Being sick with E-cigs

[JakeTheV&pe]

Hi guys I hope all is well.


Been a couple of weeks now since my last post, and unfortunately my recent e cig experience has been far from a good one.
About 2 weeks ago I ended up with a nasty cold which very very quickly went to my chest as an infection. Now usually I would have this cleared up within a few days with some antibiotics and some good old man flue lazing around.

This is not so much the case, I have a massive build-up of liquid on my lungs which the doctors are convinced is a direct result from using ecigs….. I am very skeptiouse to believe a single word they are saying but neither the less that is what they are pointing the finger at.


I can’t even take a single “drag/pull/puff” or whatever you call it on any ecigs at the moment without going into a violent coughing fit, the minute it gets past the mouth I instantly feel it and cant stop coughing. Its driving me flipping mad!, I have tried all the various PG and VG mixes I have and all are doing the same on all different pieces of kit. I can have a few tokes on a stinky without a problem and without any coughing, so I do not know if this is a result of the ‘vapour’ or is down to another issue.


Either way I am not a happy chappy at the moment because I love my ecigs and with two weeks of not being able to use them I am getting rather cranky at the situation. Plus this darn chest thing is still not budging and I am sick of sounding like a 100000 pack a day smoker.
Grrr Rant over!!

 

[79Silo]

Ouch!! i can never imagine if that happen to me.. By the way i'm sorry to hear your situation right now.. I have no problem so far.. Hang in there!!

 

[Yves]

So sorry to hear you are so sick, hope it gets better soon for you. Only thought I had was the flavorings have you tried plain juice?

 

[pfaber11]

i only use flavoured liquid and don't have any problems. maybe you should give that a go . maybe dissolve a few menthol crystals in it for a bit of flavour. that's what i do. best of luck

 

[pfaber11]

sorry i meant to put unfavoured .

 

[shatner]

Theoretically I think this can happen. After all, we are inhaling a vapor. And exhaling it can't get all of the vapor out. Best of luck to you and I hope for a speedy recovery.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but maybe take a break from vaping to see if it goes away.

Godspeed!

 

[Sil80]

Sorry to hear abt your ordeal.

how long have you been on the ecig.....could it be your body has developed an alegric reaction to Pg or vg...ot worst both.....

Either way....dun give in to the temptation of analogues.....if anything go total smoke free....reckon it cant be a better time than to go smoke free. Electronic or otherwise......


Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kopfstimmen]

Also, try not inhaling - just holding it in your mouth, blowing it out through your nose, or both. You can still get nicotine that way...

 

[Salt&PePPer]

Direct result from using eCigs? Now your doctors are pointing their fingers at eCigs however they don't know 100% if they caused your illness. If eCigs were so inclined to making people that sick we would be hearing a lot more of US being sick.

I call Shananigans on the doctors.

 

[zuzette]

in 2008 i saw my regular doctor 4 times for an issue with my lungs. he kept telling me it was a cold then allergies etc. he had been my doctor for 20 years so i trusted his judgment.
but..after 4 months of this i admitted my self to the emergency room. it turns out i had bacterial and vial pneumonia. i was in the hospital for 2 weeks and another 4 at home recovering.
the point is that even trusted professionals make mistakes. if you are not getting better with the ad i e you are getting ...get another opinion.

 

[j4mmin42]

I believe what you meant to say was that you have a massive fluid buildup *in* the lungs (as opposed to "on" them)- This can happen when you get a chest infection, even in non-smokers.

do you have seasonal allergies, or any food allergies? One possibility is that you have an allergy or a sensitivity to e-juice. On the other hand, the vapor from an e-cigarette tends to dry out bodily tissue, which would definitely exacerbate any underlying illnesses- so I would give them a break until you get better, and try them again afterwords. I wouldn't go back to analogs- even a single cigarette per day will lower your immune response and it will take longer to recover.

The sensation of feeling a bit "better" after smoking an analog is kind of fascinating- I know exactly what you mean, as it happens to me as well; If I have a sore throat or a cold, smoking a cigarette actually tends to make me feel better in the short term, and I have no idea why that is...but suffice it to say that the rebound that you get a few hours later will be worse. So again, avoid cigarettes if possible. Avoid taking anything into your lungs except air!

Good luck with everything, hope you feel better soon

 

[ninjuh]

Try sucking on halls refresh cough drops while you vape. They have really good tropical tasting ones that really moisturizes your mouth & throat. Don't get the menthol ones, get the yummy ones in the blue bag, like strawberry splash or something like that. This may or may not help, I use them from time to time when I feel like my throat is getting dried out from vaping.

~Vaping is a lifestyle~

 

[DC2]

Direct result from using eCigs? Now your doctors are pointing their fingers at eCigs however they don't know 100% if they caused your illness. If eCigs were so inclined to making people that sick we would be hearing a lot more of US being sick.

