From the mouth of an ER doctor

[DC2]

Whenever I see a thread like this, I have to post a link to this poll here...
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/polls/120181-did-your-doctor-approve-your-vaping.html

Most doctors know what's up.

 

[Talyon]

My Doctor approves.

If u get a chance please join CASAA - The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association they do an awful lot for our right to vape. Ty.

 

[wabbit]

My doctor was the one that suggested vaping after all other methods for quitting cigs had been tried. I had never heard about vaping before.

 

[NotoriousJDP]

My doctor approves of vaping too. He thinks the devices are cool and has even hinted that he might want to try some 0 nic juices.

 

[TyPie]

Please be proactive, and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make sure to ask / urge your doctors, dentists and health practitioners to be vocal in their support of ecigs and vaping in both the medical community, and in the regulation arena.

Ask them specifically to also please come down in support of the interests of their patients (the 'little people'), as opposed to the interests of Big Pharma and Big Tobacco. (They will immediately know what you are talking about.....)

I do on every visit!

 

[SpiritBear]

Rather than start a new thread (which I was gonna do), I'll just add to this one. Took my mom for her annual appointment with her heart doctor yesterday. We chatted with him for a short while after his medical attention to her, and I mentioned I had quit smoking 2 months ago, and when he asked how that was going for me, I said, "Well ..." and pulled out my eGo-C. He'd never seen a personal vaporizer, although he knew what e-cigs are. He asked me to demonstrate, and I did and explained how a PV works nicely with the hand-to-mouth and blow-stuff-out parts of cigarette addiction, told him what is in e-juice, etc. He took notes! I told him that we know the AMA can't openly recommend e-cigs/PVs because there are not yet any 20-yr follow-up studies on the effects, but that regardless it is safely 95% less dangerous than cigarettes and he agreed. He's going to look more into this, for benefit of his patients.

Oh, and he's a doctor with the Arizona Heart Institute! Wouldn't it be great if that organization supported vaping?

 

[oldnoob]

Cool, you have me going there. Way to start the post as my gf went into ER...

 

[317Vapers]

great to hear it coming from a professional

 

[Myk]

My doctor approves of vaping too. He thinks the devices are cool and has even hinted that he might want to try some 0 nic juices.

I would've lectured him on how we really don't know the long term effects of chronic inhalation of PG/VG and the flavorings are a really big unknown. Then I would've warned that he could be teaching himself how to move up to nicotine and then cigarette addiction. Then I probably would've busted out laughing.

 

[dymrip]

That is awesome! I wish I could say that I have had similar experiences when I tell doctors I vape instead of smoke. There is one doctor in particular that really gets under my skin. Every time I visit his office they ask me, "Are you still smoking?" I told them almost a year ago that I quit and I am now strictly vaping, but they do not seem to understand the difference (even after I have explained it to them ump-teen times!). I may have back-slid a few times during the past year (a few cigs a day here and there, nothing major), but I haven't told them that. Anyways, glad to hear that other medical professionals are not as close-minded as the ones I see LOL.

 

[e-pipeman]

Good to hear. The more positive medical people out there, the better for everyone.

 

[Myk]

That is awesome! I wish I could say that I have had similar experiences when I tell doctors I vape instead of smoke. There is one doctor in particular that really gets under my skin. Every time I visit his office they ask me, "Are you still smoking?" I told them almost a year ago that I quit and I am now strictly vaping, but they do not seem to understand the difference (even after I have explained it to them ump-teen times!). I may have back-slid a few times during the past year (a few cigs a day here and there, nothing major), but I haven't told them that. Anyways, glad to hear that other medical professionals are not as close-minded as the ones I see LOL.

That's odd. During all my tests last year I was asked if I smoke. I'd go into explaining it, they'd kind of roll their eyes and say, "that's a no" (and remember this is an HMO type thing that is tied to a hospital that bans vaping like it was smoking and I think does the nicotine testing/firing thing with its employees).

 

[r77r7r]

My Primary semi-approves. We don't really talk about it, but he has entered it in his computer with my daily meds. He's just very happy that after 35yrs I no longer smoke.




Him: Take your one dose of ecig every morning? ( I don't know where that came from)??

Me: Sure doc.

 

[Hotwire]

I would've lectured him on how we really don't know the long term effects of chronic inhalation of PG/VG and the flavorings are a really big unknown.

I'll admit I am now trying only to vape clear juices without food coloring as the reddy or brown ones I have (Vanilla and Virginia Tobaccao and another dark tobacco) DO give me pleghm and a little bit of a sore throat.

