Too much Menthol?

[Grody]

Hi, I've been vaping on and off for a couple years, but this past 4-6 weeks I developed a brutal rash on my forehead. Here's what's changed:

2 years ago I started vaping and went from 2+ packs a day, to 2 smokes a day, and remained there for months. Then Health Canada started intercepting my orders, and Totally Wicked wouldn't ship to me anymore. No problems or rashes in all of that time.

The TW flavors I was on were first Menthol, and then Eucalyptus.

I vaped all day long. More than most people, and never had a problem.

Fast forward to 2 months ago, and my decision to get back on e-cigs full time again. But since TW was out of the question, I ordered some American made e-liquid, and mixed it with Menthol crystals. I didn't measure it, just filled a bottle with crystals, added a bit of PG, and ran it under hot water. Then I poured it into unflavoured liquid. It was VERY minty, and my girlfriend couldn't even take one puff without coughing, but I enjoyed it.

Anyways. 2 days ago, after 4 weeks of purging everything from my diet, changing soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, etc, I decided to try vaping an old bottle of Chinese e-liquid I had, and now my rash is going away.

Now here's my question:

Is it from all of the Menthol Crystals I was using? Maybe running up my face all day long?

Or could it be the American e-liquid?

Health Canada is cracking down again, and I'm loading up on e-liquid now. I have 15 bottles of American e-liquid, but now I'm afraid to use it. I also don't want to use the Menthol crystals to flavour it.

I'm currently vaping some 2+ year old, discoloured Chinese liquid, but it's kind of gross, and I'm not sure if it's all that healthy either. But I don't want to risk getting the rash, and I don't want to go back to 2 packs a day.

Has anyone experienced problems with Menthol Crystals?

Or has anyone had reactions to American liquid, which they didn't get with liquids from China or the UK?

Thanks

 

[aprioristic]

Seems like maybe you just put way too much menthol... and yes it could be "the problem" if not a serious health concern. You can get at least a rough idea how much menthol is in your blend by measuring say, 1/4tsp + 10ml PG or something. Without some info on how much menthol you bought, how much PG you used, and how much of that solution you then put in how much ejuice, I can't even venture a guess at how far over guidelines for addition to food you are.

 

[Grody]

I bought two big bags of Menthol Crystals off Ebay 1+ years ago.

I'd jam as many as I could into an empty 30ml bottle, then put some PG on top of it, and run it under hot water until it dissolved. So the solution was mostly menthol.

Then I'd mix that with unflavoured 36mg liquid, maybe 1/5 menthol, 4/5 36mg. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

 

[aprioristic]

"Big bag" isn't very helpful heh. I think menthols is very soluble but haven't messed around with the crystals, so if you are having some trouble getting them to go into solution and needed to heat, it must have been near its threshold. 1/5th of that then is a lot IMO... I put a single drop in like 6ml and it is plenty to me. Again, think you are just using way too much and it could very well be the source of problems.

 

[jlarsen]

My wife is allergic to cinnamon. She used to smoke menthols, no problem. She did have an allergic reaction to mentholatum, which contains menthol, and camphor - camphor and cinnamon come from the same tree. So I'm thinking it was the camphor, not the menthol in the mentholatum that gave her the reaction. It could be that the menthol crystals you used contained some camphor as well, a lot of menthol products also contain camphor. Do you have problems with cinnamon burning/blistering your mouth?

 

[mianker]

I bought two big bags of Menthol Crystals off Ebay 1+ years ago.

I'd jam as many as I could into an empty 30ml bottle, then put some PG on top of it, and run it under hot water until it dissolved. So the solution was mostly menthol.

Then I'd mix that with unflavoured 36mg liquid, maybe 1/5 menthol, 4/5 36mg. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

grody I suggest you check a coouple of things.
1) Check the mg on the Chinese liquid that you can vape w/o problems. The liquid you are mixing would be close to 36mg which is high nicotene content.
2) Try to find out what percentages of PG, VG and nicotene both the Chinese and American juices are to see if one has a lot more or less of an ingredient.

Due to allergies I DIY all my juices and menthol is one of my 2 current juice flavors. It really doesn't take much to flavor the juice. You really have a lot of variables going on and to find out where the reaction is coming from you need to look at everything you were and are using. It took me a few months to be sure what was causing my problems.

