UPDATE: I was seen by a doctor who said it was probably bacterial in nature and gave me an antibio and steroid script. I'll post in a few days to tell how I'm feeling. Always makes me crazy when people ask questions and then don't follow up with the solution - so I promise - I'll follow up for the benefit of anyone who Googles their way to this thread 
Didn't know where else to put this, so I put it in general discussion... Sorry, this is going to be a LONG post.
I stopped smoking many years ago. I quit smoking and started vaped for a couple years after that, never had any problems... literally felt great, stopped coughing, vaped for probably a solid 2 years.
Then when the FDA started their over-reaching regulations on the burgeoning industry I panicked - went for a backup plan: Swedish Snus. I don't know how many of you are aware, but Swedish Snus is considered by many to be another "harm reduction" strategy. It isn't nearly as carcinogenic as American chewing tobacco, and definitely not as harmful as analogues. If you care to do your own reading on it, go for it, but that isn't what my post is supposed to be about. Back to the point...
I decided to take up vaping again earlier this month (Oct 5th I believe)... why? I always enjoyed the DIY aspects of it, it is financially more sustainable than ordering Snus from Sweden every month...
For the first week and a half of taking vaping back up, I felt great. Bit more nic than I'm used to from Swedish Snus, but I DIY juice so that's no problem... mix 1.5-2ml/mg juices.
A couple weeks ago I started coughing. At first it was just an irritable cough in the morning. Not a dry cough - there was some "stuff" coming up. But then I'd be OK all day. Since then the problem has become dramatically worse. Spastic uncontrollable coughing fits... having to use albuterol, mucinex... and while those things tame things down a bit, I still have coughing fits whether I'm actively vaping or not. (The cough is still somewhat "productive," but occasionally I get a few breaths that sound "wheezy" like a bronchitis or whatever... but that usually goes away pretty fast.)
So let me lay out ALL of the factors here, and let's see if we can't figure this one out:
Environmental & health factors:
- Haven't smoked for years.
- 36 yo male. Hypertension well under control with meds. Usually read in the 110s/70s with a pulse of around 55 at rest. Nicotine use barely changes my BP, never has (and I've checked! Rigorously!) My blood pressure has improved so much due to other life changes that my doctor has been reducing my BP meds. I did give up coffee because coffee messed with my BP BIG TIME. Not so much with Nic.
- No known pulmonary disease. No history of Asthma. No trouble breathing while exercising. No coronary issues aside from a Ventricular Hypertrophy which is attributable to the Hypertension. Recent ECG demonstrates that this is in "remission"... which is not uncommon when blood pressure is brought under control.
- Recently lost about 27 pounds.
- Ex alcohol addict (don't get me started, I'm just being thorough). I've been completely sober for a month and and two weeks. Liver and Pancreas functions have returned to normal.
- No non-prescription drugs. No marijuana.
- Here in Phoenix AZ, allergy season is at a lowish point right now, so I doubt it is allergies. I take Zyrtec (OTC allergy medication) year round though, and have been since I was in my early 20s.
Vaping gear and setup:
- Mod/batteries (not that it should matter but I'm trying to be thorough): Fuchai Duo-3, tri-married sets of 3 LG HG2s and 2x3 Sony VTC 6.
- Build: Kanthal A1 24x32ga fused clapton from Geek Vape. Always dual coil builds, usually run in the mid 0.1x range. (Current setup ins 0.17, I've built as low as 0.13. I really don't go any lower than that.)
- Koh Gen Do cotton pads. (I'm assuming they're legit? Does anyone counterfeit cotton pads?) Love this stuff because I can roll it up and it holds tons of juice and wicks nicely. Prefer it over Cotton Bacon, though I do have some Cotton Bacon left.
- I remove wicks, dry burn, and rewick once daily. I build new coils approx once every 3-4 days. I never have singed/burnt wicks, almost never get dry hits, and rarely even see discolored cotton beyond the little bit of darkening you expect from using juice with a little bit of color etc.
- Vape in wattage mode since I use Kanthal. Depending on the device, I run between 80W to 95W. For example, my Dead Rabbit is most comfortable at 80W. My Aura is comfortable in the 90s. The Mesh RDA - I can run way higher than that. But I don't like it that much so I haven't really used it much.
- RDAs: I'm not really a fan of top feeding tanks. I can't get them to work. I AM a big fan of RDAs. I've got the Goon 1.5, Digiflavor Aura, Dead Rabbit, Wismec JoyBo RDA, VandyVape Mesh RDA (which I don't use much). Have a few other RDAs from way back but I don't really use them anymore. Want to try Squonking but I'm not spending any more money on gear until I get this cough eliminated!
DIY juices/my ADVs:
As I said above, I DIY my juices. My ADVs are an "astro" style clone and a "halo malibu" style clone. The recipes are as follows. Target is "2%" nic. High concentration nic (100mg) is a small bottle from Kidney Puncher. They shipped me a slightly expired bottle (expired August of this year, but I can't REALLY imagine that's a huge deal so I didn't bother to complain). VG is either from Kidney Puncher or marked "99.7% pure pharmaceutical grade", currently working on a gallon I bought from Essential Depot on Amazon. (Link added so you can see exactly what I have.) All ingredients are stored in refrigerator. Anything that needs to be "warmed" to work with just gets a warm bath, never microwaved, never boiled.
Here's two examples of my ADVs. Amounts listed are for a 30ml bottle. Once again, target nic is ~2%.
Well, that's all I can think of right now. And the forum is breaking on me now. It keeps scrolling way up when I type, so I literally can't see what I am typing right now LOL.
