New member, and looking for advice

[Two_Bears]

Hi there! I'm new here, but it looks like this is where I need to be. Let me tell you a bit about myself, and also ask some advice.

I'm a 30-year, 2-pack-a-day smoker, and I've just recently been told by my doctor that I'm in the early stages of COPD. This means that it's still possible to reverse a lot of the damage to my lungs. This has forced me to confront the fact that I need to quit.

I've been dabbling a bit with vaping on and off for a couple of years, but it took me a while to find something that I can live with. With the new e-cig system, and the COPD news, I've cut back to 8 cigarettes per day from 40+, and have done it without too much pain.

But I'm having a problem cutting back further, let alone quitting altogether. I'm sure it's psychological - I just wish I could get to a stage where my first reaction is to reach for the e-cig instead of the tobacco, without even thinking about it. Has anyone had a problem with those last few cigarettes? What did you do about it?

Logically, I know that from a nicotine perspective, the e-cig is providing what I need, so why do I still look forward to my next real cigarette? You know, the one that's killing me. Argh, I just can't figure out the problem, and would love some advice or insight.

Thanks for reading!

You need to read the thread started by BrushyBill. He has an inspiring story to tell about vaping.

Let's get your family to help you cut back. I had to do that when I was on a diet. There are some things I will eat whether I was hungry or not so I had my sister hide them in the Fridge. Because if I don't see them I won't crave them. So if I kept to the diet I earned a treat.

So ask your family to hide the Stinkies and give you only two cigarettes a day.

Between my diet and my sister hiding the good stuff I lost 12% of my body weight with very little misery.

 

[Two_Bears]

OK, so I've never used a VaporFi product, but, from the picture you posted, it looks very similar to my Kanger Evod. Somebody please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

My daughter and I have successfully used 70vg/30pg eliquids in our Kanger Evod setups, with no problems other than having to change the coil a bit more frequently when using some flavors. We have used the 70vg/30pg ratio both with the Kanger single and dual coils, with Kanger Evod 650 mah batteries, and had absolutely no problems. At the moment, I am using 2 different eliquids, from 2 different companies, in my Evod Glass tanks with Kanger single coils at 2.20 ohms, at 70vg/30pg, on my brand spanking new CoolFire IV, and loving every minute of it. My daughter got an Innokin VV v3 for Christmas and is using it with either the iClear 16 tanks or her Evod Glass tanks with dual coils, and is not having any problems, either.

Don't be afraid to play with your vape. Only you can say what works for you to keep you away from cigarettes. My daughter and I had quit smoking, cold turkey, around 6 years before we discovered ecigs. We started using cigalikes, and experimented with nicotine levels, pg/vg ratios, and flavors before hitting on the combination that worked to keep us smoke free. When we graduated to Kanger Evods, we again had to try a couple of combinations before we hit on what worked for us. For Christmas 2015, we upgraded our hardware, and are again experimenting with our vape to find the right combination for us.

Buy smaller bottles of eliquid until you find the combination of nicotine, pg and vg that works for you with the equipment that you have. Experiment with different ohm levels on your coils. Read reviews. Ask questions. You will find something that works for you.

Most important, have fun with your vape. When you find a combination that you really enjoy, it will be much easier to quit smoking for good.

Thank you very much for posting this. Another Vaper was asking about the pro tank and several said stay away from High VG juices and I posted that I had no problem vaping high VG juices in pro tanks. Maybe they will broaden their horizon some.

 

[Two_Bears]

For me, 40% PG is about the Highest I can go without getting the "Piece of Popcorn in the Throat" Cough. You might contact your e-Liquid vendor and Double Check to see if they offer anything in a Lower PG / Higher VG level.

Yeah... Having a 2nd Atomizer with Higher Nicotine in it Really Helped in the Mourning and after Dinner. I Didn't need it All Day. Just at those two main times.

Very good advice there vape the stronger nic in the morning and after a meal.

