My own juice seems to be giving me some trouble.

[lostbladder]

Been mixing a while. Neat hobby. Saved a lot of money. Recently, last few months, I've been getting these headaches and feeling light-headed and drowsy whenever I vaped. I switched to using some of those disposable LAVA vapes from the gas station while I was sick a month ago and the headaches, light-headedness and drowsiness went away. I switched back to my RDA and juice a week ago, and immediately the same problems as soon as I start vaping. Switch back to the disposable, no problems.

Don't know what the issue is. I've been using the same ingredients for well over 2-3 years without any such issues. Since it started, I had some ideas as to what it might be, but I've tried pretty much everything I can think of.

Halved the nicotine from 6% to 3% - same problem.
Different combinations of VG to PG - same problem.
Different flavorings and amounts of flavorings - same problem.
Put my juice in one of the near empty LAVA vapes, assuming maybe the difference in wattage or something was making me dizzy - same problem.

Only difference left is salt nic and nic extract. VG and PG shouldn't go bad in a way that causes this, surely? I have had the same gallon jugs since I first ordered them a few years ago, just reached the last 200ml recently. The nicotine extract I have shouldn't go bad in a way that causes this, I don't think. That too I have had a long time, since the shipping ban, but I've kept it in my basement sealed in small dropper jars that I had ordered new and cleaned well.

I'm not the brightest knife in the tool shed. Maybe someone here can help me figure out where I'm going wrong.

Next thing I'm going to try is buying some pre-mixed 6% Naked Hawaiin POG from the local vape store. If that doesn't mess with me too, then I guess I'll know more than I do now, it must be something I have has gone bad or has started affecting me differently.

 

[Izan]

Hola,

How many ML do you vape per day?
At what resistance and power level?

Just to confirm; when you list 6% and 3% nicotine strength, you are referring to .06% [6mg/ml] and .03% [3mg/ml], NOT 60mg/ml nor 30mg/ml, correct?

In your place, I would pick up a new bottle of premix VG/PG and a nicotine shot and mix a bit of 1/2 nic strength unflavored .

Cheers
I

 

[Mordacai]

Hmm, I wonder if your Nicotine has oxidised @lostbladder?

How are you storing it exactly?

 

[lostbladder]

Hmm, I wonder if your Nicotine has oxidised @lostbladder?

How are you storing it exactly?

I split it into maybe over a dozen 60ml glass dropper bottles, similar to those juice usually comes in. They have a rubber seal on them (the dropper rubber seals down on the glass) and I filled them as high as I could to avoid letting it sit in there with air. It probably does have a small air bubble at the top. Other than that, it's a fairly even temperature storage room and they just sit in there.

Though I took a bit of precaution to try to avoid it, it's possible it has oxidized. Do you think that vaping oxidized nicotine could make me feel funny like this?

 

[lostbladder]

Hola,

How many ML do you vape per day?
At what resistance and power level?

Just to confirm; when you list 6% and 3% nicotine strength, you are referring to .06% [6mg/ml] and .03% [3mg/ml], NOT 60mg/ml nor 30mg/ml, correct?

In your place, I would pick up a new bottle of premix VG/PG and a nicotine shot and mix a bit of 1/2 nic strength unflavored .

Cheers
I

Redoing my reply. Realized I was just being dumb. Took me a few minutes to get it.

Yes, about 6mg/ml. I have 100mg/ml base. I mix 6ml of that into 100ml of VG/PG, then that gets diluted a bit more by flavoring.

To answer the first question, I probably vape 6-10ml a day. The coils in my RDA are ~0.17 ohms and I vape that at about 40-50 watts.

 

[lostbladder]

I didn't mean to write this reply to myself. I accidentally quoted myself and I don't know how or if I can delete it.

 

[Mordacai]

It may be a reaction to oxidised Nicotine then, only way to be sure is to pick up a nic shot from somewhere and see if there's any difference.

But as I've heard round on the forum, others store nic in glass bottles in the freezer to keep it good for a very long time indeed.

