anyone else have shortness of breath?

[SimpleSins]

Don't know if Warbdan is still reading this, but it's funny he mentioned caramel. I was feeling considerably better after I quit smoking. I had been using one juice the whole time as it was the only one that I both liked the taste of (as much as I could taste anything) and the 'texture'. If i recall correctly, their web site lists it as a 66/33 pg/vg blend. A couple weeks after I had quit, I was feeling good and my taste buds were coming back, and I found a caramel cinnamon roll that I liked the taste of, I think a 50/50 blend. I have for the last couple of weeks now been feeling as bad as I was before I started vaping. I'm even starting to make a little bit of noise at night again (nothing compared to previous yet), but the shortness of breath is back in force.

I had vaped for six weeks with progressive improvement on the 66/33 blend, so I don't really see that a pg or vg sensitivity has much to do with it, but now I wonder if it's something in the caramel, or this particular brand of caramel. I had attributed it to just not being one of the lucky ones to maintain improvement, but maybe there's something in this particularly flavoring that is pushing a trigger. I'll have to set it aside for a couple of weeks and see if there's any improvement with not vaping anything caramel or anything made with that particular brand of flavoring.

 

[StarsAndBars]

This will probably sound odd but I have wondered. Steam causes mold. Vapor is steam. Does any one think it is possible we are growing mold in our lungs? I know our lungs are moist to begin with but I have wondered if that is possible. Now............stop laughing.

I can't stop laughing. Oh yeh, be sure not to eat watermelon seeds.

 

[StarsAndBars]

I got my test results, wasnt tested for one of the thyroid ones I needed tho. For 2 years my free Thyroxin was .91 and normal is .58-1.64 sensitive tsh .92, normal .34-5.60. That 2nd one has been way low for 2 years but nobody says anything. If they hadn't taken over 2 weeks to get the orders to me I suspect 2 other levels were low since they were just at the lowest number for "normal", total protein and bilirubin. Maybe low is good?

Still feeling like I am in another realm, I am so spaced out and unless I eat nothing at all I gain weight. One thing which helped a tiny bit was taking Claritin. Maybe I am allergic to something I vape. I need a CBC, I wrongly assumed I was getting that done. Otherwise on paper I appear to be OK and I know its not depression or anxiety, this is physical. It happened so fast too, right when I quit analogs. But that was months ago, youd think by now my body woulda adapted. I give up. All I can do is try an analog, other people have and feel normal immediately.

I want to thank those of you who wished me well and were supportive of me. I wish I had some concrete answers but its still a mystery. The timing of this fatigue, weight gain and head spaciness coincides with stopping analogs, thats all I know for sure.

How is your cardio routine? Be amazed at what a solid exercise regime will do for your body.

 

[Bovinia]

Don't know if Warbdan is still reading this, but it's funny he mentioned caramel. I was feeling considerably better after I quit smoking. I had been using one juice the whole time as it was the only one that I both liked the taste of (as much as I could taste anything) and the 'texture'. If i recall correctly, their web site lists it as a 66/33 pg/vg blend. A couple weeks after I had quit, I was feeling good and my taste buds were coming back, and I found a caramel cinnamon roll that I liked the taste of, I think a 50/50 blend. I have for the last couple of weeks now been feeling as bad as I was before I started vaping. I'm even starting to make a little bit of noise at night again (nothing compared to previous yet), but the shortness of breath is back in force.

I had vaped for six weeks with progressive improvement on the 66/33 blend, so I don't really see that a pg or vg sensitivity has much to do with it, but now I wonder if it's something in the caramel, or this particular brand of caramel. I had attributed it to just not being one of the lucky ones to maintain improvement, but maybe there's something in this particularly flavoring that is pushing a trigger. I'll have to set it aside for a couple of weeks and see if there's any improvement with not vaping anything caramel or anything made with that particular brand of flavoring.