 

[RoseJ]

I'm absolutely blown away by the help and advice I got here to my post. Thank you, thank you!

I got some great tips from my request for advice, and will be changing up several things in my strategy. The overall feeling I have right now, is how could I fail with this sort of support!

Andria, I can't thank you enough for your information on WTA. It explains so much about some of my past experiences with quitting. I'm going to order one bottle, not to use immediately, but to have here in case I need it.

I'm so glad I joined this community yesterday, and I'm looking forward to becoming an active member.

 

[djsvapour]

This is a long thread already. I just want to wish you luck and to say just one small thing.

Vaporfi? Whatever they are selling you... you can do much better for much less money.
(as long as you know 'how it works' with these companies).

However, it's important for you to achieve your goal and restore your health... that is the #1 aim.

 

[djsvapour]

Oh, before I forget.

I coughed a lot using e-cigs for the first period. I didn't drop Nicotine level or change PG/VG ratios (both of which are sometimes advised) because I really didn't think any lower would do the job for me.

I used 24mg to start (cig-a-like) and then 18mg using an eGo e-cig (like your Vaporfi).

My wife smokes lights (not ultra) and she feels like she needs 18mg. Any less and she is smoking within minutes of vaping.

My personal theory is 6mg is too low.

There is a lady I see once a week (usually) in my town. She smoked 20-25 ultra lights a day.
The e-cig shop (Totally Wicked) advised her to use 6mg, when most people started on 18mg. It took her nearly two years to stop smoking.

In those 20-25 cigarettes, she was having almost as much Nicotine as my 12-15 cigarettes. I started on 18mg (24mg), she started on 6mg. Neither of us was right i.m.o.

I think vape as high strength as you can physically manage until you have stopped smoking for good. Some people disagree (through their own experience) but I do feel 6mg is too low other than for the lightest/low numbers of cigarettes per day.

 

[Krazylegz]

Yep....unflavored, the best single flavor available...it's actually good.....

Really

 

[AndriaD]

As much as I bad mouth cigalikes, they've worked for quite a few people, but the quitting experience is different for everyone out there, some people quit with patches and gum, cigalikes didn't work for me at all, it actually turned me off of vaping for a year, then I tried a ego-t, tested some flavors and only then did I feel vaping would work for me.

Well I hated the drugstore disposable versions; none of them really taste like cigarettes, and that taste was necessary to me at first, as much as I loathe it now. I came here, found out about the eRoll, tried out some Virginia Tobacco ejuice from MyFreedomSmokes (after several other trials of stuff that I hated), and once I found that ejuice, I knew I had found the way to quit smoking. Smoking doesn't generate "clouds," so I never needed that aspect, I just wanted to inhale/exhale something visible that bore at least a passing resemblance to the taste of my cigarettes, and that combo did the trick.

After I'd used it for a few weeks (long enough to quit!), I learned why cigalikes aren't terribly workable -- tiny lil tank, tiny lil battery -- and got something with more capacity for both -- a vv3 with a Kanger T3S on top -- and that cemented it for me.

Andria

 

[AndriaD]

Oh, before I forget.

I coughed a lot using e-cigs for the first period. I didn't drop Nicotine level or change PG/VG ratios (both of which are sometimes advised) because I really didn't think any lower would do the job for me.

I used 24mg to start (cig-a-like) and then 18mg using an eGo e-cig (like your Vaporfi).

My wife smokes lights (not ultra) and she feels like she needs 18mg. Any less and she is smoking within minutes of vaping.

My personal theory is 6mg is too low.

There is a lady I see once a week (usually) in my town. She smoked 20-25 ultra lights a day.
The e-cig shop (Totally Wicked) advised her to use 6mg, when most people started on 18mg. It took her nearly two years to stop smoking.

In those 20-25 cigarettes, she was having almost as much Nicotine as my 12-15 cigarettes. I started on 18mg (24mg), she started on 6mg. Neither of us was right i.m.o.

