I will start with 2 things right off the bat, first I want to state that I am not a doctor, have not played one on TV and have not slept in a Holiday Inn since I was about 12. Secondly, I apologize up front for what will probably be a long and rambling post.
Now some background. I began vaping just over 7 years ago in a last ditch attempt to quit an almost 30 year smoking habit. I was a pretty heavy smoker who had tried almost anything and everything to quit. It wasn't that I didn't like smoking, I actually loved smoking. I, however, hated the coughing/hacking, the effect on my family as well as the expense.
My wife and doctor told me that I was "self medicating", and truth be told they were 100% correct and I just didn't realize it at the time. More on that shortly.
After I began vaping and realized that I could quit cigarettes and actually enjoy life, my goal was to reduce my nicotine intake and eventually quit altogether. It was 36 mg/ml juice, with the occasional 42 mg/ml that actually allowed me to leave cigarettes behind. Each time I would get to the point that I could go to bed without clutching my ecig like a baby with a pacifier I would slowly drop my nic level until I got down to 6 mg/ml.
Using 6 I didn't get the TH or enjoy vaping as much which I figured would pass with time as I got accustomed to the lower level. One day soon afterward my wife asked me if I had changed something and I told her I had dropped my nic level again. She said I wasn't much fun to be around and might want to bump it up a little. So I did. I gradually increased up to and settled out at 15 where I stayed for several years until recently.
This is where the story actually begins. There are several health issues that run in my family, the 2 that I am addressing generally are depression/anxiety and essential tremors.
My self medicating, I discovered, was for the depression/anxiety, and I had unknowingly been doing that for years. I began at that point in earnest to research nicotines use in medical research for various conditions.
Essential tremors, aka Familial Shaking Syndrome, runs heavily in my family. My mom suffers the most from it as well as my 2 sisters with the youngest sister being more advanced than the other. Essential Tremors are loosely associated with Parkinson's disease although non life threatening.
Some general info:
Essential tremor - Symptoms and causes
Essential tremor - Wikipedia
My tremors have recently began to be more pronounced. Anyone here who has met me IRL has probably noticed it. It's not generally bad and for someone who is unfamiliar it would probably seem as if I were nervous. It has always affected my hands and I have recently noticed that it is occasionally occurring in my neck causing a slight tremor in my head.
My mom has seen numerous doctors and tried countless medications, most of which have side effects which make the tremors seem mild in comparison.
While researching nicotines medicinal uses I came across an article in which it was being tested as therapy for Parkinson's disease. (Link broken due to references to other things we don't discuss here)
http ://discovermagazine.com/2014/ march/13-nicotine-fix
From the article:
"If dozens of human and animal studies published over the past six years are borne out by large clinical trials, nicotine — freed at last of its noxious host, tobacco, and delivered instead by chewing gum or transdermal patch — may prove to be a weirdly, improbably effective drug for relieving or preventing a variety of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Tourette’s and schizophrenia. It might even improve attention and focus enough to qualify as a cognitive enhancer. And, oh yeah, it’s long been associated with weight loss, with few known safety risks. (Although, in truth, few safety studies of the increasingly popular e-cigarettes have yet been published.)
Nicotine? Yes, nicotine."
10 Surprising Benefits of Nicotine
From this one:
"1) Nicotine and Parkinson’s Disease
Way back in 1966, Harold Khan, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health, began looking at health-insurance data on 293,653 veterans who had served in the U.S military between 1917 and 1940.
Unsurprisingly, he found there was a higher mortality rate for smokers, who were prone to numerous illnesses such as lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease etc.
What was surprising, however, was that non-smokers were three times as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than smokers.
Initially, Khan’s results were thought to be an anomaly due to smokers dying young from other smoking related illnesses before they reached the age at which Parkinson’s typically begins to develop.
But follow up studies, such as Kessler and Diamonds (1970)investigation of Baltimore residents with Parkinson’s disease, confirmed that Khan’s conclusion was true.
It soon became apparent to neuroscientists that it was the nicotine molecule that was responsible for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease. This molecule could regulate other receptor systems in the brain, primarily the dopamine neurotransmitter.
Dopamine plays a number of roles in the human brain – it regulates attention, reward-seeking behaviours such as gambling, drug addiction, and most importantly (in the case of Parkinson’s disease) movement.
Based on these emerging findings, Maryka Quik used nicotine to treat monkey’s with Parkinson’s and the results were remarkable.
After eight weeks, the monkeys had half as many tremors and tics. Additionally, the monkeys who were also being treated with the standard drug for Parkinson’s, L-dopa, had reduced dyskinesias (the side effect from the drug) by as much as 35%.
Since then, many studies have come to the conclusion that nicotine has the potential to protect against ongoing degeneration by slowing down or halting the neuronal damage that stems from Parkinson’s disease.
Further studies on the effect of nicotine in those with Parkinson’s disease should give us more understanding of how it actually works in the future."
TLDR:
Let me preface this by saying my testing is about as far from scientific as one can get. There are numerous factors which play into the ETs including caffeine intake, of which mine is off the charts, as well as sleep deprivation. I average probably 5 hrs sleep per night hence the high caffeine intake. Stress also plays a big role which with my job is unavoidable which leads to lack of sleep which leads to caffeine and so on.
So, I have recently began buying and/or mixing my juice at 24 mg/ml to see if there is any effect on my tremors. There has seemed to be a slight improvement. I can not say with any degree of certainty if the improvement is actually there, if it's all in my head or if it is indeed there but unrelated to the nicotine strength.
I wanted to start this thread to see if anyone else is dealing with the same issues and/or has any input.
DISCLAIMER: Like I stated, this is unscientific and I am not recommending that anyone try self medicating for any condition. This has only come after years of dealing with doctors by myself and my family with little to no benefit.
