Reply to: eCig recommendations

[Project Monkey]

Anyone care to recommend their eCig device?

Looking around, there are SO MANY to choose from, I'm confused!

Yep, I can recommend mine, it's great

[GlenW]

Not all offices allow those using e-cigs to vape inside. They still have to go out in the cold with the smokers and look stupid. (IMHO smokers look more stupid as they aren't even trying to give up.)

Anti-smoking charities are on about getting a legal ban so all e-cig users have to go outside to vale.

All the way to Port Vale for a smoke?
Seems a bit extreme to me.

[FatLazyContractor]

Anti-smoking charities are on about getting a legal ban so all e-cig users have to go outside to vale.

The grade A w@nkers them lot!

Why don't they all find a room and ...

[SueEllen]

Not all offices allow those using e-cigs to vape inside. They still have to go out in the cold with the smokers and look stupid. (IMHO smokers look more stupid as they aren't even trying to give up.)

Anti-smoking charities are on about getting a legal ban so all e-cig users have to go outside to vale.

[Power Mortgages Ltd]

Given that they use vegetable glycol or propylene glycol as their transport mechanism, which is also used for the delivery of COPD treatments and other drugs for respiratory disease, plus a small % of nicotine and some flavourings, then it would be difficult to argue that they are toxic or dangerous.

There may be health issues with these things.

Mainly based around

1) When people smoked proper cigarettes they may smoke say ten a day - you look at e-cig users many are puffing all day long now.

2) The long term impact of continually inhaling water vapour is unknown but early signs are that it can lead to lung impairment/disease.

I think if use one instead of a cigarette then obviously they are better for you

but continued long term usage....

well we shall see

Up until recently I had used e-cigs for around 3 years or so. What you say Original PM is very true. I used to smoke around 5-8 cigarettes a day and once I started with the e-cig, the fact I didn't have to go out in the cold, I could keep working whilst getting my fix and the habit of it meant I basically puffed away on it all day. I would go through between 2-3ml a day of e-liquid which for anyone who uses one of these things will know is on the rather high side. Put into perspective I found out that would equate to around 60+ cigarettes a day!

I started to get a dull ache in my stomach about a year or so ago and as it didn't hurt, it was just a slight annoyance as well as being the typical bloke, I ignored it thinking it would self cure but it didn't. I eventually went to the Dr and after a number of tests and a scan I was told I had fatty liver, something commonly associated with alcoholics! This surprised me as I am not a big drinker so could confidently say it wasn't alcohol related but decided to cut right back on my alcohol consumption anyway to just drinking on special occasions only.

Prior to going to the Dr I had wondered if it was anything to do with my excessive e-cig use so stopped using the thing and did take up smoking cigarettes again. After being told it was a fatty liver I reduced my drinking to the point where I think I have drank about twice in the last 6 months! My dull ache reduced over the months until we got to New Years when I promised the better half I would give up smoking. At that stage I thought I would go back to the e-cig to help me off the cigarettes and whilst I didn't go back to using as much as I did previously, I was still smoking the e-cig more than the equivalent number of cigarettes I used to have per day. The dull ache slowly started to come back again so I did some research online.

I found an article online which stated that propylene glycol, one of the main ingredients in e-liquid can cause liver damage. I appreciate this stuff is in a lot of different consumables like foods but I wonder if the amounts they put in foods is so low compared to the amount you get when you vape, especially in large enough quantities and whether ingesting it is not as bad as inhaling it? Needless to say I have given up vaping again and although it is hard, I haven't gone back to smoking so am going the good old cold turkey route. I have noticed the dull ache reducing slightly and it has only been 2 weeks since putting down the ecig again.

I firmly believe that vaping, within reason, is better than smoking due to the long term effects of smoking which you don't have with vaping. However, I think as with anything, excess is bad thing and I think to that degree e-cigs can be harmful. The best way of vaping is to vape when you would have smoked a cigarette and no more, replace the cigarette with an ecig, like for like. Sadly I didn't follow that practice and having the ecig to hand constantly vaping became a habit I couldn't break and I think that is why I vaped so much. Once you are constantly vaping you are replacing one bad habit with another and whilst I haven't had any official tests done to prove it is the ecig causing my liver pains, having done my own tests and reading up online, I am reasonably sure that is the cause.

Thankfully the Dr advised that the liver can regenerate itself so I have to try and be a little more healthy now! The Dr did say that a large number of the population also have fatty liver, they just don't know about it.

