E-Cigs

[Cuddlefish]

"Smoking" indoors is part of the apeal, but, not for nothing, I'd rather inhale nicotine vapor than chug a packs worth of cheyenne smoke everyday. In fact, I think I'm done here. Thanks for all your meaningful imput, guys.

Well, if it's about better health, just don't smoke. 

Spoken like a true non-smoker. Seriously, dude. get with it, or gtfo.

I really don't think you realize how offensive and ignorant this type of "advice" is. Asshole.

[East Coast Hustle]

Well, it's not like the nicotine in the E-cigs is good for you.

So it's more that if it's gonna kill you anyway, why choose "kill you slightly slower while you look uncool" over "kill you quicker but look cooler dying"?

I just like the "smoke at my desk" thing.

Yeah, but they lost me when I found out that TSA won't let you puff an E-cig in the airport.

[East Coast Hustle]

And Dimo, you can take offense or not, but anyone who says they can't quit smoking is just weak-minded. That's the fact of the matter, regardless of what sort of emotional reaction it inspires in you.

[AFK]

"Smoking" indoors is part of the apeal, but, not for nothing, I'd rather inhale nicotine vapor than chug a packs worth of cheyenne smoke everyday. In fact, I think I'm done here. Thanks for all your meaningful imput, guys.

Well, if it's about better health, just don't smoke. 

Spoken like a true non-smoker. Seriously, dude. get with it, or gtfo.

I really don't think you realize how offensive and ignorant this type of "advice" is. Asshole.

I don't think you realize how un-serious my "advice" is. Snookums.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, it's not like the nicotine in the E-cigs is good for you.

So it's more that if it's gonna kill you anyway, why choose "kill you slightly slower while you look uncool" over "kill you quicker but look cooler dying"?

I just like the "smoke at my desk" thing.

Yeah, but they lost me when I found out that TSA won't let you puff an E-cig in the airport.

I did (I asked a cop in Lake Charles before doing so).  But you can't take it through security.

Don't know about now, though.  This was a year or more ago.

[East Coast Hustle]

Most major airlines (at least in the US) specifically prohibit them anyway.

[navkat]

I use them exclusively now. For those in-the-know (non casual users), it's called "vaping." Kind of a penis name but googling that will cut through a lot of the sales bullshit you get from googling "e-cigarrettes."

I'm currently using Starfire Cigs which comes with a "pack" that holds a charge to re-charge the batteries, TWO battery devices and uses cartomizer technology so there's no messiness, good throat hit, consistency and good value out of each refil. It puts less strain on the battery.

I used to be a menthol smoker (raver! Hello!) but lately, I've been using the french vanilla high nicotene cartomizers. It's like blowing a cupcake and having it cum frosting in my mouth.

[kingyak]

It's like blowing a cupcake and having it cum frosting in my mouth.

They really need to put that in the ads.

[navkat]

MEDICAL GEEK PENIS MOMENT:

Q: When you smoke ciggarettes, what are you addicted to?
Nicotene, right?

Q: And what is nicotene?
Nicotene is a stimulant. The thing you're after in a cigarette is a chemical whose mechanism of action is to work as an agonist on your Sympathetic Nervous System by releasing and inhibiting the reuptake of several neurotransmitters, such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, vasopressin, et al. This is the shit that makes you feel awake, capable, on-the-ball and basically good.

Q: What, besides nicotene is in a cigarrette?
Carbon Monoxide, you say?

Well, not to get too Wiki-Fu on people but in general, CO is a CNS depressant. It's also (I'm pretty sure) neurotoxic. but let's stick with the former for awhile. What that means, is that by smoking an archaic cigarrette, you are actually working against the desired effects with some paradoxical effects and keeping your body on a constant feedback loop of needing to correct the CNS depressant effects with the lovely, blowing-a-unicorn, head-full-of-glitter, "I'm on the fucking ball" effects...which you do by getting pissed at your boss, pissed at your stupid patients and stupid customers and go out back to happy/poison yourself again.

Removing the depressant from the equation actually made me need less of the nicotene so I have the advantage of a little control right there. I never really liked the "smokey/dirty" aspect of smoking to begin with so once I was able to get my logical, science-driven mind to dominate the illogical, uneducated need to feel "throat burn" to know it's "working," I was already ahead of the game. The fact is : you actually need less nic to sate yourself than you think and the depressant effect has got you climbing an infinite mountain of needing more and more to counteract the depressant effects to get to the top.


