Confusing Allergy Problem - desperate not to have to give up vaping

[aburgUK]

Alan, are you making your own liquid? What flavours are you using? (brand, type etc.?)

Hi djsvapour,

I do have some stuff for making juice, got it from The Alchemist's Cupboard (UK). A mixture of their own organic flavours and Capella which they also supply. Trouble is that although their nic is in VG their flavours are all PG base. Also got some tobacco flavours from cloud9 but don't like them too much.

The all VG juice I'm vaping now was supplied by truevape in the UK and I do like it. They are using alcohol based flavours which I'm sure are the same as the ones vapingzone.com sell in the US. Once I've sorted out what I'm allergic to I'll probably put in an order with vaping zone as I do like their flavours and they are very concentrated so should be cheap and last a long time.

 

[edyle]

Hi Everyone,

I'm having some real problems with quite strong allergic reactions. Sorry if this post gets a little long but here is the story so far...

Gave up stinkies at the end of December last year and used various NRT (gum spray etc) for a few weeks but found them to be problematic. Started buying e-gig/lookalikes from local store but didn't like them much so decided to look at some more serious equipment. Moved on to I-taste with clearos and then a Provari with various tanks and got really hooked From the word go found e-liquid quite hard work, feeling pretty foggy and spaced out but still enjoyed it and thought I'd get used to it. Was doing pretty good for the first month until a couple of weeks ago when I started having some bad allergic reactions.

I went for the obvious route reading all the threads on this site and started thinking PG allergy so I bought some stuff and started experimenting with different mixes (all PG, all VG, 0 nic etc). Unfortunately the result of this has not been conclusive although I think I do have a problem with PG and also maybe sucralose. The thing is that even if I eliminate both of these I'm still having some reactions but maybe a bit different. I'm currently vaping a 100% VG juice at 12mg with alcohol based flavouring but I'm still feeling quite hot and itchy at times.

In fairness though during this time I'm still in the experimental stage so during the last two days I have been trying mixes that have contained very high PG to about 10% VG so maybe I'm just very sensitive to anything.

My biggest worry is that I'm allergic to everything to some degree and in particular maybe even nicotine itself because I don't feel totally comfortable with any mix. ATM the 100% vg WITH 12mg nic seems reasonable but it can still make me feel a bit hot around the face and itchy all over at times.

I'm currently six weeks into vaping, have no interest in cigarettes and think it's a great hobby/replacement for cigarettes. Has anyone else been through this and figured it out? I really don't want to go back to stinkies, I love my Provari!

Please help!

Alan

If it is an allergy, you'll never figure it out if you keep going all over the place; keep it simple.

Try some 50/50 UNFLAVORED for a while and see if the problem goes away.
If not then you got to narrow it down to PG or VG;

If you get DIY your own liquid then you'll at least know what goes into it.

Was doing pretty good for the first month until a couple of weeks ago when I started having some bad allergic reactions.

If you were going ok for the first month, that says something.

It could even be symptoms associated more with quitting smoking that with starting vaping.
If you're spilling eliquid all over the place and its getting on your skin, I'd expect itchyness too.

 

[aburgUK]

Alan,
You do not have to give up vaping as that will cause you to veer back to smoking. You will need to try several things such as unflavored VG, unflavored PG, and figure out which is causing the allergy. You may have and allergy to one of the elements in your juice. They are made up of several things. Watch "Rip Trippers Side Effects" YouTube video it helped me understand the elements, I hope this helps.

Hey thanks for that, I'll be looking for it later

 

[edyle]

Hi to you both,

Just got some Benadryl today so will give that a go. Tried pure PG and got instant hives! Pure VG nothing much. Added some nic to the VG (around 10mg) and started itching again (a little) but don't feel so foggy headed with VG. The weird thing sometimes is that when I vape quite hard it all seems to settle down? susieq60002 I've reached the same conclusion as you which is to keep it simple with the flavours for the moment. daleron when I say hot I mean that my face feels quite hot/flushed.

Thank you both so much for your quick response!

How are you adding the nicotine to the VG? what strength nicotine liquid are you using and how are you mixing it with the VG?

 

[edyle]

Did the problem start when you started handling the 72mg nicotine?

 

[aburgUK]

How are you adding the nicotine to the VG? what strength nicotine liquid are you using and how are you mixing it with the VG?

