I've just received my first PV, a 510, and am really enjoying it. That said, I have to wonder this: When one inhales a nice strong breath of vapor and gets that oddly satisfying tingle/burn in their throat/lungs, what is occurring?
Is it just your tissues reacting to being hit with vaporized glycerine, the nicotine itself, or perhaps the flavoring agents? As nice as the whole sensation is, it makes me wonder how healthy vaping is, if my body is reacting against it.
I'm also looking at higher-voltage vaping with some interest, and am wondering if the higher temps and concentrations thereof could have any bad respiratory effects.
Any thoughts?
Glad someone is asking about this! TH is in fact throat irritation, and a bit of your lungs saying "what was THAT?". I prefer TH from nic only, and make my DIY juices so this is the case. So I use VG only. PG dries tissue far more than VG, and so will enhance the TH, from both itself and also because it is thinner than VG, and so the nic is not as encased in the vapor droplets as with VG...thus you feel more nic in the throat.
Flavors can also create their own TH, such as cinnamon, mints, and some others. The extreme of a TH is lots of coughing, and you want to avoid that, of course. Very little vapor actually gets to the lungs, believe it or not, rather it is almost all absorbed orally and in the throat and nasal passages.
Is it unhealthy? Well, I wouldn't call vaping
healthy, but I understand the question. My rule of thumb is if the juice is making me cough, I figure out why and avoid that ingredient. A PG TH for me was unhealthy because it was just another symptom of my mouth and throat getting too dried out. VG has very little TH itself. A good nic TH is much less of a problem, IMHO. Its just nic. And when you make your own juices the TH can tell you "WOH! I need to dilute this some or I'll end up getting sick!!" or "I made it too dilute and need to add more nic." So its an indicator. TH from anything else in the ejuice, other than some mints, is something I actually avoid, as it means there is an irritation that will cause coughing and maybe worse problems down the road.
Heat, of course, can make its own TH, such as with high-volt PVs. The droplets are likely to smaller from a hotter atty, so TH here is from the actual heat as well as nic being more available.
Some people add alcohol to their juices to increase TH, and also to bring flavors out more and thin a thick juice. It works for all those things, but it dries my mouth and throat out too much.
Hope this helps!