Sins, let's compare our vendor info as I just developed in the last few days what you are experiencing. I figured instead of derailing the other thread we were talking on maybe we should continue here

 

[SimpleSins]

I got my caramel cinnamon roll from a vendor whose web site says they use Flavour Art. I don't know if that's what it was or not. All I know is that was the only thing different. There are only two flavors in use here as I either couldn't taste or didn't like 90% of what I bought. Since I had been improving regularly on my original vape until I added the caramel cinnamon bun, I can only think that there was something about it that bothered me, whether one of the flavors themselves or maybe a mystery ingredient.

 

[thewomenfolk]

I also think maybe PG and VG have nothing to do with shortness of breath. But I'm beginning to suspect flavors. The hardest on me are the Atomic Cyanide (threw out almost 3 oz of it), the Menthol, and Cinnamon. I've heard that Vanilla can be hard on you so I avoid that. Anybody else seem to have problems with flavors causeing SOB?

 

[SimpleSins]

I also think maybe PG and VG have nothing to do with shortness of breath. But I'm beginning to suspect flavors. The hardest on me are the Atomic Cyanide (threw out almost 3 oz of it), the Menthol, and Cinnamon. I've heard that Vanilla can be hard on you so I avoid that. Anybody else seem to have problems with flavors causeing SOB?

I suspect the same. Although sadly the flavor that I suspect did me in contains cinnamon, caramel, and I suspect vanilla. I'm going to eliminate the cinnamon first and cross my fingers. If I lose the cinnamon, vanilla, and the caramel, there's not a lot left for me to vape in my flavor desires except for the tobacco flavor I use.

 

[BoomBoom65]

I do, after three months of vaping. On cigs I never had this problem in the 12 years I smoked. Vaping 3 months and now I am having trouble breathing. The first few months were fine, symptoms just started last week. I am getting a lung function test done next week.
Anyone else have this issue??

First I will admit that I have not read all the posts in this thread but I do want to post what I think is an issue that may not have been addressed but was explained to me by my doctor.

A week ago today, after haven been a non cigarette exclusive vaper since end of July - not one cigarette for well over a month, I had what only can be described as an asthma attack at work. A diesel truck was running outside my window, someone had just sprayed the office with Lysol and someone was recently smoking by the door. I began wheezing, seriously short of breath and went into a major anxiety attack.

I never had something like that happen to me before. I never had a smoker's cough, lung issues or breathing problems the whole time I smoked since I was 18 - now 44.
Yes I absolutely got short of breath running around or climbing a big flight of stairs - no question.

Later that night I was filling a cart with a new juice to me - thin mint chocolate cookie and decided to take a big wiff of the juice before I loaded the cart. Same reaction as earlier that day - VERY short of breath. I took a Xanax before I went into a full blown panic attack and call me friend a nurse. She talked me "down" explaining I was reacting to these smells/scent/irratants and found it hard to believe it was the vaping itself which both my husband and son thought.

Went to the doc the next morning and this is what she explained to me.

She has seen this happen many times with people who have recently quit smoking!!!
As your lungs recover from all the crap of cigarettes they will react to all sorts of things that never irritated them before since the cillia(?) were virtually numbed and deadened by the cigarettes.

Sort of a damed if you do situation. She was fine with me vaping as long as I was aware that I was still getting tons of nicotine - which I knew I was. She has several patients who are vapers. Her MIL quit smoking all together by vaping.

Now there is no way I can grab Xanax should this happen again. A benzo addiction I do not need.

She prescribed a rescue inhaler and highly suggested I try to avoid strong smells as much as possible especially known irritants like car and truck exhaust.

I work in a garage. Go figure.

So that is what I am doing. Avoiding smells and carrying this inhaler. It has not happened again, I have put the thin mint to the side and no one smokes near me what so ever.

On a side note I have always had a "good smeller" to the point of driving my family crazy. Especially my son who is now 24 but was a usual teenager if you get my meaning.

