nicotine amount

[paladinx]

can u smoke this stuff like a regular cig? Like 14 puffs, put it down and smoke another one 40 mins later etc. I dont really know if im getting the right nicotine. or not. is there any tips peopel can give?

[Bertrand]

You probably can, but you probably won't.

Others seem to have more luck with the cartridges, but with my old supermini 15 puffs in a row would be out of the question.

[ZambucaLu]

Everyone seems to do it differently. Some smoke it constantly....some put it down then pick it up again when the urge strikes...some smoke it for a while then have an analog, etc. It really all depends on your individual need.

Personally, I still want to smoke too many analogs regardless of how much I vape so I don't think I'm getting enough nic. I'm bumping up to the next higher mg level. I'm hoping I won't crave analogs as much then.

But of course, I don't want to overdose on nic either

Lu

[Keef]

What you need to do is work out how much nicotine you were getting from cigarettes each day.

So How many did you smoke a day and multiply by the nic content on the packet.

Then decide how much vaping you will do 1ml 2 ml etc.

I have gone down fron 18 mg to 14mg liquid and am vaping around 2.5ml juice a day so total nic consumption per day 35mg.

In theory.
The more you want to vape the lower the nic content of the juice or carts should be.

If you want to only vape for a few minutes each hour then higher nicotine may be a better solution.

[tonyph]

I seem to have 3 habits that each requires a slightly different solution.
Has I am sit here like now at the computer vaping can be continuous. It was the same with tobacco, I just chain smoked. So now I am using 18mg juice approx 2 drops to 3 drops of menthol glycerine. Some of the time I am just dripping the zero nicotine menthol flavoured glycerine. On other occasions like last night whilst out for a meal I had to keep the nicotine cravings happy, or when I am just generaly getting on with things, it's 18mg juice, a couple of hefty puffs every 20 mins and we were content. The last one is the pleasure smoke. There were not many a day has a tobacco smoker but they are good. The one with a cup of tea on a morning, after a good meal etc. This is where the combination of flavour and nicotine content gets important. I am finding different methods of doing this; examples are French pipe flavour using a screwdriver and good brandy at the end of the day. That’s right up there with a top cigar and good brandy. This is really an interesting ongoing research and will all depend on personal preferences. But what is suprising is that the e-cigs and juices are doing it.

[Tetsab]

I used exactly the same calculation Keef has suggested - I was 30/day Marlboro at 0.8mg a time. Result - 24mg. After the initial first few days of going a bit mad with my first e-cig trying all the flavours we'd got etc, I'd checked out how much liquid I seemed to use in a day and it came out around 1ml of 18mg juice, and some of that diluted with glycerine and/or a menthol/vodka mixture I'd been playing around with to see what it was like.

I reckon this probably explained why about a week or so after getting my e-cig, at times I just WANTED a 'real' cig. So I had one (stocks to use up) and still doing 3/4 a day. I wasn't getting as much nicotine as I was accustomed to. As I'm a long-standing nic junkie with no real desire to lose my addiction but a strong desire to give up tobacco, decided to get some of the 36mg 'strong stuff' to play around with. A little original nervousness about this (what if I like it too much? Use it too much and actually increase my tolerance level?) seems to have been unfounded.

Still early days for me, a month into it now, but I have decided that having some of the 36mg around isn't a bad thing after all. If I want to vape away without paying too much attention ('till the battery dies!) I'll use the lower strength which we've still got or a diluted mix of the stronger stuff. Cost effective, too.

I will admit that the 'strong stuff' is tempting, and what I've done about that so far is add a drop or two - no more - onto a cartridge I'm topping off with something else when I fancy a bigger nic hit. I would say that practice DOES seem to result in my not wanting to keep sucking away on the e-cig virtually continuously, which I do tend to do quite a lot. I can put it down and forget about it for a bit. For instance, sitting here in front of the pc composing posts (I'm doing waaaay too much of THIS!) I'll be drawing on the e-cig every couple of minutes or so, ditto watching TV. It's in my hand ALL the time.

