.
The only thing I have to share has to do with considerations specific to people who are old and/or living with chronic illness.
In the course of discussing my own plans to transition from Marlboro Red to e-cigarettes, myshaman doctor (the Smart one) scared the living daylights out of me stressed the importance of avoiding the slings and arrows of either too little or too much nicotine.
Symptoms and biochemical events that can be annoying and unpleasant for the hale and hearty can be, for the aged and infirm, downright dangerous.
In a perfect world, every cigarette smoker, regardless of age or health, before beginning any process involving nicotine replacement, would be outfitted with a small, tasteful pendant, to be worn 24/7, shower inclusive, during which they would continue to smoke as they always had.
The pendant would monitor and record nicotine levels continuously, and after 90 days or so, this data would be used to measure the details of nicotine dosage for that individual, and calibrate the replacement vehicle to match - no guesswork, no withdrawal, no excess.
Sadly, the world isn't perfect, we are all obliged to map out our own nicotine replacement strategies, with guesswork as our only compass.
If it's gotta be guesswork, we can at least make it educated guesswork.
Read up and inform yourself about the signs and symptoms of both too little nicotine, and too much nicotine, so you'll be able to recognize them, channel your inner Barney Fife and "nip it in the bud."
If possible, note down the nicotine content of your cigarettes. Depending on the brand and version you smoke, where you live, and where your cigarettes were made, this may also be a guesstimate.
For example, in the United States, some cigarettes that are marketed as "light," "ultra-light," or "reduced tar and nicotine" products will have this information prominently displayed right on the package.
E-cigarettes are more consistently informative. Anything with nicotine in it will have a number, like 11 or 18 or 24. The e-cigarette math formula is tobacco times 10.
Example: a cigarette package may say 1.1 mg nicotine, an e-cigarette cartomizer or liquid says 11.
Most people here, who, let me repeat, are the ones who actually know things, suggest starting off experimenting with a variety, including some with zero nicotine.
Analyze your smoking style. If you're like me, sometimes you take a puff or two, hold it in one hand, clickmouse with the other, and your next puff is preceded by the dumping of a very long ash.
Other times, like after meals, conversing, or watching TV, the puff frequency goes up and the ash stays short.
Every day has its own ratio of A to B.
Figuring that out may not tell you a lot of hard data about your nicotine consumption, but it does make you aware that it's a factor.
Will my e-cigarette puffing habits, as they develop, be the same, or different? I don't know, and you don't know about yours.
What we do know is that it means even more guesswork and striving for a balance between maintaining that awareness, but without overthinking.
Now click the back button. There's nothing for you here.
Unless you happen to have a cigarette-smokin' loved one who is old, ailing, or both, in which case, please stay.
While I hope to type something that might be useful to you, all I can promise is that it will be sporadic, disjointed, at times repetitive, and not always entirely coherent.
I'll try to keep it from being too boring, but I know when I was 21, I'd be bored to tears already.
Like the sketchy old politician used to say, "Let me make one thing perfectly clear."
Until a few days ago, I'd never even seen an e-cigarette in person.
I'm just getting acquainted with my very first e-cigarette. I'm off to an auspicious start, but I have no information to add to the body of knowledge.
I'm just taking my first steps up that learning curve, on stilts. Those stilts are the shoulders of all the knowledgeable people here.
I can only sit at their feet and mix them into incomprehensible metaphors.
The only thing I have to share has to do with considerations specific to people who are old and/or living with chronic illness.
In the course of discussing my own plans to transition from Marlboro Red to e-cigarettes, my
Symptoms and biochemical events that can be annoying and unpleasant for the hale and hearty can be, for the aged and infirm, downright dangerous.
In a perfect world, every cigarette smoker, regardless of age or health, before beginning any process involving nicotine replacement, would be outfitted with a small, tasteful pendant, to be worn 24/7, shower inclusive, during which they would continue to smoke as they always had.
The pendant would monitor and record nicotine levels continuously, and after 90 days or so, this data would be used to measure the details of nicotine dosage for that individual, and calibrate the replacement vehicle to match - no guesswork, no withdrawal, no excess.
Sadly, the world isn't perfect, we are all obliged to map out our own nicotine replacement strategies, with guesswork as our only compass.
If it's gotta be guesswork, we can at least make it educated guesswork.
Read up and inform yourself about the signs and symptoms of both too little nicotine, and too much nicotine, so you'll be able to recognize them, channel your inner Barney Fife and "nip it in the bud."
If possible, note down the nicotine content of your cigarettes. Depending on the brand and version you smoke, where you live, and where your cigarettes were made, this may also be a guesstimate.
For example, in the United States, some cigarettes that are marketed as "light," "ultra-light," or "reduced tar and nicotine" products will have this information prominently displayed right on the package.
E-cigarettes are more consistently informative. Anything with nicotine in it will have a number, like 11 or 18 or 24. The e-cigarette math formula is tobacco times 10.
Example: a cigarette package may say 1.1 mg nicotine, an e-cigarette cartomizer or liquid says 11.
Most people here, who, let me repeat, are the ones who actually know things, suggest starting off experimenting with a variety, including some with zero nicotine.
Analyze your smoking style. If you're like me, sometimes you take a puff or two, hold it in one hand, clickmouse with the other, and your next puff is preceded by the dumping of a very long ash.
Other times, like after meals, conversing, or watching TV, the puff frequency goes up and the ash stays short.
Every day has its own ratio of A to B.
Figuring that out may not tell you a lot of hard data about your nicotine consumption, but it does make you aware that it's a factor.
Will my e-cigarette puffing habits, as they develop, be the same, or different? I don't know, and you don't know about yours.
What we do know is that it means even more guesswork and striving for a balance between maintaining that awareness, but without overthinking.