Nice huh? Stop smoking and get short of breath. Better that than keep smoking IMO.

She said in her experience it passes as your new lungs get used to many of these smells but if it doesn't I may need to see an allergy/asthma doc and get tested for actual asthma.

All my juices are as VG as possible.

Mint was the first heavily scented juice I tried and I am going to avoid juices like that from now on. Sticking to the mellow full bodied juices such as the tobaccos, malts, chocolate, coffees and such. Nothing perfumey just in case.

I do have a couple I have not tried but can tell from the scent of the bottle they are heavy on the scent to I will hand them over in the pay it forward forum.

 

[Bovinia]

BoomBoom thank you for your post. What your Dr. had to say makes perfect sense to me. We have abused our lungs and sinuses for a very long time as smokers and as they start recovering every *smell* is new. My tightness didn't get as bad as your attack but the panic attacks I can certainly relate to. (I was dx'd years ago with anxiety/panic disorder)

I discovered what was causing my problem, at least I hope! I was vaping a nic lvl that was too much for me as a chain vaper. Add to that the fact that hubby and I just moved to CT from FL in April and I am discovering new seasonal allergies in my new environment.

I have a good schnozz too LOL. Even as a 3pad smoker for 37 years I wanted to shoot people who bathe in their cologne. You know the ones...mostly women but some men that you can smell a mile away. And now I can't stay in the room if it's sprayed with Lysol, etc. until it dissipates. I will learn to adjust

 

[SimpleSins]

My SOB doesn't come on as a result of a scent or fumes. It's the same problem that drove me to quit smoking- the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and recover before moving on to something else. I think we have two different types of symptoms- the sudden shortness of breath which can be triggered by fumes and the chronic type of shortness of breath brought on by activity. Fortunately, unless you count fertilizer as a fume, I can avoid the former but there is really no way of entirely avoiding the latter.

 

[Bovinia]

My SOB doesn't come on as a result of a scent or fumes. It's the same problem that drove me to quit smoking- the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and recover before moving on to something else. I think we have two different types of symptoms- the sudden shortness of breath which can be triggered by fumes and the chronic type of shortness of breath brought on by activity. Fortunately, unless you count fertilizer as a fume, I can avoid the former but there is really no way of entirely avoiding the latter.

Sins how is it going for you as you eliminate certain flavors? Have you noticed any difference yet?

 

[SimpleSins]

Sins how is it going for you as you eliminate certain flavors? Have you noticed any difference yet?

Not yet, but it's only been a couple of days. I'm hoping a week of cinnamon freedom will get me back on track and off the multiple inhalers again. If that doesn't do it, I haven't decided what I should try to eliminate next. I can't imagine that PG would suddenly bother me after a month of use unless there is some kind of cumulative effect; ditto with VG since they were both present in my original 'safe-to-me' juice. Another of life's many mysteries!

 

[BoomBoom65]

My SOB doesn't come on as a result of a scent or fumes. It's the same problem that drove me to quit smoking- the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and recover before moving on to something else. I think we have two different types of symptoms- the sudden shortness of breath which can be triggered by fumes and the chronic type of shortness of breath brought on by activity. Fortunately, unless you count fertilizer as a fume, I can avoid the former but there is really no way of entirely avoiding the latter.

Oh definitely got short of breath running around with my dogs or doing a flight of stairs. And I attribute that to years of smoking and being chubby and out of shape.

But this was more than that . It was WHAM! gasp gasp gasp.

I still get a bit winded doing a bunch of stairs but nothing at all like when I was smoking.

I walked around a shopping village last weekend with my husband for almost 2 hours. My legs were screaming after a while because of the hills but I was not huffing and puffing.

I was vaping though. Got several odd looks.

 

[Pheisty]

So I've been doing some research online, and it seems that SOB is most definitely a symptom of quitting smoking...not that this is the cause for everyone experiencing this, but it seems likes it's a pretty common thing. Gunk is loosening up...cilia are regrowing...lungs are overwhelmed with TOO much gunk and get a little congested... I supposed breathing anything into them that's even a mild irritant (vaping?) could certainly cause worse symptoms.