Any and all help will be appreciated. I GOT to get this figured out. Don't really want to go back to Swe Snus!
Didn't know where else to put this, so I put it in general discussion... Sorry, this is going to be a LONG post.
I stopped smoking many years ago. I quit smoking and started vaped for a couple years after that, never had any problems... literally felt great, stopped coughing, vaped for probably a solid 2 years.
Then when the FDA started their over-reaching regulations on the burgeoning industry I panicked - went for a backup plan: Swedish Snus. I don't know how many of you are aware, but Swedish Snus is considered by many to be another "harm reduction" strategy. It isn't nearly as carcinogenic as American chewing tobacco, and definitely not as harmful as analogues. If you care to do your own reading on it, go for it, but that isn't what my post is supposed to be about. Back to the point...
I decided to take up vaping again earlier this month (Oct 5th I believe)... why? I always enjoyed the DIY aspects of it, it is financially more sustainable than ordering Snus from Sweden every month...
For the first week and a half of taking vaping back up, I felt great. Bit more nic than I'm used to from Swedish Snus, but I DIY juice so that's no problem... mix 1.5-2ml/mg juices.
A couple weeks ago I started coughing. At first it was just an irritable cough in the morning. Not a dry cough - there was some "stuff" coming up. But then I'd be OK all day. Since then the problem has become dramatically worse. Spastic uncontrollable coughing fits... having to use albuterol, mucinex... and while those things tame things down a bit, I still have coughing fits whether I'm actively vaping or not. (The cough is still somewhat "productive," but occasionally I get a few breaths that sound "wheezy" like a bronchitis or whatever... but that usually goes away pretty fast.)
So let me lay out ALL of the factors here, and let's see if we can't figure this one out:
Environmental & health factors:
- Haven't smoked for years.
- 36 yo male. Hypertension well under control with meds. Usually read in the 110s/70s with a pulse of around 55 at rest. Nicotine use barely changes my BP, never has (and I've checked! Rigorously!) My blood pressure has improved so much due to other life changes that my doctor has been reducing my BP meds. I did give up coffee because coffee messed with my BP BIG TIME. Not so much with Nic.
- No known pulmonary disease. No history of Asthma. No trouble breathing while exercising. No coronary issues aside from a Ventricular Hypertrophy which is attributable to the Hypertension. Recent ECG demonstrates that this is in "remission"... which is not uncommon when blood pressure is brought under control.
- Recently lost about 27 pounds.
- Ex alcohol addict (don't get me started, I'm just being thorough). I've been completely sober for a month and and two weeks. Liver and Pancreas functions have returned to normal.
- No non-prescription drugs. No marijuana.
- Here in Phoenix AZ, allergy season is at a lowish point right now, so I doubt it is allergies. I take Zyrtec (OTC allergy medication) year round though, and have been since I was in my early 20s.
Vaping gear and setup:
- Mod/batteries (not that it should matter but I'm trying to be thorough): Fuchai Duo-3, tri-married sets of 3 LG HG2s and 2x3 Sony VTC 6.
- Build: Kanthal A1 24x32ga fused clapton from Geek Vape. Always dual coil builds, usually run in the mid 0.1x range. (Current setup ins 0.17, I've built as low as 0.13. I really don't go any lower than that.)
- Koh Gen Do cotton pads. (I'm assuming they're legit? Does anyone counterfeit cotton pads?) Love this stuff because I can roll it up and it holds tons of juice and wicks nicely. Prefer it over Cotton Bacon, though I do have some Cotton Bacon left.
- I remove wicks, dry burn, and rewick once daily. I build new coils approx once every 3-4 days. I never have singed/burnt wicks, almost never get dry hits, and rarely even see discolored cotton beyond the little bit of darkening you expect from using juice with a little bit of color etc.
- Vape in wattage mode since I use Kanthal. Depending on the device, I run between 80W to 95W. For example, my Dead Rabbit is most comfortable at 80W. My Aura is comfortable in the 90s. The Mesh RDA - I can run way higher than that. But I don't like it that much so I haven't really used it much.
- RDAs: I'm not really a fan of top feeding tanks. I can't get them to work. I AM a big fan of RDAs. I've got the Goon 1.5, Digiflavor Aura, Dead Rabbit, Wismec JoyBo RDA, VandyVape Mesh RDA (which I don't use much). Have a few other RDAs from way back but I don't really use them anymore. Want to try Squonking but I'm not spending any more money on gear until I get this cough eliminated!
DIY juices/my ADVs:
As I said above, I DIY my juices. My ADVs are an "astro" style clone and a "halo malibu" style clone. The recipes are as follows. Target is "2%" nic. High concentration nic (100mg) is a small bottle from Kidney Puncher. They shipped me a slightly expired bottle (expired August of this year, but I can't REALLY imagine that's a huge deal so I didn't bother to complain). VG is either from Kidney Puncher or marked "99.7% pure pharmaceutical grade", currently working on a gallon I bought from Essential Depot on Amazon. (Link added so you can see exactly what I have.) All ingredients are stored in refrigerator. Anything that needs to be "warmed" to work with just gets a warm bath, never microwaved, never boiled.
Here's two examples of my ADVs. Amounts listed are for a 30ml bottle. Once again, target nic is ~2%.
As you can see, aside from the VG and high concentration nic juice, these recipes share no common ingredients... yet my cough continues to get worse no matter which one I use.
Well, that's all I can think of right now. And the forum is breaking on me now. It keeps scrolling way up when I type, so I literally can't see what I am typing right now LOL.
Any and all help will be appreciated. I GOT to get this figured out. Don't really want to go back to Swe Snus!
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