What they don't tell you about vaping...

Okay, this is going to be a pretty lengthy back story as to why I consider vaping to be more hazardous to your health and mental well being when taking the plunge to ditch the dreaded cigarettes, but if something isn't said then more and more of you will be kept in the dark.

Here is my personal story on what my family and I had to live through for the past 2 years.

I'm 24 years old, soon to be turning 25 and have been an on and off smoker since the age of 12, I've tried various different ways of trying to quit the "smokes".

- Nicotine patches

- Nicotine Chewing Gums

- Nicotine Inhalers

And then the one I thought that would nip all of this in the bud drastically...

-Vaping

I first heard about vaping officially back in late 2014, everybody was doing it.

Everywhere I walked someone had a vaping tank or dripper blowing out clouds of beautiful or so be it gorgeous smelling vapor into the air knowing that there were so many different flavors to choose from as well filled me with delight... So myself, my mother and disabled sister took the plunge and purchased ourselves a tank each and decided that it would be the last we would see of the "smokes".

Then unfortunately due to a family holiday back in October 2015, our tanks broke due to the pressure of the plane (I think that's what one of the vaping specialist said...) so we had to resort back to the "smokes" which we were pretty upset about as by this time we had stopped smoking for over a year...

We didn't visit another vapor parlor until March 2016, we promised ourselves that this time would be the last time and that there would be no looking back and were pretty excited about getting new tanks and flavors again, the first 4-5 months of no smoking and only vaping were pretty awesome, it was the healthiest we had been in a long while and were feeling pretty proud of ourselves that we were going to be hitting our 6 month milestone shortly...

Then we started noticing little oddities in October- November 2016, my mother first noticed that she'd have these little green blisters appear on her face, neck and back as if it had happened overnight, then her ankles would gradually start to swell, become achy and then got told by the dentist that she'd have to have a tooth removed due to rapid tooth decay.

Then it was like the domino effect as soon as she had all these symptoms, I then started to get all the symptoms although not as dramatic as hers I was getting them too.

My disabled sister actually didn't have any reactions whatsoever to the vaping so of course my mother and I were quite envious of her for this, then late November 2016 hit and it happened my mother woke up on a very early morning of a Friday (I remember it because of the events that took place afterward.) and she was frantically shaking, scratching, rubbing and scraping her nails all over her body, the palms of her hands and scraping our rug on the bottoms of her feet, barely being about to breathe due to panicking over what was happening to her.

She'd come up in all these oddly shaped hives, rashes, patches you name it, it was on every single part of her body. I jumped to action because I had seen her go through this before as she's got an allergy to penicillin, certain metals, bee stings and a anti-biotic called "Trimopthrim" and got a drowsy antihistamine and told her to take it to see if it alleviated any of the pain, or burning she was going through, after a couple of hours it did and she went back to bed but because it worried me so much I went into her bedroom with her to keep an eye on her as she's also asthmatic, but yes it's safe to say we all got a pretty sleepless night that night.

She woke up a few hours later, going through the same problem although it wasn't as horrific she still had painful itching coursing through her body but didn't associate it with anything other than that she was severely run down.

She'd carried on vaping and had been very unwell all day feeling dizzy, nauseous and just completely out of it, she'd even become feverish... We had to call the 111 service in the U.K to ask for further advice on what to do and they had suggest to go to the outpatients section at Queen Alexandra Hospital only a couple of miles away from where we live, we did that and the consultant said that it was an allergic reaction to washing powder however we strongly disagreed with her due to using the same washing powder for over a decade.

She'd been prescribed a stronger antihistamine and was sent on her way, by this time it was nearly gone midnight on the 30th November 2016, got the prescription and went home she took a tablet and went straight to bed, she woke up an hour later stumbling down the stairs, almost resorting to a crawl to get into the living room and then she passed out both myself and my sister tried to wake her up and pull her up to the sofa to no avail so I called an ambulance.

They came out on the 1st December 2016 1am in the morning, trying various different things to keep her conscious, making sure her heart and breathing were okay... the paramedic stayed with us until 4am in the morning due to having to make several calls to her colleagues to see if my mum could double up on the strong antihistamines she had been prescribed which she could, the paramedic had been amazing, stayed with my mum until she knew the coast was clear to leave her be and go to her next emergency.

