OK. You or someone you care about has been diagnosed with COPD. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an affliction that covers a multitude of sins, insofar as it covers a spectrum of lung conditions, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Like the other C word, the prognosis is not good, although it is not an immediate death sentence unlike some particularly aggressive cancers. In reality, a diagnosis of COPD shaves a substantial portion from your life expectancy, as traditional medicine considers it “incurable”. Traditional medical wisdom then switches to the next immediate solution, which is quality of life. I will not argue with this point, however I will dispute the argument that smoking is the only contributor to such a debilitating illness. Being a seriously premature baby, and spending my early adult life inhaling toxic fumes from soldering, I would estimate these factors contributed significantly to my current condition. Most importantly though, being an engineer and someone who is focussed on rationality, logic and objectivity, I want to approach the whole subject holistically. After all, it was cigarettes that got me into this mess, and that question would be, why, on God’s green earth, would someone with a history of poor lung capacity, take up the wicked weed at 17?
If we are ever going to deal with the horrors of tobacco, we need to dig a bit deeper into the soil of society. For me, the attraction was social acceptance, a sharing of communal values that is so critical as a teenager. What that “acceptance” offered was simple. A temporary lid on all the abuse I suffered as a child, emotionally, mentally and physically. Personally, I don’t think I did so bad. The social stigma of being an , and the fact that I have always been considered a “weakling”, testifies to that. I desperately needed a friend. And cigarettes were it.
Unless you are a drug addict, you cannot truly understand the horrors of dependency. It is not just physical, emotional or mental. It is a dictatorship that envelopes your world view, an aura that wraps pretty much every breath and step you take. I have seen too often, the demise of friends due to ...... or other addictive substances . The big difference with tobacco is that window of social acceptability is only now closing. From the point of society though, we will keep on going round in circles until we accept the damage caused by such substances and the reason people engage in such behaviours is to anaesthetise themselves, one way or another.
I’ll be 59 this year. My daily blood oxygen levels are regularly around 89%. I recorded a 77% at one point, although I’ll put that down to error. What I will not put down to error is the fact that vaping has helped me breathe more easily. For COPD sufferers, that will be a great relief.
I will share with you my experiences, and understanding. As to techniques, I can only offer you my personal experience. YMMV, and I am not a doctor. More to follow, but if you are to follow the path of vaping to deal with COPD, I would respectfully suggest looking a bit deeper. Nobody kills themselves without a reason.
If we are ever going to deal with the horrors of tobacco, we need to dig a bit deeper into the soil of society. For me, the attraction was social acceptance, a sharing of communal values that is so critical as a teenager. What that “acceptance” offered was simple. A temporary lid on all the abuse I suffered as a child, emotionally, mentally and physically. Personally, I don’t think I did so bad. The social stigma of being an , and the fact that I have always been considered a “weakling”, testifies to that. I desperately needed a friend. And cigarettes were it.
Unless you are a drug addict, you cannot truly understand the horrors of dependency. It is not just physical, emotional or mental. It is a dictatorship that envelopes your world view, an aura that wraps pretty much every breath and step you take. I have seen too often, the demise of friends due to ...... or other addictive substances . The big difference with tobacco is that window of social acceptability is only now closing. From the point of society though, we will keep on going round in circles until we accept the damage caused by such substances and the reason people engage in such behaviours is to anaesthetise themselves, one way or another.
I’ll be 59 this year. My daily blood oxygen levels are regularly around 89%. I recorded a 77% at one point, although I’ll put that down to error. What I will not put down to error is the fact that vaping has helped me breathe more easily. For COPD sufferers, that will be a great relief.
I will share with you my experiences, and understanding. As to techniques, I can only offer you my personal experience. YMMV, and I am not a doctor. More to follow, but if you are to follow the path of vaping to deal with COPD, I would respectfully suggest looking a bit deeper. Nobody kills themselves without a reason.
