Section 8: Assorted notes
1. Medical reports of illness
The lack of official medical reports of illness linked to e-cigarettes is extraordinary. After global use by millions of people for many years, there is not one single confirmed report of mortality linked positively to e-cigarette use; morbidities are minimal and not recognised as serious. Prof Rodu examined the 47 serious adverse event reports received by the FDA for e-cigarettes (compared with >10,000 for Chantix over the almost identical period following their near-simultaneous introduction), and reported on the extraordinarily low number of credible adverse events. Even common medications such as aspirin could not achieve this record. It indicates that e-cigarettes are best thought of as a food product like coffee, since no medication can replicate this accomplishment.
Note: there are rare cases of issues with long-term abuse of NRTs but such cases are so uncommon they are not considered clinically significant (they are not even identifiable statistically); and ecigs do not even have this level of issue.
Be very careful indeed in ascribing this to a lack of monitoring of some form: e-cigarettes are far more closely and carefully observed than any pharmaceutical.
2. Tendency to assign all new symptoms to e-cigarette use
There is a strong compulsion in many people to assume that all/any new medical symptoms must be related to their new electronic cigarette usage. In 99% of cases these are found to be normal symptoms of tobacco withdrawal which they were unaware of - such symptoms are very wide-ranging and can occur for up to six months. In some cases, a full check-up reveals there is an unrelated medical issue. Finally, some symptoms are due to intolerance to a particular brand of e-liquid or type of ingredient.
3. Minor specific e-liquid issues
In some cases, people are intolerant to ingredients in a range of liquids from one vendor. The answer is to try some from other vendors.
It should be carefully noted that it is extremely unlikely that all materials offered by all vendors can be consumed by all users with no adverse consequences - somebody, somewhere, will be intolerant to one or more ingredients. One answer would be to try to exclude e-cigarettes or identify the e-liquid or the ingredient causing the problem, by doing the following, in order:
1. Reduce the strength of nicotine, since some symptoms may be nicotine OD.
2. Stop using flavorings that are known to have implications. Cinnamon, vanilla/vanillin, capsaicin (chilli extract), and dark food colorings (e.g. coffee) are likely to cause problems for some (or even many) people - and this is not a complete list. Diacetyl (butter popcorn flavor) is highly toxic and should never be inhaled as it can cause a degenerative lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans.
3. Cease using e-liquids with long ingredient lists. For sensitive people, the less ingredients the better.
4. Stop using any e-liquid except a type known not to cause problems, such as a low nicotine strength VG liquid with a good reputation for purity. For example, genuine Ecopure at 12mg would be a good choice. All the flavors in this range are very mild, and little has been added to the basic liquid.
But: note the caution on emphysema and VG-based liquid.
5. Try a different cartridge filler material or cartomizer type, to eliminate the possibility of inhaling burnt filler/batting.
6. Change to Swedish Snus temporarily (instead of going back to smoking) and see the effect.
One or more of these actions should help you find out if the culprit is e-cigarette use, and if so, exactly which factor is the problem. More than nine out of ten problems result from tobacco withdrawal or other medical issues; the remainder are normally intolerance to an ingredient or ingredients used by a particular vendor.
All the best. Cheers.
Glad you are still with us, don't know how, but glad just the same 