However, the problem persisted and she had to go through months of pain, itchiness and hives until she made the decision to start smoking again, seeing my mum go through that was very traumatic to me because I found myself to be completely powerless and helpless not knowing what to do as all I wanted to do was take the pain away from her.

It took until late 2017 to try Vaping again, she had now made the association that it was the vaping that caused her to break out in all those hives, burning patches ETC.

But she knew what to do to stop the onset of all of this happening again, she had to resort to popping 2 antihistamines a day to keep the rashes away and it had worked until we started smoking again.

Now we're going to fast-forward to summer time 2019 when we all made the decision to quit smoking again and go to vaping trying to find alternative e-juices with lower PG and higher VG... PG is Propylene Glycol and the VG is Vegetable Glycerin... the higher the VG the lower risk you have of getting any kind of allergic reaction.

We did find an alternative way of still having our favourite e-juices, but with lower the risk which was adding extra glycerin into the e-juice it means taking some of the flavor out of the e-juice but by this time we were willing and open to trying anything to quit smoking.

We added the extra glycerin and it worked for a few weeks before my mother started to develop a ear infection which caused severe bouts of Vertigo and Tinnitus, high pitch whistling and pain around and inside the entire left ear which made every day tasks such as getting out of bed, walking, sitting still and sleeping an impossible task as it was as if she was constantly drunk on a ferry boat.

It got that bad that she had even considered taking her own life and had even said at one point that she'd rather give birth again than go through the rest of her life living with what she had to for 16 weeks straight, then it clicked one day... it was the vape... again... but instead of coming out in burning, itchy hives, it was causing irrevocable damage to her left ear as by this time it had traveled to the middle ear section of her left ear.

Despite there no longer being an infection, she now has to live with a constant high pitch whistling in her left ear, along with feeling as if it's constantly blocked when it's clear and dizzy spells, as I'm writing this she's going through Vertigo and the high pitch whistling continues.

I too have built up a severe allergic reaction to vaping myself coming up in hives, mild ear problems and restless leg syndrome and has even caused me some sleep problems.

But apparently this is more common than we had originally thought, we came across an article about a guy that was a previous vaper but he too has now permanent damage to his hearing and has even caused him hearing loss, I'll put the link into this story so you guys can have a read for yourselves.

But yes, I've seen the destruction it has caused to my mothers health over the past 2 years, and I've seen what it's done to my health over the past year.

All the time that we're smoking we're in good health, we have energy, spirits are high, positive and have more of a drive to do things, to achieve things, whereas whilst we're vaping we're lacking in energy, motivation, become depressed and well... the rest you already know... there are many different allergies when it comes to your in-take of PG...

- Scratchy Throat

- Sinus Complications

- Headaches/ Migraines

-Nausea

- Numbness in the face & tongue

-Redness & Swelling in the face & tongue

- Tinnitus

- Vertigo

-Hearing Loss

- Popcorn Lungs

And that's just a few of the symptoms that are listed on the internet, so my advice to you is... if you're considering quitting smoking any time soon please go to the doctors or chemist to ask for specialist advise on what alternative products you can use to help you on your journey as I'm considering it myself... Although smoking has thousands of different toxic chemicals in just 1 cigarette... it would seem that vaping does too. (maybe not thousands... but you get what I mean!).

I'd still much rather smoke on a cancer stick until I find my wheel power to get these products, than risk my health with vaping... As I write this I'm currently suffering with a headache and earache in my right ear however the hives have disappeared... so I'm gradually returning back to normal health whereas I'm still worried about my mothers health as she's still quite bad, I'm keeping all of my fingers and toes crossed that she makes a full recovery soon as when she's sad, in pain, sick... I'm all those things too.

I know I've already said it... but please get all the advice you can about different smoke-free products and use vaping as your very last resort, not only to save your health... but to save your sanity!

Please find the relevant links below to articles based around the dangers of vaping.

https://www.hearingreview.com/hearing-loss/can-e-cigarettes-cause-hearing-loss

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/health/vaping-marijuana-ecigarettes-sickness.html

https://yorkshirecancerresearch.org.uk/news/in-the-news-is-it-safe-to-keep-vaping

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, I hope this has given you food for thought if it has let me know your thoughts!

Lauren Greenwood.