How much nicotine are we truly getting?

[Arrowmunda]

I know there are some tests and stuff saying we absorb the nicotine differently and only at about 40% compared to stinkies, but I'm left wondering how much we really get. ..

Take today for example I was out with friends and family and didn't vape at all as I forgot my vamo and twist at home and I still haven't used them today and I actually feel ok, I mean don't get me wrong - I enjoy vaping and I WANT to vape, I just don't NEED to if that makes sense?

I only quit 6 weeks or something like that ago and have dropped from 18mg to 12 mg and I can't tell a difference?

To sum it all up I haven't vaped all day and I feel fine, maybe a little on edge and wondered if this was normal or have I been vaping wrong all this time and not really absorbing the nicotine? Lol

Has anyone else felt like this? Or am I just weird?

[Bluefish]

I don't believe it's the nic that most of us need, it's the hand to mouth action. met a couple at work t'other day and they both have been vaping for about 2 years and are now vaping at 1mg per ml, so their defo not doing it for the nic.

[zeldamum]

Nicotine whilst highly addictive has no withdrawal symptoms. It the hand mouth action people most miss and think its the nicotine.

For me it was the going outside and having 'me' time. Still much prefer vaping.

[dragon]

May 27, 2013 4:17:17 GMT zeldamum said:

Nicotine whilst highly addictive has no withdrawal symptoms. It the hand mouth action people most miss and think its the nicotine.

For me it was the going outside and having 'me' time. Still much prefer vaping.

For me it was the going outside too, a few moments of "I'm currently unavailable."

I did try a few years ago to go outside for a carrot instead. Unfortunately standing outside in the rain for a carrot, did seem a little ridiculous. 

I now vape inside, instead of smoke outside, and weirdly I don't miss it, which has the added advantage, that if I get overtaken with the sudden urge for a carrot, then I can enjoy it without an umbrella

I started at 18mg, within a couple of weeks I went to 14 or 11 and am now stable at 6mg. I have tried to go to 0nic, which convinced me that nicotine is definitely a part of the puzzle.

[Perpetua]

The hand to mouth habit, seeing vapour is certainly a large part of being able to stay with vaping rather than smoking for me as well. Although I do still like my nicotine and doubt that I'd be able to go all day without some of it, I start to feel a bit stressy/anxious after a couple of hours without.

I'd leave home with a couple of packs of cigs plus a couple of lighters in my bag, I still do the same with my ecigs . . . it's the last thing I check I've got before leaving home.

[Sandra (aka Chillax)]

The hand to mouth and inhale/exhale is the biggest part but I still need my Nic, I can go ages without vaping, much longer than I could without a fag, but I can enjoy something without Nic but after a bit I am craving a hit.

[rich64]

I ,d agree with everything said so far (well almost everything as im not so sure that when i went to nightclubs many many years ago now , standing with my mates at the edge of the dance floor with a cigarette hanging from the side of my mouth that id have felt quite so cool if id replaced the cigarette with a carrot ... but then in reality, latter teenage years "coolness " to the girls i was convinced i was impressing id probably not look any less silly with a carrot as a cigarette in my mouth .

Anyways... i digress ......I think (and just my theory )alot of smokers have addictive personalities , so vaping more than makes up for the loss of smoked nicotine and already i ve managed to drop my nic content without really even noticing (only from 24 to 18 but its a start) but my "smokers mind" is kept real busy reading as much as i can on my new found obsession that is vaping.

As for how much nic compared to the roll ups i smoked i do think im getting around the same but i ve noticed i dont get the slight dizziness from vaping as i did from smoking after having gone for a long time without a nicotine fix ... but then maybe that feeling was nt the nic but the smoke itself and other chemicals involved.

I read an article the other day from a scientist (or i assumed he was) explaining that its much harder to gage nicotine taken in by vaping as opposed to smoking as so many different factors involved in vaping....(Ill try later on to refind the article)

cheers

[punisher]

i personally think some use to high nic content
i use 4 mm now but with recent probs i upped this to 12 just in case i needed the boost
also i have an order of 18mg my wife ordered and ive been using this the last 3 days feels like my heart is jumping out of my chest and im guessing if i had my blood pressure checked it would be through the roof so today its back to 4 mg i might even go to 2mg
if i need more nic ill just vape more its easier to vape 5 mls of 2mg than make 1 ml of 10mg last all day

just my 2 sense worth

btw i smoked aprox 50 rollies a day

[giles]

There's research that says that experienced vapers take in more nic than newbies.

Dunno about you, but I found a good nic level when I started and since then I've never tried to cut down, (other than experimenting with 0 nic for a bit).

Maybe we should all reduce nic level as a matter of course after the first few weeks

[vereybowring]

A lot of it is the hand to mouth action as people have said for many people.

I on the other hand can't go too long without a nicotine fix.
After a while without nicotine I start to get some classic withdrawal symptoms, restlessness, headache,blurry vision (with flashing light type effects sometimes too) etc. just like I did when trying to quit analogues. When trying to quit analogues my GP at the time said I had a strong addiction to the nicotine and advised me to keep smoking - not something doctors usually say.
When I first started I used 18 mg/ml liquid but quickly found I was having to vape pretty much constantly.
I went up to 20mg/ml and while it was better I was still vaping a lot of the time.
After a while I tried to lower back down and limit use to not vape any extra and managed a couple of days before symptoms started so I just went back to 20mg/ml.