I've determined that this is mostly likely the cause of my SOB. How do I know? Because I was hacking up light colored tar for two weeks (I quit smoking a month ago), and then last week, I abruptly stopped hacking stuff up. Felt majorly short of breath all weekend, and then this morning, hacked up a small, really DARK brown chunk of tar...much darker than the previous stuff. I also haven't been drinking as much water as I should, and have been vaping like a fiend since I got my eGo last Wednesday.

So here's what I'm going to do for the next few of days, and then I'll report back:

1) Stop chainvaping (Backwoods Brew makes this nearly impossible), but still use my e-cig frequently throughout the day and evening.
2) Drink tons of water
3) Rub peppermint oil on my chest before bed, and inhale it deeply before falling asleep. (PO is a natural expectorant...may even put a drop in my water or a teeny bit in my e-liquid)

I'll do this for a week and let you guys know how I'm feeling.

 

[bpaulette]

I think you've got a good plan. Especially number 1 and 2.

I've also experienced 1) occasional heavy/stiff feeling in the chest, and 2) occasional shortness of breath. (neither of these symptoms were persistent, but at one point were frequent enough to become alarming, and directly correlated to how much I vaped)

After experimenting a lot, I feel like I've solved it, at least for me. Granted, SOB is a common symptom of quitting smoking, but I couldn't ignore the fact that it ONLY happened to me after vaping a lot - and would go away when I cut back or stopped. I'm fairly convinced that, in my case, most of it had to do with a combination of dehydration by PG (and to a much lesser extent, VG), and residue left over by the VG.

In a nutshell, my theory: too much residue and not enough moisture to allow it to move = stiff chest and SOB

Most vendors sell juice that is a mixture of PG and VG. PG dries me out EXTREMELY fast, and with juices high in PG, even when I'm making a concerted effort to drink water, I have a very hard time drinking enough to keep up with the drying effects. VG is much more soothing, and does not dry me out nearly as much as PG. That said, VG tends to leave more of an oily coating on my mouth and throat, and I have to assume it does the same to the lungs. And if that oily residue is sitting on a very dry lung, I believe that's when the SOB occurs. Even with some all-VG juices, if I don't drink any water at all, and just down coffee all day (or beer in the evening), I can end up with both symptoms (not nearly as extreme as when I was vaping PG, but still present). However, when on VG-only, I've found that I can almost instantly remedy both by drinking a lot of water - a few huge glasses of H20, and within 30 to 45 minutes, I realize I'm not feeling stiff and after forcing a good cough or two, I don't notice any shortness of breath. If I've been vaping on high PG juice all day, its MUCH harder to shake the symptoms, so I've switched over to VG only. And since making the switch, I've had much less of a problem with any of it.

I realize that by vaping only VG, I'm probably depositing a bit more moist residue in my lungs, than I would if I were vaping all-PG juice... but honestly, as a 20-year smoker, I imagine I've already got a very thick coating of pretty black tar and other analog residue which could lead to the same symptoms if the lungs get sufficiently dry. And the dryness seems to be the biggest problem. Lungs dry out, nothing can move, things start to get bad.

Drink water! If you love your PG, drink a $#!%-ton of it. Thats just my humble $0.02

 

[evnan111]

FOUR BATTERIES as in those 180 mah's or what. Get a 650mah battery. And you MIGHT try some nicotine in the beginning instead of 0mg...Since you were on analogs.. Slow down, stop vaping so much.

Hi. i'm a new member as of today, but I have been reading this forum for 3 days now, the day I started to vape! I too have already replaced all my wool / poly filled carts with teabags.