I'm using 72mg nic in VG, have just mixed some 12mg for example with 0.8mls nic base and 4.2 mls aqueous VG all supplied by an e-juice vendor. am using a phone juice calculator app. is that OK?

 

[AndriaD]

No nic is 72mg in a Kosher VG base. Strange thing is that I was vaping 80/20 PG/VG for the first 4 weeks and now it seems that 10% PG is a no-no. Perhaps I've tried so many different things that I've become paranoidly over sensitive!

Perhaps you had never been exposed to much PG before starting to vape, so you had to have the initial contact in order for the allergy to develop -- allergy is actually just your body identifying something as "foreign" and so it pumps out histamines as part of the autoimmune response -- you can't be allergic to something you've never contacted. I took penicillen for 9 yrs before I developed hives as a response to it.

I've heard it's also possible to be allergic to VG, which seems quite logical to me, as it comes from vegetable sources; vegetable sources are often quite problematic for those with allergies.

Andria

 

[aburgUK]

Did the problem start when you started handling the 72mg nicotine?

Not really sure but I am using gloves and being careful about getting it on my hands. Is there something else I should be watching out for here?

 

[djsvapour]

edyle is right about trying the unflavoured. The only problem I ever had (about a year ago) was concentrate related.

 

[edyle]

I'm using 72mg nic in VG, have just mixed some 12mg for example with 0.8mls nic base and 4.2 mls aqueous VG all supplied by an e-juice vendor. am using a phone juice calculator app. is that OK?

Adding 0.8ml nic to 4.2ml aqueous VG and shaking up and down 10 times IS NOT GOING TO MIX properly.

Please exercise some more caution with that nic base.

Adding nicotine to PG is a whole lot easier than adding nicotine to VG; it is much harder to get anything to spread out evenly in VG than in PG. Maybe if you added more water to the VG it would mix faster; I suggest you get your posts up to 15 and head over to the DIY forum before you touch that 72mg bottle again.


DIY E-Liquid

 

[edyle]

Well from wikipedia, no mention of itching or hotness as a symptom
Nicotine poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Signs and symptoms

Nicotine poisoning tends to produce symptoms that follow a biphasic pattern. The initial symptoms are mainly due to stimulatory effects and include nausea and vomiting, excessive salivation, abdominal pain, pallor, sweating, hypertension, tachycardia, ataxia, tremor, headache, dizziness, muscle fasciculations, and seizures.[4] After the initial stimulatory phase, a later period of depressor effects can occur and may include symptoms of hypotension and bradycardia, central nervous system depression, coma, muscular weakness and/or paralysis, with difficulty breathing or respiratory failure.[4][1][19][20]
Pathophysiology

The symptoms of nicotine poisoning are caused by excessive stimulation of nicotinic cholinergic neurons. Nicotine is an agonist at nicotinic acetylcholine receptor which are present in the central and autonomic nervous systems, and the neuromuscular junction. At low doses nicotine causes stimulatory effects on these receptors, however, higher doses or more sustained exposures can cause inhibitory effects leading to neuromuscular blockade.[4][21]

It is sometimes reported that people poisoned by organophosphate insecticides experience the same symptoms as nicotine poisoning. Organophosphates inhibit an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase, causing a build up of acetylcholine, excessive stimulation of all types of cholinergic neurons, and a wide range of symptoms. Nicotine is specific for nicotinic cholinergic receptors only and has some, but not all of the symptoms of organophosphate poisoning.

it does say sweatinng though.

 

[aburgUK]

Perhaps you had never been exposed to much PG before starting to vape, so you had to have the initial contact in order for the allergy to develop -- allergy is actually just your body identifying something as "foreign" and so it pumps out histamines as part of the autoimmune response -- you can't be allergic to something you've never contacted. I took penicillen for 9 yrs before I developed hives as a response to it.

I've heard it's also possible to be allergic to VG, which seems quite logical to me, as it comes from vegetable sources; vegetable sources are often quite problematic for those with allergies.

Andria

Hi Andria,

The real problem is that there is nothing totally conclusive and I think it will probably take a while to narrow down. So far different things have affected me in different ways, for example high PG (80/20) juices make me feel foggy and spaced out but 100% VG gives a reaction more like hay fever (hot, itchy dry eyes etc) but not foggy and spaced out.