So does a 'camel' juice which is 100pg but I believe has natural flavorings from tobacco leaves.

Menthol and other clear tobacco juices do not give me any irritation at all.

I only vape at 6mg so it's likely not the nic.

So yeah I'm keeping the juices clear and with as less ingredients as possible such as only pg and vg and menthol and tobacco 'flavorings' but not ones where it comes from the leaf.

I am happy enough with a good menthol as I can ADV it and a tobacco for the evenings and the company I like their RY5 - my second ADV is clear 50VG/50PG too.

It could be the crud from tobacco coming back out, but I do notice the darker juices give me a chesty and slight out of breath feeling and phlegm - nothing compared to an analogue, but I still don't want it.

Of course I have chronic bronchitis from all the years of smoking and am going to take meds to try and clear that up too, so the lighter, clearer juices will help with that too as they don't irritate my bronchitis but darker juices and ones with food coloring do irritate it.

Luckily I'm a 1ml juice a day vaper and am easily pleased with menthol as my ADV and a clear mellow tobacco in the evenings.

 

[u812many]

I'm a registered nurse and my experience with doctors are that they are generally data driven and do not like to recommend anything that they don't have any studies to back it up with. We do live in a society that is ready to sue the pants out of you any chance they can get. Our day will come, one day...

 

[DC2]

I'm a registered nurse and my experience with doctors are that they are generally data driven and do not like to recommend anything that they don't have any studies to back it up with. We do live in a society that is ready to sue the pants out of you any chance they can get. Our day will come, one day...

Regarding doctors, malpractice, and standard of care...
What Does the Medical Profession Mean By "Standard of Care"

There is no medical definition for standard of care, although the term is firmly established in law and is defined as “the caution that a reasonable person in similar circumstances would exercise in providing care to a patient.”1 The term represents an essential component of an action in medical malpractice in proof that the doctor in question failed to provide the required standard of care under the circumstances. In wider terms, a physician has a duty to exercise the degree of care expected of a minimally competent physician in the same specialty and under the same circumstances.

In most cases I believe that liability can be avoided as long as the care provided is considered "customary" in the medical field...

The Supreme Court further identified a number of factors that may be used to determine whether evidence submitted as scientific knowledge is valid. This includes whether the theory or technique has been tested as scientifically valid, whether the idea has been subjected to scientific peer review or published in scientific journals, whether the theory or technique is generally accepted as valid by the relevant scientific community, and whether standards have been circulated to govern the operation of the technique and the known or potential rate of error involved in the technique.

Given all of that, a doctor would have to feel pretty comfortable that no harm could come before recommending electronic cigarettes.

 

[Barbara21]

I'm also a registered nurse and u812many is absolutely correct (that doctors are data driven). Also, they have to be careful - what if they started recommending e-cigs to their patients and someone got pneumonia and blamed them (because they felt the e-cigs caused the pneumonia)? With no studies backing them up, they're in a tough position.

(Don't laugh, I've had two patients tell me that.)

In any case, my two brother-in-laws are doctors and they're converted. Not to the point of 'recommending' it but they will suggest that a patient might 'look into it'. And that's fine, I understand their position.

By the way, great story and I hope your girlfriend feels better soon.

 

[CookingWithGuns]

since 2010 I've never met anyone in the medical field who didn't approve of vaping as long as you didn't have an underlying heart condition or allergy/sensitivity to nicotine

 

[Chelley]

That's awesome to know and I hope your GF gets to feeling better soon.

 

[drlaws]

First off, my wife is an ER doctor. She will recommend ecigs to any smoker, now that she knows a lot about them.

During a regular checkup today, I told my primary care doctor today that I had been using ecigs for two months, and she told me I needed to stop as soon as possible because I was still taking carcinogens into my body. I told her nicotine is not a carcinogen, and she said I was wrong. . . extremely adamantly, too, almost yelling at me. She claimed that even people who use the patch or nicotine gum have higher risk of cancer than people who don't use nicotine. Well, I'm sure that's true, but that's because they used to smoke (didn't think of that at the time, unfortunately). Then she asked what my wife thought of the ecigs (she knows my wife, and knows she is a doctor), and I told her my wife loves it, she thinks it's the best thing I've ever done. That shut her up quickly. I will not be going back to that doctor. It's one thing to be skeptical of ecigs, but to be so adamantly against them without having research to back it up is just ridiculous. She also knows that I've tried every other possible method to quit in the past, without any success.