[TestMangler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VkupYT0LFQ

I'll concede defeat when that advert appears on prime time TV

[TykeMerc]

I am not saying they are worse than smoking for you.

Just saying they may not be as healthy as they are being marketed that it all.

It's quite clear that you have fallen for the negative hype that the rabid anti smoking lobby are pushing. They make a massive fuss when some lab turns up a compound in a test that could be (has been proven on a fair few occasions) simple contamination, poor practice or simple background quantities.
The likes of ASH have a campaign aim of eliminating anything that even looks like smoking and are happy to push all the NRT products that the pharma companies make a lovely big profit off despite there being a success rate of between 3 and 8% for all NRT approaches.

FYI Vegetable Glycerine (VG) is routinely used in food production, is the base in childrens and adults cough medicines and has had decades of use in liquid and vapourised forms.
Polypropylene Glycol (PG) quite apart from being in all asthma inhalers is used in hospital air conditioning as a disinfectant, is in hundreds of pharma products and day to day items like makeup and baby wipes.

Mixtures of VG and PG are used in smoke machines in clubs and pubs

I actively disagree with marketing eCigs (a name I've hated for years) at all let alone as "healthy", if they have to be advertised then as a less damaging alternative to combusted tobacco is the limit.

I've been vaping for the better part of 5 years now. I never intended to stop my more or less chain smoking habit either, I got my first vaping kit to use in airports and on planes. The "it's only water vapour" statement is complete drivel, the vapour you see is PG or VG in a semi evaporated state.

[original PM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VkupYT0LFQ

[TestMangler]

I am not saying they are worse than smoking for you.

Just saying they may not be as healthy as they are being marketed that it all.

Don't think I've ever seen them marketed as 'healthy'. Less unhealthy yes, healthy no.

[original PM]

I am not saying they are worse than smoking for you.

Just saying they may not be as healthy as they are being marketed that it all.

[TestMangler]

No there is not - and that is the point - these things have suddenly taken off in the last 5 years and no one knows the long term effects

And if no water vapour is involved can someone tell me what it transporting those lovely strawberry flavours onto your taste buds???

And also linky

Read back on the thread. it is vegetable Glycol or Propylene glycol. This is also used as the transport mechanism for vapourised drug delivery (for COPD and other lung disease) so if it is harmful, the nHS are pumping it into people on a daily basis.

Not surprised about the info in the linky. They pumped mice full of human sized doses. That would be likely to kill/maim them if it was pretty much anything. Force a mouse to drink a pint of water in five mins and see what happens

[Pondlife]

No there is not - and that is the point - these things have suddenly taken off in the last 5 years and no one knows the long term effects

And if no water vapour is involved can someone tell me what it transporting those lovely strawberry flavours onto your taste buds???

And also linky

No, your assertion was that people who use eCigs are using them more than they would regular cigarettes.
"1) When people smoked proper cigarettes they may smoke say ten a day - you look at e-cig users many are puffing all day long now."

and that using an eCig leads to an addiction to the 'act' of smoking
"2) You still get the physical addiction of the act of 'smoking'"

Neither of which are true in my demonstrated experience.

[original PM]

Any statistical evidence to back this up?

I used to smoke 20+ a day and swapped to eCigs about a year ago.

1. I don't bother with it during the day anymore and only use it with booze.
2. Whereas a cig would take approx 10 drags with an eCig 1-3 cures the craving
3. I don't use it in any routine like people do with cigs.

So IMHO your post is basically bollox.

No there is not - and that is the point - these things have suddenly taken off in the last 5 years and no one knows the long term effects

And if no water vapour is involved can someone tell me what it transporting those lovely strawberry flavours onto your taste buds???

And also linky

[d000hg]

Ok, then apply it for everything in life. Let's see how far we get.

No more alcohol
No more bacon
No more fizzy drinks
No more fish
No more caffiene
No more jogging

Only and sleeping!

You're just making the same argument with more words. Fizzy drinks are bad for you so smoking AND fizzy drinks can't be worse.

[FatLazyContractor]

How is "you are already exposed to some toxins" an argument for "so a few more won't hurt"?

Ok, then apply it for everything in life. Let's see how far we get.

No more alcohol
No more bacon
No more fizzy drinks
No more fish
No more caffiene
No more jogging

Only and sleeping!