I tried some 100% VG juice that a vendor made for me last week that was just nic, VG, alcohol base grape flavour and sweetener and had a horrible allergic reaction to it. Talking to the guy who made it he said that the most likely cause was sucralose(splenda) which many vendors use as a sweetener and he kindly sent me another batch without the sweetener to try. That seems much better but not perfect. The only thing that doesn't seem to cause a reaction is VG with no nic! I'm going to start the day tomorrow with that and see what happens but nicotine is looking like a strong possibility ATM.

It seems that the main difference between me and all the other posts I've read is that I had stopped smoking for 6 weeks before I started vaping so I'm not so sure that the usual withdrawal from thousands of chemicals in cigarette smoke argument really applies to me?

I'm going to try and work through this very methodically and post as much info to this thread as possible because I think that vaping is the best long term solution to smoking that I've come across and I don't want to give up on it without a fight.

I'll look a bit more into the VG and nicotine allergies, perhaps as you suggest with VG they are not as rare as people think.

Alan

 

[AndriaD]

There's something else that probably should be considered: the brain can and will MANUFACTURE symptoms, in order to bring about a certain response. A perfect example is when a person who has been using narcotics for bad pain begins to ease off the narcotics; the brain will CREATE pain in order to keep getting those pain meds. In this case, your brain may be creating troublesome symptoms as a goad to get you to go back to or continue to smoke cigarettes; if the vaping gets troublesome enough, you'll just go back to, or continue, the cigarette smoking that gives the brain what it wants. That is the very nature of addiction. If you ignore those kinds of "junk msgs," they do eventually cease, but it can be nearly impossible to figure out what is a "brain wants what it wants" msg and what is a real symptom of a real problem.

Andria

 

[aburgUK]

Adding 0.8ml nic to 4.2ml aqueous VG and shaking up and down 10 times IS NOT GOING TO MIX properly.

Please exercise some more caution with that nic base.

Adding nicotine to PG is a whole lot easier than adding nicotine to VG; it is much harder to get anything to spread out evenly in VG than in PG. Maybe if you added more water to the VG it would mix faster; I suggest you get your posts up to 15 and head over to the DIY forum before you touch that 72mg bottle again.


DIY E-Liquid

Thank you, point taken, will do more research! Having said that all the juice I'm having reactions to was made by a vendor so I don't think it's the main problem but I do take what you say very seriously.

 

[edyle]

Thank you, point taken, will do more research! Having said that all the juice I'm having reactions to was made by a vendor so I don't think it's the main problem but I do take what you say very seriously.

So you have been able to isolate the problem?
Who's the vendor?

 

[aburgUK]

There's something else that probably should be considered: the brain can and will MANUFACTURE symptoms, in order to bring about a certain response. A perfect example is when a person who has been using narcotics for bad pain begins to ease off the narcotics; the brain will CREATE pain in order to keep getting those pain meds. In this case, your brain may be creating troublesome symptoms as a goad to get you to go back to or continue to smoke cigarettes; if the vaping gets troublesome enough, you'll just go back to, or continue, the cigarette smoking that gives the brain what it wants. That is the very nature of addiction. If you ignore those kinds of "junk msgs," they do eventually cease, but it can be nearly impossible to figure out what is a "brain wants what it wants" msg and what is a real symptom of a real problem.

Andria

Interesting point?? Although I haven't smoked this year at all and I have no inclination to do so at the moment. I find that vaping is great fun, interesting and most importantly has it's own rituals which make it very engaging to me. When I get up in the morning do I want a cigarette with my coffee? I can honestly say no but I do want my PV. Vaping to me is a worthy replacement to smoking and not a poor substitute. I smoked for 40 years and have given up a number of times but this is the first time I've found an actual hobby that I enjoy to replace it. I think that vaping is re-programming my mind and deleting the old smoking sub-routines.

I hope you are right and that my mind (or all those Marlboros I smoked) are just playing evil tricks on me

 

[aburgUK]

So you have been able to isolate the problem?
Who's the vendor?

No not conclusively but Tom at the vendor (truevape in the UK) is being really helpful and is sending me some test samples next week (50/50 0 nic, 12 nic, VG PG etc) with a suggested routine to try and isolate. So far he does seem to have isolated sucralose sweetner as a definate no-no.