Anyone who got through this whole thing, my hats off to you!
Now some background. I began vaping just over 7 years ago in a last ditch attempt to quit an almost 30 year smoking habit. I was a pretty heavy smoker who had tried almost anything and everything to quit. It wasn't that I didn't like smoking, I actually loved smoking. I, however, hated the coughing/hacking, the effect on my family as well as the expense.
My wife and doctor told me that I was "self medicating", and truth be told they were 100% correct and I just didn't realize it at the time. More on that shortly.
After I began vaping and realized that I could quit cigarettes and actually enjoy life, my goal was to reduce my nicotine intake and eventually quit altogether. It was 36 mg/ml juice, with the occasional 42 mg/ml that actually allowed me to leave cigarettes behind. Each time I would get to the point that I could go to bed without clutching my ecig like a baby with a pacifier I would slowly drop my nic level until I got down to 6 mg/ml.
Using 6 I didn't get the TH or enjoy vaping as much which I figured would pass with time as I got accustomed to the lower level. One day soon afterward my wife asked me if I had changed something and I told her I had dropped my nic level again. She said I wasn't much fun to be around and might want to bump it up a little. So I did. I gradually increased up to and settled out at 15 where I stayed for several years until recently.
This is where the story actually begins. There are several health issues that run in my family, the 2 that I am addressing generally are depression/anxiety and essential tremors.
My self medicating, I discovered, was for the depression/anxiety, and I had unknowingly been doing that for years. I began at that point in earnest to research nicotines use in medical research for various conditions.
Essential tremors, aka Familial Shaking Syndrome, runs heavily in my family. My mom suffers the most from it as well as my 2 sisters with the youngest sister being more advanced than the other. Essential Tremors are loosely associated with Parkinson's disease although non life threatening.
Some general info:
Essential tremor - Symptoms and causes
Essential tremor - Wikipedia
My tremors have recently began to be more pronounced. Anyone here who has met me IRL has probably noticed it. It's not generally bad and for someone who is unfamiliar it would probably seem as if I were nervous. It has always affected my hands and I have recently noticed that it is occasionally occurring in my neck causing a slight tremor in my head.
My mom has seen numerous doctors and tried countless medications, most of which have side effects which make the tremors seem mild in comparison.
While researching nicotines medicinal uses I came across an article in which it was being tested as therapy for Parkinson's disease. (Link broken due to references to other things we don't discuss here)
http ://discovermagazine.com/2014/ march/13-nicotine-fix
From the article:
"If dozens of human and animal studies published over the past six years are borne out by large clinical trials, nicotine — freed at last of its noxious host, tobacco, and delivered instead by chewing gum or transdermal patch — may prove to be a weirdly, improbably effective drug for relieving or preventing a variety of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Tourette’s and schizophrenia. It might even improve attention and focus enough to qualify as a cognitive enhancer. And, oh yeah, it’s long been associated with weight loss, with few known safety risks. (Although, in truth, few safety studies of the increasingly popular e-cigarettes have yet been published.)
Nicotine? Yes, nicotine."
10 Surprising Benefits of Nicotine
From this one:
"1) Nicotine and Parkinson’s Disease
Way back in 1966, Harold Khan, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health, began looking at health-insurance data on 293,653 veterans who had served in the U.S military between 1917 and 1940.
Unsurprisingly, he found there was a higher mortality rate for smokers, who were prone to numerous illnesses such as lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease etc.
What was surprising, however, was that non-smokers were three times as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than smokers.
Initially, Khan’s results were thought to be an anomaly due to smokers dying young from other smoking related illnesses before they reached the age at which Parkinson’s typically begins to develop.
But follow up studies, such as Kessler and Diamonds (1970)investigation of Baltimore residents with Parkinson’s disease, confirmed that Khan’s conclusion was true.
It soon became apparent to neuroscientists that it was the nicotine molecule that was responsible for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease. This molecule could regulate other receptor systems in the brain, primarily the dopamine neurotransmitter.
Dopamine plays a number of roles in the human brain – it regulates attention, reward-seeking behaviours such as gambling, drug addiction, and most importantly (in the case of Parkinson’s disease) movement.
Based on these emerging findings, Maryka Quik used nicotine to treat monkey’s with Parkinson’s and the results were remarkable.
After eight weeks, the monkeys had half as many tremors and tics. Additionally, the monkeys who were also being treated with the standard drug for Parkinson’s, L-dopa, had reduced dyskinesias (the side effect from the drug) by as much as 35%.
Since then, many studies have come to the conclusion that nicotine has the potential to protect against ongoing degeneration by slowing down or halting the neuronal damage that stems from Parkinson’s disease.
Further studies on the effect of nicotine in those with Parkinson’s disease should give us more understanding of how it actually works in the future."
TLDR:
Let me preface this by saying my testing is about as far from scientific as one can get. There are numerous factors which play into the ETs including caffeine intake, of which mine is off the charts, as well as sleep deprivation. I average probably 5 hrs sleep per night hence the high caffeine intake. Stress also plays a big role which with my job is unavoidable which leads to lack of sleep which leads to caffeine and so on.
So, I have recently began buying and/or mixing my juice at 24 mg/ml to see if there is any effect on my tremors. There has seemed to be a slight improvement. I can not say with any degree of certainty if the improvement is actually there, if it's all in my head or if it is indeed there but unrelated to the nicotine strength.
I wanted to start this thread to see if anyone else is dealing with the same issues and/or has any input.
DISCLAIMER: Like I stated, this is unscientific and I am not recommending that anyone try self medicating for any condition. This has only come after years of dealing with doctors by myself and my family with little to no benefit.
Anyone who got through this whole thing, my hats off to you!
So maybe he knew... I did get lots of advice to start super low dose, but that didn't seem to help much. 
