[Brief background: smoked for 25 years, started vaping about eight months ago, longtime lurker, first-time poster.]
Just for fun, when I went in for my physical this year, I didn't tell my doc I'd quit smoking. Wanted to see if he'd notice anything and make any mention of it. He's been my doctor since I was 19 (I'm 39 now) and he's been pestering me to drop the cancer sticks for that whole time.
Anyway, I went in last week, they ran me through the normal battery of tests, and he called me up this morning to talk over the results. First words out of his mouth were "Why didn't you tell me you quit smoking? Your blood pressure is down, your resting heart rate is down, your lung capacity's up, and your chest x-ray looks about 10 years younger than the last one we took." It was then that I told him I'd given up the analogs and switched to e-cigs a while back, and here's where it gets a little disconcerting.
My doctor had no idea what e-cigarettes are or what they do. His exact quote was "Wow, I didn't know there was no tobacco in those things. I thought the only difference was that they heated the tobacco instead of burning it, but it was still tobacco smoke." From there, we had about a 10-15 minute conversation wherein I explained to him how e-cigs actually work, what the ingredients are in the liquids, the absurdity of the current moral panic, the ulterior motives of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, I pretty much tried to cover as many bases as I could, because he was literally a blank slate on the entire subject.
Shortly before we hung up, he sighed and said "I really have no excuse for not having known all this. If I had, especially now that I've seen firsthand how much your health has improved in less than a year, I would've been recommending these things to my smoking patients who have tried and failed to quit with the gums and patches and whatnot."
I made sure to tell him that, as a smoking cessation device, the evidence is still mostly anecdotal, but that it might interest him to check out this forum and others like it to see just how mountainous and compelling the body of anecdotal evidence actually is. I also directed him to Dr. Siegel's blog, so hopefully he's at home right now giving himself an overdue crash education.
In summation, as if we didn't already know, the level of ignorance and misinformation we have to deal with remains absolutely staggering, and it extends all the way to reputable physicians like mine. I suppose all we can do is to keep fighting the good fight. Hopefully I did some good in the world today.
Just for fun, when I went in for my physical this year, I didn't tell my doc I'd quit smoking. Wanted to see if he'd notice anything and make any mention of it. He's been my doctor since I was 19 (I'm 39 now) and he's been pestering me to drop the cancer sticks for that whole time.
Anyway, I went in last week, they ran me through the normal battery of tests, and he called me up this morning to talk over the results. First words out of his mouth were "Why didn't you tell me you quit smoking? Your blood pressure is down, your resting heart rate is down, your lung capacity's up, and your chest x-ray looks about 10 years younger than the last one we took." It was then that I told him I'd given up the analogs and switched to e-cigs a while back, and here's where it gets a little disconcerting.
My doctor had no idea what e-cigarettes are or what they do. His exact quote was "Wow, I didn't know there was no tobacco in those things. I thought the only difference was that they heated the tobacco instead of burning it, but it was still tobacco smoke." From there, we had about a 10-15 minute conversation wherein I explained to him how e-cigs actually work, what the ingredients are in the liquids, the absurdity of the current moral panic, the ulterior motives of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, I pretty much tried to cover as many bases as I could, because he was literally a blank slate on the entire subject.
Shortly before we hung up, he sighed and said "I really have no excuse for not having known all this. If I had, especially now that I've seen firsthand how much your health has improved in less than a year, I would've been recommending these things to my smoking patients who have tried and failed to quit with the gums and patches and whatnot."
I made sure to tell him that, as a smoking cessation device, the evidence is still mostly anecdotal, but that it might interest him to check out this forum and others like it to see just how mountainous and compelling the body of anecdotal evidence actually is. I also directed him to Dr. Siegel's blog, so hopefully he's at home right now giving himself an overdue crash education.
In summation, as if we didn't already know, the level of ignorance and misinformation we have to deal with remains absolutely staggering, and it extends all the way to reputable physicians like mine. I suppose all we can do is to keep fighting the good fight. Hopefully I did some good in the world today.
Last edited:
Education is the key - if we could get the medical industry behind us, it would be amazing.
to both of you!