I think vape as high strength as you can physically manage until you have stopped smoking for good. Some people disagree (through their own experience) but I do feel 6mg is too low other than for the lightest/low numbers of cigarettes per day.

Some people, such as myself, need to start at 6mg because anything higher causes nausea -- true of many who smoked ultra-lights for a long time. If vaping had persisted in causing nausea (if I'd stuck with the 12mg), I would have quit vaping and gone right on smoking, because nausea is A Fate Worse Than Death. Once the cigarettes were gone, I gradually increased my nic level to the point that I could set the mod down sometimes -- 10mg, eventually -- but I sure could not have started there.

Andria

 

[Canadian_Vaper]

Well I hated the drugstore disposable versions; none of them really taste like cigarettes, and that taste was necessary to me at first, as much as I loathe it now. I came here, found out about the eRoll, tried out some Virginia Tobacco ejuice from MyFreedomSmokes (after several other trials of stuff that I hated), and once I found that ejuice, I knew I had found the way to quit smoking. Smoking doesn't generate "clouds," so I never needed that aspect, I just wanted to inhale/exhale something visible that bore at least a passing resemblance to the taste of my cigarettes, and that combo did the trick.

After I'd used it for a few weeks (long enough to quit!), I learned why cigalikes aren't terribly workable -- tiny lil tank, tiny lil battery -- and got something with more capacity for both -- a vv3 with a Kanger T3S on top -- and that cemented it for me.

Andria

I was always a very deep smoker, I'd puff until my lungs were full, I remember feeling like it was some sort of victory smoking an entire smoke in 5-6 puffs :X, after starting vaping I knew almost instantly lung hits were what was going to work for me, I upgraded until I got to my Subtank Mini and I've been using it since, yes my vapor production is pretty big with it, my problem is I have a mild pg allergy, if my juice has too much PG my face goes numb :X so I sort of have to have clouds for it to work for me...

It's a different experience for everyone I guess

 

[AndriaD]

I was always a very deep smoker, I'd puff until my lungs were full, I remember feeling like it was some sort of victory smoking an entire smoke in 5-6 puffs :X, after starting vaping I knew almost instantly lung hits were what was going to work for me, I upgraded until I got to my Subtank Mini and I've been using it since, yes my vapor production is pretty big with it, my problem is I have a mild pg allergy, if my juice has too much PG my face goes numb :X so I sort of have to have clouds for it to work for me...

It's a different experience for everyone I guess

For me, it was almost like my lungs were prophecying vaping -- I smoked Lights for a long time, but thx to my asthma, they started making me cough up a lung and a half with every drag, so I had to switch to ultra-lights, and further, had to modify how I smoked -- no deep inhales at all, they always made me cough myself silly; I had to learn to inhale to a point *just* past my throat, right at the top of my bronchial airways -- which turned out to work really well with vaping! Now I often don't inhale even that deeply, only far enough into my throat for the vapor to be able to pass upwards into my upper respiratory airway. It's been hard to train myself to that, with nearly 4 decades of cigarette smoking behind me, but little by little I'm getting to "inhales" that are probably a LOT like the way a pipe or cigar smoker inhales -- hardly at all! And I just thank god that PG doesn't bother me at all until I get to about 90%, because any more than about 15% VG just chokes my lungs completely.

Andria

 

[nmackan]

Welcome my friend. Some great helping you get here and all are true. And they are trying to help you quit smoking. Well I am not.
First of all I noticed you love smoking. I loved it too. I had never intended to quit in the first. My morning sessions were important and I had not wanted to leave them aside. Well I thought, if they are that effective I use them after my morning rituals. My smoking history also was no joke and I refrain to mention again for they will kick me out of forum for repeating myself.
On the other hand when I tried an e-cig, I thought why I should smoke when there is this.
Yes. the magic was right liquid, with right amount of nic. and PG/VG.