 

[Grody]

"Big bag" isn't very helpful heh. I think menthols is very soluble but haven't messed around with the crystals, so if you are having some trouble getting them to go into solution and needed to heat, it must have been near its threshold. 1/5th of that then is a lot IMO... I put a single drop in like 6ml and it is plenty to me. Again, think you are just using way too much and it could very well be the source of problems.

The bags were sandwich baggies, maybe 1/2-3/4 full. I'd probably add 20-40 drops to 6ml.

Do you have problems with cinnamon burning/blistering your mouth?

I rarely eat cinnamon. The only thing I recall is cinnamon gum making my tongue feel weird, which is why I won't chew it.

Anyways, it's been 2.5 days since I've used my home made liquid, and my rash is 80% gone. So I'm now sure it was caused by the liquid.

Some other side effects that may be related:

My cuticles were completly dried out. 100s of dollars worth of lotions, creams, and oils didn't help. I was only able to get it under control by drinking an extra 2 litres of water each day. If I missed a day of water, they'd dry right out again. So the menthol may have been dehydrating me.

Couldn't build muscle. Despite working out 3 days a week, and hiking 5 days a week. The only thing happening was weight loss, which I don't really need. (5 11", 170lbs.)

Muscle weakness.

Trouble sleeping.

Dry lips.

Feeling that my glasses were tightening around my temples.

Tooth pain.

Maybe some hair loss.

Had a physical last week, and looking at the lab results online, my creatinine levels are a bit low. Normal is 70-120, mine is 68. Haven't talked to the doctor about it yet, so not sure if it's related, or even cause for concern. AST levels are also high, 43 versus <35 for normal.

 

[Grody]

grody I suggest you check a coouple of things.
1) Check the mg on the Chinese liquid that you can vape w/o problems. The liquid you are mixing would be close to 36mg which is high nicotene content.
2) Try to find out what percentages of PG, VG and nicotene both the Chinese and American juices are to see if one has a lot more or less of an ingredient.

Due to allergies I DIY all my juices and menthol is one of my 2 current juice flavors. It really doesn't take much to flavor the juice. You really have a lot of variables going on and to find out where the reaction is coming from you need to look at everything you were and are using. It took me a few months to be sure what was causing my problems.

I believe that the Chinese stuff is 28 or 36. It doesn't say on the bottle, but I'd always get the highest nicotine content I could.

I will look into VG/PG content. Whatever Totally Wicked does for their Regular and Decadent lines is perfect for me. Like I said, I was smoking that stuff, 36mg, all day long, without any problems last year.

I would really like to recreate the Decadent Mentholyptus flavour, but I'm not sure what they were putting in it. That's the flavor I was going for by adding all of the Menthol to unflavoured liquid. Just pure minty taste, without the tobacco like after taste.

 

[Zal42]

The bags were sandwich baggies, maybe 1/2-3/4 full. I'd probably add 20-40 drops to 6ml.

That does seem like an insanely large amount of menthol! Like aprioristic says, menthol is very potent stuff. I find that using it at 1-2% results in a good, strong menthol flavor. I'd consider 5% to be extreme but can see how some people would like it. You're at 20%.

According to the MSDS for menthol, it can trigger allergic reactions (including dermatitis, which is what you had) in people who are sensitive to it. I would imagine that at your dosage this is more likely. I would suspect the menthol as causing your symptoms and try it at a much lower concentration.

I would really like to recreate the Decadent Mentholyptus flavour, but I'm not sure what they were putting in it.

Based on the name, I would think it also included eucalyptus.

 

[aprioristic]

I'm not going to even bother taking a guess still, but just way too much menthol. Menthol is deteced at like .03% or lower. You were vaping like 15-30% menthol solution.

There's some guidelines here, not for inhalation but you are roughly 3x the allowable level for menthol to be used in fragrance (smelling, let alone inhaling or touching skin). Then it is probably hundreds of times whatever amount you should be letting touch skin tissue. I kind of wonder if you might have dysgeusia (lack of taste) since you are able to handle that and not be bothered, but I don't really know what I am talking about.

 

[Katmandu]

Grody,

There are still Canadian vendors that will sell you fresh ejuice with nic. Send me a pm.