 

[lostbladder]

Update:

The day of the post I got some 3% pre-mixed juice, Naked Hawaiin POG, one I am familiar with. Got a small tank device as well, to add another medium of delivery for experimentation (and just because I thought it was neat).

Out of my mod RDA setup, no headache, dizziness or drowsiness. Out of the tank device, still no headache, dizziness or drowsiness,

@Mordacai mentioned nicotine oxidation as a potential cause, and I think he may be on to something.

For future testing, I will go over the ingredients one-by-one. I am a cheap man and I want to make absolutely sure before I get new nicotine base. Going to first just vape some of my VG on its own, then add some PG to that, then add ~3% nic, then try my usual go-to flavor setup. If by step 3 of this test, I develop the adverse effects, then I will have my answer.

Really, I think we can be fairly certain it is something with my nicotine. I am just in denial. But, we'll see.

Aside from oxidation, something else came to mind. Maybe I did not rinse the jar/jars well enough before storing, so they sat in there with some dish soap residue, causing a reaction or just leading to soapy nic solution, which I can't imagine would be nice to vape. I did notice that the dish soap I use is really hard to rinse off entirely. I do often clean my dropper jars that I use for my mixed juice in the same way, but I use regular hand soap and it only sits in that jar for a week, not multiple years.

Bacteria shouldn't be able to grow in a nicotine solution. I washed them just to get anything out from wherever they were made. Didn't want my nicotine to sit in strange dusts from distant lands. Guess that might have been preferable in hindsight.

 

[Mordacai]

Ah, so it's confirmed at least now that something is off with your liquid.

Which is kind of good at least @lostbladder.

An idea may be to even test any flavors and sweetener if you use any to make sure it's not anything there.

But some ideas for you.

After washing bottles soak with hot water overnight and rinse well to get rid of any residue. Then just air dry well and seal.

And to store nic, I believe the best practice is to store it in the freezer in glass bottles. Make sure they're as full as you can possibly get them and also to bag the bottles as well.

 

[englishmick]

I store nic in glass bottles in the freezer like most folks do these days. Must say I never heard of anyone using dropper bottles though. You do have high % nic to some extent being in contact with rubber, since I don't know of anyone who did that I couldn't say whether it's a problem.

I've heard people say that oxidised nic turned brown and tasted bad but I never heard of it causing headaches. I vaguely remember people talking about PG going bad. Not sure what the consequences of that would be. Maybe when you get new nic you could try it with the old VG and PG and see if that's where your problem came from. And do that before you throw the old nic out.

 

[JCinFLA]

The nicotine extract I have shouldn't go bad in a way that causes this, I don't think. That too I have had a long time, since the shipping ban, but I've kept it in my basement sealed in small dropper jars that I had ordered new and cleaned well.

About the part I underlined...I'm just wondering something. Is the actual tube part of each dropper, that's down in the nic base all the time....plastic, or is it glass? If it's glass it should definitely be OK. But if it's plastic...maybe it's reacting with your 100mg/mL nicotine base, since it's pretty strong and the plastic tube has been in it for several years. Some types of plastics do react with, or to, things they're exposed to, especially longterm. Just a thought though.

 

[Flt Simulation]

People are say to store nic base in the freezer in 'glass' bottles.

What's wrong with storing it in the freezer in the plastic bottles it came in from the vendor ?

 

[ShowMeTwice]

People are say to store nic base in the freezer in 'glass' bottles.

What's wrong with storing it in the freezer in the plastic bottles it came in from the vendor ?

Nicotine will oxidize if it is stored in a freezer in plastic bottles.

The best way to store nicotine is in amber glass bottles and in a freezer.

See the following sticky post from the expert, Kurt:

Long Term Nic Storage

Edit by classwife : With Kurt's permission I made a sticky of his post from this thread : Deeming Regulations have been released!!!! ........................................................................... I don't want to clog this important...

www.e-cigarette-forum.com

FWIW, Kurt is a chemistry professor.