However, when I go downstairs for our meal a bit later, I'll probably top up my cart and include my couple of drops of 36mg and really savour that 'after you've eaten' puff we all enjoy so much. Then I'll put it down and leave it there for a bit.

Apart from that, I don't find I'm vaping the same way as I was smoking at all. I cannot judge what equates to 'one' cigarette to any degree. It just isn't the same thing. The e-cig can be very variable too - new cart/half empty cart/nearly dry cart, new battery/getting tired battery etc mean I find it pretty much impossible to gauge. So - I'll carry on keeping an eye on how many ml a day I'm using, not to a manic degree though, and hopefully carry on enjoying my splendid new toy!

I hope you enjoy yours too Paladinx, and likewise the forum. I guarantee you won't regret having found it!

[paladinx]

Im not sure the calculations. say I get an 8mg cartridge. Thats 8 mgs of nicotine per cartridge. Then i would have to find out how many puffs that cartridge is right? So lets say a cartridge is half a pack of cigs. So if i smoke 2 cartridges of 8mg. Ill be getting 16mg nicotine. Im about a 30 cig a day smoker of parilament light. So im guessing i am getting about 30 mgs of nicotine from real cigs?

[GabbyD]

I think the per day calculation is the only way to really do it, and even then it won't be perfect.

[Enzo]

I'm going to purchase my first e-cig sometime this week and am concerned about the amount of nicotine I should get. I typically smoke 1 pack of Parliament Ultra Lights per day. Should I get the low nicotine cartridges or medium?

Also do the pros here think that I should buy the starter kit for the 901 or holdout for the new Janty Dura? I was hoping that Janty would give out some info on their new design but not much has been leaked.

Thanks for the advice.

[Tetsab]

Paladinx, (like that handle) I think you may have a problem trying to work this out if you are only using prefilled cartridges. Different e-cig models' cartridges have different capacities, think I've seen figures given elsewhere in the forum as something like: (don't quote me on this, I'm not positive)
1ml for a penstyle cart
0.5ml for a mini cart
0.3ml for a supermini cart
As there is always some liquid left in a cartridge when it is no longer usable and opinions vary as to how much that is, it'll be very difficult to tell how much liquid you have actually used.

I'm using liquid to refill/top up my cartridges (using a small 3.7ml sampler bottle, won't work with a 30ml bottle!) which is how I think I'm getting a rough idea of how much liquid per day I'm using, though Gabby's right - it won't be perfect. Also I find I don't actually vape an e-cig the same way I'd smoke a tobacco cigarette. I take a preliminary puff or two to get it going/warm up the atomiser, then often several longer draws (3 or 4) to get a real 'lungful' of vapour. So counting puffs doesn't exactly work out either.

As for how much nicotine you've been getting with the 'real' cigs, isn't there a nicotine rating on the packet? You haven't said whereabouts you're located (you can change that by editing your profile if you want, can be useful) but I thought it was pretty much global these days. I'm not familiar with Parliament Lights so guessing your not in UK. If you can find a rating on the pack then multiply it by your 30 cigs and there you go - it is a 'per cigarette' measurement. Again, it still isn't going to be perfect - if you leave very long stubs it is probably less. Here in the UK 'Light' usually means 'less nicotine' - some of them are practically fresh air. My full strenth Marlboro 100's are rated at 0.8mg so I'd expect yours to probably be less than that, but I could be wrong.

If you've only recently acquired your e-cig it wouldn't be surprising if you have overdone it to start with anyway - I did, it's a new toy! That was why I left it till I'd got over the first few days before I even tried to work anything out. To be honest, I'm not even all that worried if I am doing a bit more nicotine - still better that than all the tar and other gunk you get from tobacco.

An awful lot of the folk here actively prefer vaping to smoking, I hope you'll stick with it and enjoy it. If you end up tobacco-free or just reduce the number you smoke - I have, a lot - it is still a very worthwhile idea to try out.

PS Enzo - hi, most of the above will apply to you too. You've posted while I was typing this out! I started with a DSE901b, lots of people reckon it is a good starter.