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- Thread starter AndriaD
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Calcilculcelcol
Member For 4 Years
Welcome Andria we just start Party get dressing now and lets Gooooo!! 
AndriaD
Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
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ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Well, lessee... I smoked since 1975. January (this year) I was about fed up with freezing my arse off on the front porch, so I got interested in e-cigs. Found the ECF via google; learned a ton of useful info, got myself an eRoll, and quit smoking on Feb 27 (this year). That went swimmingly for over 3 months, all the while I accumulated more and more cooler and cooler vape gear, although I also began to experience some fairly uncomfortable side effects of vaping -- dehydration so intense that my feet and ankles swelled up and hurt a lot -- which is because I have to vape a very high level, 80%-85%, of PG; VG just flat out smothers me, it's so heavy; it made me cough and gasp worse than cigarettes ever did.
June 15, I woke up quite ill, upset stomach, pain, diarrhea, just awful, and within about 24 hrs, the pain had turned into agony I had never experienced before, not with childbirth, caesarian, nor many abscessed teeth, so off I went to the emergency room, where it was determined that I was suffering from acute appendicitis. Obviously that bugger had to go, and I was proud and delighted to pronounce myself a non-smoker, and even general anesthesia provoked zero breathing problems, despite the fact that I have asthma, and before Feb of this year, had smoked for 39 yrs. So, since I had the laparoscopic version of appendectomy, and had zero complications from surgery, I was released the same day, with very little pain.
However, over the next few days, the complications of all this did set in -- the infection itself which caused the appendicitis, reaction from the powerful antibiotics they used while I was in surgery, and the gas with which they "inflated" my abdomen to make the laparoscopy possible -- all of which provoked horrible nausea and vomiting, so I went for about 3 days with no food, no vaping, not even any water-drinking since it just made me gag anytime I tried it, while taking a pill. When this finally cleared, I found myself assaulted mercilessly by cigarette cravings, and by the fact that when I had quit before, I had done it at my own pace, in my own time, with cigarettes on-hand if it got to be too much for me -- this time it was feeling like it was being DONE TO ME, instead of it being my own choice, which just pissed me off. So I gave in and smoked.
So, I'm still smoking, though not a great deal. And I'm back to vaping, though again, not so very much; yesterday I went to the local B&M, The Vaping Shack, spent an hour or so trying out some new flavors, and ended up vaping so much that by the time I got home, I had those little sharp stomach pains that say 'too much nicotine!' and when I went to bed last night, I noticed that my ankles had swelled -- and I had leg cramps during the night, always a dead giveaway that I'm seriously dehydrated. So today I'm not vaping too much, while not going nuts on the cigarettes either.
While I was so sick in bed, what kept occurring to me was, why do I need to do either? At the time, obviously, I didn't; now, what I'm questioning is, why do I need to do either, so much that they actually hurt me? Vaping is harm reduction, but it's not "free" -- there is a definite cost to my body, if I vape regularly and frequently. And of course I already know the cost of smoking a pk a day of cigarettes; lots of mucus, coughing, coughing up, and being prone to much bronchial mayhem if I catch a cold, thanks both to smoking AND my asthma; and of course, the well-known potential of cigarettes to cause cancer. At the moment, I'm trying to practice harm reduction with both vaping and smoking -- to do neither so much that it brings this huge cost to my still-recuperating body. For the future? I don't really know. Obviously it would be better if I could leave cigarettes alone entirely, primarily *because* of that cancer potential. But what I'd like to get to is the ability to vape instead of smoke, without vaping so much that it also brings a huge debt to my body.
And no, I have zero interest in "Snus," and have no intention of trying it; it sounds disgusting to me, which is my own personal opinion, and unlikely to change.
So that's my vaping "journey," to date.
Andria
June 15, I woke up quite ill, upset stomach, pain, diarrhea, just awful, and within about 24 hrs, the pain had turned into agony I had never experienced before, not with childbirth, caesarian, nor many abscessed teeth, so off I went to the emergency room, where it was determined that I was suffering from acute appendicitis. Obviously that bugger had to go, and I was proud and delighted to pronounce myself a non-smoker, and even general anesthesia provoked zero breathing problems, despite the fact that I have asthma, and before Feb of this year, had smoked for 39 yrs. So, since I had the laparoscopic version of appendectomy, and had zero complications from surgery, I was released the same day, with very little pain.
However, over the next few days, the complications of all this did set in -- the infection itself which caused the appendicitis, reaction from the powerful antibiotics they used while I was in surgery, and the gas with which they "inflated" my abdomen to make the laparoscopy possible -- all of which provoked horrible nausea and vomiting, so I went for about 3 days with no food, no vaping, not even any water-drinking since it just made me gag anytime I tried it, while taking a pill. When this finally cleared, I found myself assaulted mercilessly by cigarette cravings, and by the fact that when I had quit before, I had done it at my own pace, in my own time, with cigarettes on-hand if it got to be too much for me -- this time it was feeling like it was being DONE TO ME, instead of it being my own choice, which just pissed me off. So I gave in and smoked.
So, I'm still smoking, though not a great deal. And I'm back to vaping, though again, not so very much; yesterday I went to the local B&M, The Vaping Shack, spent an hour or so trying out some new flavors, and ended up vaping so much that by the time I got home, I had those little sharp stomach pains that say 'too much nicotine!' and when I went to bed last night, I noticed that my ankles had swelled -- and I had leg cramps during the night, always a dead giveaway that I'm seriously dehydrated. So today I'm not vaping too much, while not going nuts on the cigarettes either.
While I was so sick in bed, what kept occurring to me was, why do I need to do either? At the time, obviously, I didn't; now, what I'm questioning is, why do I need to do either, so much that they actually hurt me? Vaping is harm reduction, but it's not "free" -- there is a definite cost to my body, if I vape regularly and frequently. And of course I already know the cost of smoking a pk a day of cigarettes; lots of mucus, coughing, coughing up, and being prone to much bronchial mayhem if I catch a cold, thanks both to smoking AND my asthma; and of course, the well-known potential of cigarettes to cause cancer. At the moment, I'm trying to practice harm reduction with both vaping and smoking -- to do neither so much that it brings this huge cost to my still-recuperating body. For the future? I don't really know. Obviously it would be better if I could leave cigarettes alone entirely, primarily *because* of that cancer potential. But what I'd like to get to is the ability to vape instead of smoke, without vaping so much that it also brings a huge debt to my body.
And no, I have zero interest in "Snus," and have no intention of trying it; it sounds disgusting to me, which is my own personal opinion, and unlikely to change.
So that's my vaping "journey," to date.
Andria