 

[aburgUK]

I can't say that I got hives but I got itchy...and hot- I have found that it is dehydration.....have you increased your water intake? I would suggest you try to... Mine started about 4 weeks in also.

Good luck and congrats on sticking with it and trying to work it out

Water, yes not great at drinking water, will try harder

 

[RoseB]

Hi Everyone,

I'm having some real problems with quite strong allergic reactions. Sorry if this post gets a little long but here is the story so far...

Gave up stinkies at the end of December last year and used various NRT (gum spray etc) for a few weeks but found them to be problematic. Started buying e-gig/lookalikes from local store but didn't like them much so decided to look at some more serious equipment. Moved on to I-taste with clearos and then a Provari with various tanks and got really hooked From the word go found e-liquid quite hard work, feeling pretty foggy and spaced out but still enjoyed it and thought I'd get used to it. Was doing pretty good for the first month until a couple of weeks ago when I started having some bad allergic reactions.

I went for the obvious route reading all the threads on this site and started thinking PG allergy so I bought some stuff and started experimenting with different mixes (all PG, all VG, 0 nic etc). Unfortunately the result of this has not been conclusive although I think I do have a problem with PG and also maybe sucralose. The thing is that even if I eliminate both of these I'm still having some reactions but maybe a bit different. I'm currently vaping a 100% VG juice at 12mg with alcohol based flavouring but I'm still feeling quite hot and itchy at times.

In fairness though during this time I'm still in the experimental stage so during the last two days I have been trying mixes that have contained very high PG to about 10% VG so maybe I'm just very sensitive to anything.

My biggest worry is that I'm allergic to everything to some degree and in particular maybe even nicotine itself because I don't feel totally comfortable with any mix. ATM the 100% vg WITH 12mg nic seems reasonable but it can still make me feel a bit hot around the face and itchy all over at times.

I'm currently six weeks into vaping, have no interest in cigarettes and think it's a great hobby/replacement for cigarettes. Has anyone else been through this and figured it out? I really don't want to go back to stinkies, I love my Provari!

Please help!

Alan

Hello I would go with 100% unflavored. Start with VG. PG causes a lot of problems for folks. Flavorings can be an issue as well. Quite a few flavorings have PG in them, but there are vendors that sell the PG free flavors. Allergic reactions are nothing to joke with, and they can get worse with more exposure to the allergen. If you keep having problems perhaps Swedish Snus would be the way to go. Smokeless tobacco Especially if giving up vaping is going to send you running for cigarettes. Hopefully you can get to the root of the problem. DIY would be a good way to go, because you know exactly what's in the e liquid.

 

[AndriaD]

Interesting point?? Although I haven't smoked this year at all and I have no inclination to do so at the moment. I find that vaping is great fun, interesting and most importantly has it's own rituals which make it very engaging to me. When I get up in the morning do I want a cigarette with my coffee? I can honestly say no but I do want my PV. Vaping to me is a worthy replacement to smoking and not a poor substitute. I smoked for 40 years and have given up a number of times but this is the first time I've found an actual hobby that I enjoy to replace it. I think that vaping is re-programming my mind and deleting the old smoking sub-routines.

I hope you are right and that my mind (or all those Marlboros I smoked) are just playing evil tricks on me

Well if it's a real allergy, it definitely shouldn't be ignored; ignoring minor allergy symptoms can lead to truly awful symptoms like anaphylaxis, and that's enormously life-threatening -- my son responds with that symptom to coconut-ANYTHING, in even the most trace amounts. So maybe a consultation with a doc is in order, to try and figure out if it's really allergy, or just the brain trying to get its way. As I said, it can be nearly impossible to figure out real symptoms from the brain-manufactured kind -- the latter are just as real in how they feel, and with allergy, even in the particular symptoms that arise -- like hives -- but it's basically just the addiction throwing a temper tantrum. It sounds like your conscious choices are carrying the day, in that you're not smoking, so it's certainly possible that the old addiction is just trying an "end-run" around your conscious decision to not smoke. But yeah, it might be wise to consult a doc and try to figure out if it really is some kind of genuine allergic response; I know that some people literally are allergic to "nearly everything," and that can vastly complicate their entire life.


Andria