Now for a 2 packs a day user the nic level is very low for you. Dont inhale it directly to your lung. take to your mouth (With my first inhale like smoking, I coughed bad too) and than slowly inhale. The reason is, you get nic through your skin with e-cigs unlike smoking. so use all the area including your nostrills.

Dont intend to quit. Just use it before you light one. Dont fight with them dont count the ones you smoked. Always count the ones you did not.
We are not addicted to cigarettes (God knows they did everything we would to) We are addicted to nic. So they cheat us with low nic cigarettes too. Why low nic? The least harmfull of all the things they give us with smoking is nic. By low nic cigarettes we began to get more tarr. And these effects tarr has given is mostly looked for in vaping.

If you ask me use 18mg/ml liquid by mouth inhale method and whenever you need a cigarette vape before and afterwards if you still need, light one. Dont worry logic will win and one day you will come to the point how "I ever smoked"
If you consider vaping as a replacement you will never quit. Vaping is another thing. And sooner or later you will not light one Because it will not be the same old friend you used to.
Happy vapings.

 

[AndriaD]

You know, I've run into this a lot here at ECF, "only count the ones you don't smoke." But you can't count a negative. You only know how many you didn't smoke, by knowing how many you did. When I was a smoker, it was largely an unconscious habit -- like when I bit my nails; if someone didn't draw my attention to it, I was unaware of it. I started keeping a tally of cigarettes I actually smoked, so I would know EXACTLY how much I was actually smoking.... which told me, indirectly, how much I wasn't. If a pk a day smoker only smokes 15, then they've avoided 5. If they only smoke 10, then they've avoided 10. But you can't know how many you've avoided, without knowing exactly how many you actually did smoke.

Andria

 

[evan le'garde]

I hate to generalise but i figure everyone who starts vaping to avoid tobacco products goes through the same experience. To make things simple though i'd suggest making a hobby out of your new found habit of vaping.
I've been vaping now for i think about 2.5 years or so. Eventually i decided my strategy would be to use more than one type of device. One low power for high nicotine and one high power for low nicotine. The low power device is used in the same way i'd smoke a cigarette, well almost the same, the puffs are longer. I use this low power device first thing in the morning and after meals.

My high power device is used in a different way and i'd describe it as using it the same way an asthma sufferer would use an inhaler. Except, again, taking much longer puffs. I'll use this high power device for most of the day.

Basically i'll switch to my low power device if i'm not getting enough satisfaction from the other setup. So rather than reaching for a cigarette i'll just have a toot on high nicotine content. Five minutes later i'll switch back. And so it goes on. Works for me !.

 

[Grimwald]

Oh yeah, that morning cigarette. I found that 1-2 cigarettes, or about 10-15 minutes with my morning coffee was what it was with cigarettes. When I replaced that with vaping, well, it was more like 45 minutes to finally get enough nic on board to end the cravings. It just takes longer to absorb nicotine thru vaping...bigger particles/droplets or something. I always kept a vape pen next to my bedside...started right away. Get that nic on board early and often.

 

[nmackan]

You know, I've run into this a lot here at ECF, "only count the ones you don't smoke." But you can't count a negative. You only know how many you didn't smoke, by knowing how many you did. When I was a smoker, it was largely an unconscious habit -- like when I bit my nails; if someone didn't draw my attention to it, I was unaware of it. I started keeping a tally of cigarettes I actually smoked, so I would know EXACTLY how much I was actually smoking.... which told me, indirectly, how much I wasn't. If a pk a day smoker only smokes 15, then they've avoided 5. If they only smoke 10, then they've avoided 10. But you can't know how many you've avoided, without knowing exactly how many you actually did smoke.

Andria

My dear friend, one always count the smoked ones. You know you always know the limit. 2 packs a day is avarage you smoke. So you can easily count the ones you did not. You know if you smoked say 4 you are less 36. and while smoking 4 pcs discoruages you, 36 unsmoked is a big motivation.