But I have been vaping very heavily the past 3 days. I go through about 4 batteries a day. I have also been mixing my own juice as I ordered my starter kit with only one 35mL bottle of Marlboro flavoured 0nic. I don't like the taste so I've been vaping on the coffee flavoured carts prefilled. I've gone through all my coffee carts (10) + 5 Cola prefilled carts. So today, I started mixing my own juice from ingredients I bought from the shopping mall. - Glycerine and almond essence (found in the cake and icing section). I use distilled water or vodka to dilute the thick Glycerine.
I mix 50/50 + 1 drop of flavour and using tea bags in the cart, it produces lots of smoke with a nutty flavour. (2mL+2mL)+1drop flavour.

I woke up this morning with a clogged up throat (I think reading from the above posts that I need to drink plenty of water and gargle with listerine). My lungs feel heavy and it is a little harder to breath. I think I vape too much ? I've smoked for 10 years, first year was 1pack a week, which easily turned to 1 pack a day for 9 years. I stopped smoking for about 10 months due to physical exams I had to pass in my career, and only started to smoke analogs whilst celebrating last new years.. then I found out about vaping..

Not sure if I use too much Glycerine and my lungs are filled with sugar that is causing slight diffculties in breathing.. or i'm alergic to something.. or vaping ingredients found in cakes bad for me.. but i'm sure the sore throat is because I don't drink enough water.. come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I had a glass of water.. I've been drinking coke.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

-I want a trap that throws bears at people. I'll call it a bear trap. I know it sounds misleading, but it sounds cool and I want to see the look on the person's face when they set it off..

 

[warbdan]

I've found that coated and/or stiff lungs and losing my breath when falling asleep are in direct correlation to the amount of flavoring in my liquid. PG/VG doesn't cause me any problems, it's the flavors. I cut my juice back to 10-12% flavoring concentration instead of my usual 20% and I've been doing A LOT better.

 

[VicTweezy]

1) Stop chainvaping (Backwoods Brew makes this nearly impossible), but still use my e-cig frequently throughout the day and evening.
2) Drink tons of water
3) Rub peppermint oil on my chest before bed, and inhale it deeply before falling asleep. (PO is a natural expectorant...may even put a drop in my water or a teeny bit in my e-liquid)

I'll do this for a week and let you guys know how I'm feeling.

So, today after vaping for about 3 months with a pack of the "O'l Stinkies" every now and then, sitting here on the computer, I feel a bit of a heavy lung syndrome. After a quick search I feel a kind of bad that it's not just me. I was thinking it might have been something I was breathing at work (sanding Aircraft panels kicks up all kinds of nasty). Not completely ruling that out, but I'm going to drink about 4 glasses of water, and whip out the old peppermint I use in one of my holistic mixes for cleansing, and... ummm... should I say it... a mix for Yeast Infections(cringe). I'll rub some of that on the chest and see what happens.

But on a side note, my run times are up (or down w/e, score up, time down) for both 1.5 mile, and 3 mile, so something right is happening.

I'll report back in the morning, or after work depending on what time I get up.

 

[VicTweezy]

I think I figured out my SOB. I spent most of the day hydrating, and it worked wonders. Didn't change my Vaping at all. I tried the peppermint oil last night on the chest and woke up with a touch of heavy lung still.

For me it's easy to forget to drink lots of water when it gets starts getting cooler outside. It doesn't help that I can't have drinking in the hanger, so I have to take "water breaks", just like vape breaks. Didn't see a Doc or anything, and wouldn't buy into his western medi-sin (kills you before it Kills you) anyways. So I think as most things are it was a simple solution for me.

 

[aron291980]

ive been vaping for 2 months now and noticed that I have been short of breath with a tightness in my chest, I never smoked cigs i chewed copenhagen for 15 years, thought this was a safer alternative but this shortness of breath thing gots me worried, I love vaping but if it means not b n able to breath Im going to have to quit this and give the nic gum a go......................we are all kind of like guinee pigs on this e cig thing...................I thought my weight lifting supplements were bad