Okay, that aside. Let's talk about the  #1 Bad Thing CO does to fuck you up for life. Oh, yeah, ykall have seen the commercials of some old black dude on a BiPAP with 5% o2 and scary messages read to you by an Ostomy pt with a mechanical voice but has the mechanism of action ever been explained to you? Has the pathophysiology ever been explained as though you were intelligent enough to comprehend? Most likely, no. Here we go:

In your aortic valve and in your Central Nervous System, you have things called "baro receptors" and "chemoreceptors." Baroreceptors do just what the name suggests: they monitor your blood's pressure...like barometric pressure. Baroreceptors tell your brain how to control the smooth muscles of your vascular system (yes, your veins and arteries are muscles) to assist your pump (heart) in maintaining necessary blood pressure changes to maintain homeostasis. Simple, right?

Okay, here's where it gets tricky. Your body doesn't actually make you take breaths based on how much oxygen you need, but rather, by how much waste you need to unload. It relies on the fact that since human beings have existed in this current form, the air contains 21% oxygen and simply throught passive/active process of inspiration and exhalation, o2 is gonna make its way into the lungs in enough quantity to get into the alveoli, attach itself to hemoglobin and perfuse every living cell at some point. Your main, MOST effective chemoreceptors, therefore, drive you to breathe without thinking about it by how much shit is in your blood, not by how much o2 you need. This is called the "carbonic drive" to breathe and it's normal in a homeostatic human.

The problem is: hemoglobin is roughly ten times more attracted to CO2 and CO than it is to plain old O2. If you're filling your alveoli with CO, you're doing a bunch of things:

1. You're quickening the process of your body needing to offload as those chemoreceptors are seeing more and more garbage present. Blind to o2 at this point, just seeing the garbage.
2. You're desensitizing those CO receptors. They are beginning to think "room air plus lit marlboro" is the new norm so when you stop smoking marlboro, they stop feeling the urgency to make you take a breath.
Your body realizes something is fucked up. You are no longer easily achieving homeostasis. The oxygen sensing chemoreceptors now wake up. You are in the beginning stages of the hypoxic drive to breathe.

What happens now is a domino effect of snowballs. As your weaker, o2 chemoreceptors start getting involved, your CO receptors get lazier and lazier. You start leaning more and more towards relying on the hypoxic drive. This is very painful and uncomfortable. Let's try an activity: Think about your breathing for a moment. Think about how much breath you need to comfortably and normally fill up your lungs...but not TOO much. Just enough. Now try to STOP thinking about your breathing and let it happen all by itself. Focus on your breathing without "getting involved." Hard to do, eh? And a little annoying. Now imagine ALWAYS being conscious...painfully conscious of your breathing: rate, tidal volume, ease, etc.

And at some point, stopping smoking won't even help anymore! Once the dominoes really get tipped, your carboxic drive just gets lazier and lazier and the hypoxic drive needs to make you work harder and harder. It gets to the point where you're afraid one day if you go to sleep, you won't wake up. "Welcome to COPD! Enjoy your new seat in the tripod position! Grab three or four pillows and get in a (semi-fowler) position of comfort and if there's anything I can do for you during the transport to alleviate your frustrations that I've now placed you on an o2 tank at 15L per minute that's going to take a respiratory specialist 2 weeks to wean you off of in the hospital, let me know...what's that you say? That's a big Negatory, Red Dog! My job is to get you to Springhill with Airway, Breathing and Circulation running like a well-greased whore in an astroglide factory. I can not "reduce" the hi-flow 02 to save you a two-week hospital stay unless I wanna lose my license to practice. So grab hold of the stretcher and enjoy the lights and sirens cause this is gonna be the most expensive ten minutes of your life! Whoooooooo!"

[Luna]

Save that somewhere, Navkat, that is good stuff.

[navkat]

It's like blowing a cupcake and having it cum frosting in my mouth.

They really need to put that in the ads.

I would KILL to see that go up on newsreel.

Save that somewhere, Navkat, that is good stuff.

I think I will. I have an EMT related blog now called "Altered Mental Status." It's at www.amsemt.blogspot.com if anyone cares. It's green but it's a labor of love and I welcome civilian commentary, trolling, etc.

[navkat]

Fuck, you people made me feel better today...useful...smart. I humbly thank you.

<3

[Luna]

Fuck, you people made me feel better today...useful...smart. I humbly thank you.

<3

Print out bits that make you feel better about yourself.

Tape to bathroomv mirror.  Fridge door.  Top of computer monitor.  Wherever you are likely to have in line of sight when you start to feel like ass.

Read and review.

[East Coast Hustle]

Neural science aside, the only thing that really matters to me is: Does e-cig vapor keep the bloodthirsty tropical flies away?

No?

then they're fucking useless.

[Salty]

For me it comes down to one thing:
I prefer to make out with people who don't taste like an ashtray, so I'm all for people I want to make out with using them.