I call Shananigans on the doctors.

And given that vaping has all but eliminated my getting sick, I'm with you...

I have only had one cold since I started vaping three years ago.
But I used to have one or two every year.

And when I would get a cold, the remnants of that cold would last for a week.
The sore throat, then the coughing, then the sneezing, and then the endless nose-blowing and horking up wads of phlegm.

Well, I went well over two years without a single cold or flu after starting vaping, until a few months ago.
I got a cold that felt like it was going to be a bad one, but it only lasted a day and a half and all remnants were gone.

Amazingly quick recovery for me!!

And I still have not had a flu since starting vaping.
So I call shenanigans too.

I'm not saying nobody will ever get sick again once they start vaping.
But I am fairly certain vaping will not get anyone sick, and is much more likely to prevent getting sick.

 

[Salt&PePPer]

in 2008 i saw my regular doctor 4 times for an issue with my lungs. he kept telling me it was a cold then allergies etc. he had been my doctor for 20 years so i trusted his judgment.
but..after 4 months of this i admitted my self to the emergency room. it turns out i had bacterial and vial pneumonia. i was in the hospital for 2 weeks and another 4 at home recovering.
the point is that even trusted professionals make mistakes. if you are not getting better with the ad i e you are getting ...get another opinion.

It's funny how Pneumonia get's diagnosed the way it does; and it usually comes with lesser-evil diagnosis. In the past several years three friends of mine, and including my father back in 2008, had issues that eventually turned-out to be Pneumonia. And every single time they were sent home with a different diagnosis - taking almost to over a month to get the Right Diagnosis. Everybody eventually when to an Urgent Care or an ER to be told they had Pneumonia.

 

[StormFinch]

As someone else mentioned, take and hold the vapor into your mouth only, then blow it out through your nose. We absorb a lot of the nicotine in the vapor through our mucus membranes, whereas smoke particles are larger and have to be absorbed through the lungs. Try using 100% PG, with a light flavoring of menthol crystals if you must have some flavor. PG is used as the base for breathing treatments for lung transplant patients, so you should do alright with it. Also, make sure you are drinking as much non caffeinated liquids as you possibly can right now, preferably water. Since pg is drying, I'm not sure what effect it would have on a large buildup of fluid in the lungs. It might help clear it out, or it might thicken it, so you'll want to make sure it stays as thin as possible by being well hydrated.

As for why cigarette smoke is better tolerated than vapor, smoke paralyzes the cilia in the lungs and deadens nerves in the throat, short circuiting the normal 'housecleaning' that your body does. That's part of the reason smokers tend to get sick more easily, because the lungs no longer flush out the bacteria we normally inhale, and coughing is deadened until the cilia are completely gone, which is when smoker's cough tends to develop.

Get well soon, and yeah, I think the doctors are full of it too. We have members here with COPD. If anyone was going to develop pneumonia from vaping they probably would, but all I've ever seen were reports of improving symptoms.

 

[klynnn]

Within 10 days of starting ecigs I was flat on my back sick as a dog with a terrible flu. I still vaped when I could. It cleared up and have not had any type of cold since last year. I smoked for a very long time and I truly believe my lungs were clearing toxins.

 

[oxygen thief]

If the docs hadn't know that you did ecigs, I wonder if they would have said, hey, this looks like the ecig virus. They were hitting the easiest mark. Sometimes people get sick all on their own. I wouldn't let them off the hook for that one.

 

[Bookworm]

I have been vaping for a little over three months. I recently came down with a horrible chest and head cold that turned into a sinus infection. It is now finally starting to clear up after about ten days. When I was a smoker, these type of illnesses always turned into bronchitis. Not this time. Also when I was a smoker, no matter how sick I got, I would sneak several cigs per day. When the worst of it came this time, I was able to lay off the ego for days. So there is no doubt for me that switching has affected my illness in a positive way.

As for vaping making you sick or making you worse, I doubt it, but I'm not a doctor. Sometimes we just get sick. My gf, who doesn't smoke or vape, had the same illness, and hers turned into pneumonia. Doesn't make sense to me, but it happens. I hope you feel much better soon!

 

[vsummer1]

As others have said, that can happen to anybody. If vaping causes it, there would be a LOT more of us with it as so many people do it now. This site has, what, 100,000 people on it or so? I think it is safe to say your condition has not been reported by vapers. We would KNOW!

Your doctor is ill informed and needs to do some research.

 

[j4mmin42]

If the docs hadn't know that you did ecigs, I wonder if they would have said, hey, this looks like the ecig virus. They were hitting the easiest mark. Sometimes people get sick all on their own. I wouldn't let them off the hook for that one.

Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation has a better chance of being right than it does wrong.

Technically, the docs weren't in the wrong by thinking what they did- I think they just weren't being thorough enough, is all.