 

[AndriaD]

My dear friend, one always count the smoked ones. You know you always know the limit. 2 packs a day is avarage you smoke. So you can easily count the ones you did not. You know if you smoked say 4 you are less 36. and while smoking 4 pcs discoruages you, 36 unsmoked is a big motivation.

But that's the thing... I always knew that I smoked *about* a pk a day... but individual cigarettes? I could not have told you, at any given time, how many I had smoked already that day -- so I had to keep a tally, to know *exactly* how many I had smoked, after I started vaping and realized that my cigarettes per day were decreasing. That was the only way to know for sure, how much and how fast I was decreasing. And, by keeping a tally, it enabled me to play that little game, competing with myself each day to see if I could smoke fewer, or at least, not more than the day before.

I could never do the thing where I let someone else dispense my cigarettes to me; I would have resented that a great deal, as I always resent being controlled by someone else, so it would have been counterproductive -- I'd have smoked more just to spite them. The only person in charge of me is ME; if I don't live up to my own goals, I have only myself to blame; if I do live up to them, I have only myself to congratulate.

Andria

 

[RoseJ]

Some people, such as myself, need to start at 6mg because anything higher causes nausea -- true of many who smoked ultra-lights for a long time. If vaping had persisted in causing nausea (if I'd stuck with the 12mg), I would have quit vaping and gone right on smoking, because nausea is A Fate Worse Than Death. Once the cigarettes were gone, I gradually increased my nic level to the point that I could set the mod down sometimes -- 10mg, eventually -- but I sure could not have started there.

Andria

Not only the nausea, but very bad headaches too. I have tried stronger because that's what I was advised when I first started vaping. Honestly, 6 mg is perfect for me, I terms of how I feel, and how comfortable it is to vape (coughing).

Off-topic a little - Andria, I ordered some WTA. 6mg, and I'll mix 10% into my e-liquid, should I need it.

 

[AndriaD]

Not only the nausea, but very bad headaches too. I have tried stronger because that's what I was advised when I first started vaping. Honestly, 6 mg is perfect for me, I terms of how I feel, and how comfortable it is to vape (coughing).

Off-topic a little - Andria, I ordered some WTA. 6mg, and I'll mix 10% into my e-liquid, should I need it.

At 6mg, I was able to vape pretty much continually -- which was what I had to do at first, to avoid smoking; anytime I even THOUGHT of a cigarette, I'd vape. With a low enough mg level, that's possible, and a good way to forestall the desire to smoke, gradually convert the familiar "desire to smoke" into "desire to vape". But as time goes on, the cigarettes are gone, and you do get a little tired of having the mod practically welded to your hand. When I got to that point, I started going up, slowly; first to 8mg, but I still felt the need to vape almost constantly, so I went to 9mg; that worked well for a while, till I had the appendix-and-relapse massacree; when I came back to smoke-free after that, I started right in at 10mg, thinking that would help with any cravings, and so it seemed... for 10 days. Then those cravings smacked me up-side the head again, and I added the WTA -- cravings vanished.

When I started mixing the WTA in, I had a problem because I have to stick to a very high proportion of PG, or I can't breathe, and WTA is 100% VG; I found this calculator, which let me add WTA to my regular ejuice, and adjust the nic and PG/VG levels to suit me perfectly -- it allows you to enter a nic level and PG/VG ratio for every single ingredient, so it's not only good for regular DIY mixing, but also for mixing pre-made ejuice, and also for adding WTA to pre-made ejuice. Just enter the WTA as an ingredient (and also the pre-made ejuice as an ingredient); if you're using the 24mg WTA, use 24mg as the "nic level", and enter its 0 for PG, which will automatically set its VG to 100%. I started using that calculator for that purpose, and now use it as my regular DIY calculator, it's just so powerful and customizable.

Andria

 

[RoseJ]

Thanks Andria, that will come in handy.