First drags from my first ecig....

[mdocod]

...My chest/throat feels sort-of like I just smoked many analogs in a row. A little soar and heavy feeling. Minor spastic feelings over the body and a bit of tightness in the chest. Nothing severe but not quite what I expected.

I don't know what to make of it. I'm beginning to think I should have chosen a lower strength juice to start with. (I picked 16mg to start out). Also may be because I went all day without a cigarette anticipating that my new ecig would arrive in the mail and I could "fire it up" when I got home (came true).

I used to smoke ~10-20 cigs a day (usually closer to 20, sometimes more but very rarely), usually these would be ~medium flavor things like marlboro mediums and 27s (or whatever I could get with the $1 off wrappers). Most of my smoking is usually relatively chain-smoke format in the evenings when I wind down with my other crutch, cheap beer However, I've never been one to take huge deep drags from an analog, usually short shallow puffs that are sucked back and blown out in a short stroke of the lung function. I'm wondering if maybe I am just getting MORE nicotine than I am used to at once. Or perhaps this is a sensitivity to the e-liquid in some other way...
I had hoped to be able to get my fix of the repeated "hitting" through the coarse of the evening... I'm wondering if maybe I just have to adjust to the ecig and then it will be fine.

I was modulating the manual switch on my ecig in order to get relatively gentle "light" hits to start out with. Though I did get a pretty strong cloud on one hit by accident when I gave the LR customizer a try for the first time. It was after that hit that I noticed the side effects really coming on.

Is there a good guide somewhere that helps compare a typical ecig drag to a typical analog drag as far as the dosing is concerned?

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On a separate note: Seems like the PG VG [edit correction] is very very thick, won't even soak into a customizers wadding under gravity feed. Had to use the condom trick (which did work).

Anyways, thoughts? comments? Ideas? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Eric

 

[hairball]

Hi Eric and welcome.

Nicotine is actually absorbed more through your mouth and throat tissue than your lungs when you vape. When you smoked, tar held the nicotine in your lungs and acted like a slow release capsule (this info came from my doctor by the way). Vaping is similar to straight injecting it into your veins. There's no "time release". Your side effects are from the nic hitting you all at once. I had a similar effect my first day.

As for thickness, you must have PG and not VG.
PG - makes juice sweeter
VG - makes juice thicker - can weaken flavors - produces more vapor

Some people have side effects from high amounts of PG. Your side effects could also be from this and not the nicotine content. Nicotine overdose side effects are light headness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, nauseousness, high blood pressure, and I'm sure more than that.

As far as a guide, I haven't see one to compare the two differences but there possibly is one.

I can only suggest to take shorter vapes, possibly lower your nic and go with a juice that has a higher in VG than PG.

Happy vaping.

 

[mdocod]

Hi hairball!

Thank you for that insight on the nic absorption. That does make some sense. Perhaps I would be best off to go to a lower strength fluid. I'm thinking about trying stuff from iVape.

I mixed up the VG/PG thing.. I have made the correction. It was VG that I was noticing as very thick, and also the one that I hit "too hard" by accident that seems to be causing my discomfort.

On the up side, as I continue (albeit, at a lesser pace than those first many hits), I am not having *too* much craving for a real cig.

Eric

 

[Godzilla]

I would definitely order a little lighter nic. It seems you were never taking a full drag off of an analogs. I used to power down a camel light in about 8 drags, and 2 minutes. I never liked stanging out in the cold. I think headache may be another symptom of a nic overdose. We have all done it when our first big selection of juice hits the mailbox.

Good luck to you.

 

[Stosh]

There's an easy way to try a lighter nicotine level. Pick up some 100% VG USP (Walmart glycerin) and try
2 drops of your juice to one drop of glycerin. That would take it down to about 10mg/mL which may suit
you better as you were a somewhat light smoker.

 

[player30]

When I first started vaping, I had the same feelings. And then it got to only when I vaped at the first of the day. And now, not at all. But it took me about a month. My cartos were 14 mg when I started, and I have never gone over 18. I think it is just an adjustment. And your cravings will get better!!

 

[Poeia]

You also might have been direct inhaling — sucking straight from the PV into your lungs. Try sucking it into your mouth, then inhaling from there. It should help eliminate the chest hit feeling.

 

[mdocod]

Thanks for the great replies and ideas!

I went back to the PG 555 for the remainder of the evening, went and had my usual several beers and just went ahead and sucked on the PV almost as much as I would have been sucking on a normal analog through the evening. Most of the strange feelings seemed to subside and I am feeling pretty well fine now. I am a little scared to try the VG again as that seemed to be what set off the problems the first time but I really can't know that for certain since I was back and forth experimenting with each for that first hour.

@Poeia; I have always smoked with the mouth-suck-then-inhale method, and have applied the same method to the PV. Direct inhaling was never even doable for me on an analog, and I figured best not to try on the PV either.

I am realizing now that the PV I have here is very capable of producing "hits" far above the intensity of my normal smoking habit. Getting the timing down is the main thing. Now that I have some practice from this evening I am able to get some consistency on that intensity.

Eric

 

[jmanning]

It seems like to many, the first hit of a PV is much like their first draw from an analog. You cough, get choked up, etc. But just like analogs, as you get used to it, it smooths out. It has been long enough for me that I really can't remember what my first vape was like, but I have observed others who take their first hit and have a similar reaction. Stick with it, it will get better.

BTW, mdocod, what PV did you get?

 

[fallon74]

I had some issues at first as well I started off with 24mg nicotine and went down to 16mg

 

[mdocod]

It seems like to many, the first hit of a PV is much like their first draw from an analog. You cough, get choked up, etc. But just like analogs, as you get used to it, it smooths out. It has been long enough for me that I really can't remember what my first vape was like, but I have observed others who take their first hit and have a similar reaction. Stick with it, it will get better.

BTW, mdocod, what PV did you get?

Yea, I guess I was expecting the transition to the ecig to be like transition from one type of cig to another, I never thought of it as like a "whole new" thing for the body to get used to, even though it really is.

As for the model... It's a BB w/AW IMR14500s. I picked up both a couple standard 510/Yeti atty's, plenty of empty carts, and a pack of low resistance customizers to play with.

I think the low resistance carts should probably have waited till later. I can get a preferred hit size with less than 2 seconds on the button, any longer and it gets way to powerful.