Since then I have increased strength twice initially to 24mg/ml and then to 26mg/ml which I currently use most of the time. This was to reduce the quantity of liquid I was using and the frequency. I used to use between 8-12 mls a day of 20mg/ml. The 24mg/ml was a bit less and now the 26mg/ml has seen me some days use as little as 5-8 mls.
This is not set in stone either as I use fruit flavours at 18mg/ml for flavour reason but have to have a good blast of stronger stuff to stave off cravings after a while. Also at particularly stressful times 26mg/ml isn't enough and I have 36mg/ml on standby.

We are all different and our addiction manifests differently. The majority of smokers are more psychologically addicted to the feeling and action whereas myself and no doubt some others have quite a strong physical/chemical addiction to nicotine (apparently once the chemical receptors are formed within your brain, which varies person to person, you never lose them - why ex-smokers can lapse after decades).

I'm just glad vaping came into my life so I could feed my little chemical receptor pleasure centres without having to cough my lungs out.

EDIT: I still get the nice buzz from nicotine when I haven't vaped for a while, like going 2 hours at work before getting a break for instance.

[djs]

May 27, 2013 6:06:12 GMT dragon said:

I did try a few years ago to go outside for a carrot instead. Unfortunately standing outside in the rain for a carrot, did seem a little ridiculous. 

Not at all, neigh.

I personally subscribe to the theory that my nicotine intake is way lower than when i was smoking. Either that or the other chemicals in fags was what made me so hooked.

No cravings for me... and that's on 1.5ml a day.

[grim]

Whether it's "scientific" fact or not there is lots of hearsay that some of our dependency was to other chemicals in the smoke as well as nicotine. So we had a habit to nic to the actions of smoking and to other chemicals- many possibly added to tobacco by big T for that purpose. There is also lots of hearsay evid. that the nicotine element in those three is NOT the biggest factor in the depndency hence many of us vapers seem to be able to reduce the nic intake.

[Deleted]

I know I'm addicted to nicotine. I just accept that and get on with it whilst trying to get a maintenance dose as low as possible. I want to come off the nicotine one day but we'll see. I also crave the other nasties in cigs (real cigs) when really unwell...

Tis just one of those things for me

But if you feel you don't need it then then good on you. Vaping is fab isn't it

[lobeydosser]

Over the past 15 years, I have given up smoking many times.
Although a difficult thing for me to do, I have achieved that state too many times to count.
What I have never been able to do was to Stay Stopped.

2 months, 3 months, 6 months, a whole year and finally the last time, 18 months!!

Nicotine is a drug and whether you like it or not, it does have a calming effect on the brain and when the brain gets itself into a state of stress, it wants to be calmed.

Now a non smoker will recognise that the stress level is going too high and demand the person gets out of that situation.
On the other-hand, the ex-smoker's brain will crave a cigarette. Oh and when I say crave, I mean a craving that you have never experienced in your life before. A craving where you will step on your dearly beloved if they try to stop you getting to that shop to buy a pack of fags and a lighter, type craving.

The strange thing is that as soon as you have that pack in your hand and even before you open the pack, let alone light up, you immediately start to calm down.
In otherwords, it is not the actual nicotine that does the bizz, it is the knowledge that you now have the means/medicine to bring a sense of calmness back into your life.

No one can say when the next stressful situation will come along that will trigger the brain into wanting the calming effect that, as an ex-smoker, it will demand a nicotine fix, but as an ex-smoker, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will come sometime, it will have nothing to do with smoking or not smoking and it will bite you in the bum when you least expect it.

Today I vape. Yes, like many of you I intend to cut down from my present 24mg to about 18mg, but I will do it slowly over the next several years and I have no intention, at this moment, of going any lower than 18mg.
I have been too badly scarred in the past from having big ideas about cutting out nicotine altogether and thinking I had cracked it by being off it for what I thought to be "a long time".

Oh, and even if I do manage the 18mg level, I will still have a few 10ml bottles of the 30 & 36mg in the bottom of my box, just in case of a highly stressful period.

Just because you have managed a year or so on a low nic level, don't pat yourself on the back just yet. Maybe in 4 or 5 years time you can start to think that perhaps this time you have actually cracked it.

[Bamble]

For me I'm almost certain that it's the combination of all three - hand to mouth action, the inhaling and exhaling of 'smoke', and the nicotine. As soon as I got my first vaping setup, cigarettes didn't interest me. Vaping provides what I need with the added bonus of flavour experimentation and also the 'gadget' element.

Anyway - I always thought that nicotine itself isn't harmful in any way, and it was all the other chemicals (tar, benzine etc) that damage your health. Is this right? If so I'm looking forward to a longer life

Also, will switching from cigs to vaping improve lung capacity and physical fitness? Wasn't sure about this as you are still filling your lungs with vapour and in turn using them to process what you inhale into your bloodstream. I'm a martial artist and would be very interested of opinions on this.