Too much nicotine

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Dripcloud

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Oct 21, 2014
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So far I've had mostly positive effects from switching from smoking cigs to vaping, but the one negative effect is the amount of nicotine I take in. When I was smoking cigs I would smoke somewhere like 10-12 cigs a day, which is around 12-14mg of nicotine. But now that I vape, I can do it pretty much anywhere at anytime, and e juice is much cheaper, and there's no limit to how much I can vape unless the battery dies or if I run out of juice. So the amount of nicotine I take in is much greater. On a normal day I'd vape around 2.5-3ml of 24mg which is about 50-60 cigs. Today I went through about 80... That's a lot of frickin cigs. I used to use 12 and 18mg liquid, but the problem is that I don't get enough nicotine per hit, and that's big for me. And I can't seem to control myself on how much I vape. Usually it's not a problem as long as I stay hydrated, but hitting the 80 mark today made me feel like ...... How much nicotine is considered dangerous? I know that most of the people I know would have thrown up by now from the amount of nicotine I've consumed.
 

Rickajho

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You have the math wrong. You only absorb about 1/4 to 1/3 of the nicotine in liquids. Vaping is not an efficient nicotine delivery system. If you are going through 3 ml's of 24 mg's/ml liquids in a day you are only taking in between 18 and 24 mg's total nicotine, which by your math would be equivalent to between 15 and 20 of your cigarettes.
 
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Nate5700

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Oct 22, 2014
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My question would be: If you vape 1 mL of 18 mg liquid, how much of that nicotine does your body actually absorb? My understanding is that there's a lot more nicotine in a cigarette than 1 mg, but ~1 mg per cig is what your body absorbs. How does this translate to vaping?

Edit: Looks like Rickajho addressed this while I was still posting. Thanks!
 

Grimwald

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I went thru some regulating at about the 2-3 month mark. I was a very heavy chain smoker and started with 24mg liquid (using about 6mil per day). Anyway,after a couple of months I started getting lightheaded, anxiety, etc...so began to cut back by lowering the nic in my liquid. I dropped slowly, trying to find the right balance. Sometimes I would do 12-15mg for awhile but definitely 18-21mg in the morning. Today, after 2+ years I'm using 6mg.

If you have the symptoms of too much nicotine, cut your liquid with some VG, or order lower levels.

If you have cravings, go back up.

It can be a real balancing act for awhile.
 

Amraann

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You also need to consider the gear that your vaping on.

Possibly you should have one set up with high nic and another with lower. Hit the high one for a
bit when you need the nic then switch to the lower one for the chain vaping.

You also need to remember that the body does not absorb the same amount of nic fom e-cigs as it does real ones. I think your calculations about how many real cigs your vaping would equal is off.

There is a formula for figuring out how much nic your getting and its equal to the nic you get from real ones.
Maybe someone else has the link and will post it for you.
 

Amraann

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Is 96mg of nicotine in one day dangerous though? How much is too much? I know it's definitely not healthy, but having 80 cigs worth of nicotine in one day is still probably more healthy than smoking 12 cigs

Read my above post. You did not actually absorb that much nic into your system.
 

Dripcloud

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Oct 21, 2014
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Oh ok thanks rickajho, I had no idea that you only absorb 1/4 to 1/3 of the nicotine from vaping. I would have assumed you absorb more considering there are only 4 ingredients in e liquid, and thousands in cigarettes, making it easier for your body to absorb the nicotine. But I never actually researched that. Now it makes sense how I could vape so much nicotine in a day without puking my guts out
 

Archer74

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I read that not all of the nicotine is absorbed and it also depends on the power of the device being used. Anywhere from 20-60% of it is absorbed earlier cigalike models being lower and newer more powerful mods on the high end. Also nicotine has a half life of 1-2hours but some sources say 1-4hours due to differences in a persones metabolism. Its metabolic by-products needs around 3 days to be completely flushed out. Oh and how much also depends on your style of vaping. The longer you hold the vapor in your lungs the more gets absorbed.
 
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Alien Traveler

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You have the math wrong. You only absorb about 1/4 to 1/3 of the nicotine in liquids. Vaping is not an efficient nicotine delivery system. If you are going through 3 ml's of 24 mg's/ml liquids in a day you are only taking in between 18 and 24 mg's total nicotine, which by your math would be equivalent to between 15 and 20 of your cigarettes.

Recently I have seen a bit different number on ECF: vaper absorbs about 1/2 of nicotine in juice.
 

Alien Traveler

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I read that not all of the nicotine is absorbed and it also depends on the power of the device being used. Anywhere from 20-60% of it is absorbed earlier cigalike models being lower and newer more powerful mods on the high end. Also nicotine has a half life of 1-2hours but some sources say 1-4hours due to differences in a persones metabolism. Its metabolic by-products needs around 3 days to be completely flushed out. Oh and how much also depends on your style of vaping. The longer you hold the vapor in your lungs the more gets absorbed.

Not true. To get rid on all traces of nicotine intake body needs more than 2 weeks (some say even 4 weeks).
 

Bored2Tears

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I'm no scientist or doctor, but I do trust my body to tell me how much is too much. If it is making you feel ill.... Well, clearly it's too much. I can tolerate more junk food than my wife. She gets sick if she eats at almost any fast food restaurant. I can't eat it every single day, but I can hit a drive thru without that violent reaction. I seem to be able to chain vape a 12 ml liquid but not any higher. My body starts to tell me in a variety of ways.
 

AzPlumber

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Here is a small portion quoted from research done by Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos. This study was done using 18mg liquid.

"The results of the study showed that nicotine absorption from e-cigarettes was significantly lower compared to tobacco cigarettes. In reality, 5 minutes of use led to 1/3rd to 1/4th plasma nicotine levels compared to smoking 1 tobacco cigarette. The new-generation device was much more efficient in nicotine delivery, with nicotine levels being 35-72% higher than those observed by using the first-generation device. In fact, even after 1 hour of use, users could not obtain plasma nicotine levels similar to smoking 1 cigarette in 5 minutes."
 

Stosh

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In another work (or even in the same one) was shown graph of nicotine level in vaper's blood that was above that of smoker and continued to grow (but experiment was conveniently stopped...)

Haven't seen a study showing the nicotine level in a vaper's blood above that of a smoker, and certainly not in Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos study. His results are shown here....Nicotine absorption from electronic cigarette use: comparison between first and new-generation devices : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

He found it took 35 minutes of steady vaping 18 mg liquid on an EVIC set to 9 watts with a EVOD topper to reach the same nicotine blood level that smoking one cigarette for 5 minutes produces.

He further stated in the study....
Based on the results of this study, showing very low levels of nicotine absorption from using ECs in a similar way to smoking one tobacco cigarette, it seems that nicotine levels in EC liquids should be close to 50 mg/ml in order to approximate nicotine delivery from smoking.
 

Nishi

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Aug 4, 2014
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I chain vaped while trying to quit the smokes. The usual 12mg/ml nic liquid was making me light headed, so I switched to 6mg/ml and kept one clearo/tank with the 12mg/ml for a few hits.
Now that I've got the cravings for smokes reduced to a minimum, I vape 6 mg/ml all day and evenings onwards 3mg/ml nic liquids.

From my personal experience, I would say that while it's alright to vape higher level nic or chain vape for the initial switch over from analogs to PVs, it's best to try and cut down whichever way one can, if one has been a light smoker and realize that the less restrictive in nature vaping is making one go overboard.
 
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