From my own experience of quitting smoking, I can tell that you’re spreading lies.
I was on IQOS before I quit entirely and let me tell you, the addiction was real, I couldn’t think straight, I was extremely dizzy all the time and generally unusable for pretty much anything.
I had to take some meds to actually help me with the physical withdrawal symptoms, otherwise I would be of no use for 3-5 days (or so I’ve read) which I couldn’t really afford at that time.
IQOS is not a vape it’s a “heat not burn” product. Completely different category of product and very much not only nicotine when it comes to neurologically active substances, but the whole cigarette spectrum of stuff.
Our heated tobacco devices are electronic devices that heat real tobacco.
Sometimes these are also called “e-cigarettes”. But they’re definitely not vapes, which are devices which vaporise a mixture of (generally speaking) propylene glycol, glycerine, water, nicotine, and aroma, no plant matter, no tobacco, involved. You can even get nicotine that’s not derived from tobacco if you care (IIRC they use tomatoes but any nightshade has nicotine, you only need to extract and refine it).
Truly, I cannot fathom the mind of someone who sticks a literal stick of literal tobacco held together by literal paper, just like a literal cigarette, into their device and thinks that that’s the same as squirting liquid into a tank.
Just for a record: Dizziness is not a nicotine overdose. At low doses it excites, then it calms, then it makes you dizzy, and several parsecs beyond that you lose consciousness, and even more parsecs beyond that you die, which would be an actual overdose.
It’s actually quite hard to do. Trying it orally will make you puke as nicotine is a powerful emetic, via the skin you have to literally bathe in high concentrations. Intravenous would be easy but lots of things are fucking dangerous when you put them in a syringe with pointy end. Pretty much the only realistic variant is having high-purity nicotine (which isn’t available on the open market), taking enough of a whiff to directly lose consciousness, and then lie in the fumes for a while.
It’s actually much easier to overdose on caffeine.
…that might’ve taken a dark turn. In any case if you continue when you’re dizzy, when your mind isn’t actually enjoying the act, you aren’t serving your nicotine addiction but your habits. And withdrawal from habits can feel physical, that’s for sure.
Now of course the term “overdose” is kind of fuzzy, in a personal sense you might say “yo I ate too many cherries, now my stomach hurts”. But in a medical sense that’s not an overdose: You’re simply at a point where you get a clear-cut signal from your body that it’s time to stop, powerful enough to overpower “mmmh cherries, tasty”, you are nowhere close to having to have your stomach pumped.
Also on a more general note be careful about public health information about nicotine, much of it still hasn’t been corrected.
And yeah, the lethality of it is way over stated. Especially the “it can be super absorbed by the skin” stuff. I’ve spilt 250mg of nicotine on my hands and left it for a few minutes before washing it off, and all that happened was the spot was tingly for a minute or two.
But then there wouldn’t be a difference between a plain junkie and someone who overdoses on heroin. The medically recommended dose of diamorphine in both cases was zero.
What distinguishes those two cases is that one exceeded the effective dose. “Recommended dose” here doesn’t mean “what a doctor tells you” but “more than needed to achieve an intended effect”. For some getting past the boosting effect of nicotine into the depressing effect range might be an overdose. Yet others might enjoy some brief dizziness in an armchair.
Toxicologically speaking nicotine has quite low overdose toxicity because any serious symptoms happen way after any desirable symptom. Toxicity, though, is what pedestrians generally think of when they hear “overdose” so that is what I focussed on.
I am having real difficulties deciphering your comment… the reason pipe and cigar smokers have an easier time quitting is due to lower intake of nicotine because it’s generally a more casual habit. Vapers tend to vape as often or more often than smokers smoke… and vaping is, itself, highly addictive. Your comment is full of quite a few logical statements tied together with giant unsubstantiated leaps of faith.
I don’t think that pipe tobacco or cigars are inherently more healthy… but most consumers smoke significantly less frequently than cigarettes. I agree that smoking twelve cigars a day is definitely worse than twelve cigarettes… I’m not familiar enough to know anything more precise than that though.
From my own experience of quitting smoking, I can tell that you’re spreading lies.
I was on IQOS before I quit entirely and let me tell you, the addiction was real, I couldn’t think straight, I was extremely dizzy all the time and generally unusable for pretty much anything.
I had to take some meds to actually help me with the physical withdrawal symptoms, otherwise I would be of no use for 3-5 days (or so I’ve read) which I couldn’t really afford at that time.
IQOS is not a vape it’s a “heat not burn” product. Completely different category of product and very much not only nicotine when it comes to neurologically active substances, but the whole cigarette spectrum of stuff.
Yeah, that’s nonsense.
Quoth their own site:
Sometimes these are also called “e-cigarettes”. But they’re definitely not vapes, which are devices which vaporise a mixture of (generally speaking) propylene glycol, glycerine, water, nicotine, and aroma, no plant matter, no tobacco, involved. You can even get nicotine that’s not derived from tobacco if you care (IIRC they use tomatoes but any nightshade has nicotine, you only need to extract and refine it).
Truly, I cannot fathom the mind of someone who sticks a literal stick of literal tobacco held together by literal paper, just like a literal cigarette, into their device and thinks that that’s the same as squirting liquid into a tank.
IQOS is still not nicotine on its own, and if the symptoms you described were while you were using the IQOS, it sounds like a nicotine overdose.
Just for a record: Dizziness is not a nicotine overdose. At low doses it excites, then it calms, then it makes you dizzy, and several parsecs beyond that you lose consciousness, and even more parsecs beyond that you die, which would be an actual overdose.
It’s actually quite hard to do. Trying it orally will make you puke as nicotine is a powerful emetic, via the skin you have to literally bathe in high concentrations. Intravenous would be easy but lots of things are fucking dangerous when you put them in a syringe with pointy end. Pretty much the only realistic variant is having high-purity nicotine (which isn’t available on the open market), taking enough of a whiff to directly lose consciousness, and then lie in the fumes for a while.
It’s actually much easier to overdose on caffeine.
…that might’ve taken a dark turn. In any case if you continue when you’re dizzy, when your mind isn’t actually enjoying the act, you aren’t serving your nicotine addiction but your habits. And withdrawal from habits can feel physical, that’s for sure.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21582-nicotine-poisoning#symptoms-and-causes
Dizziness is absolutely a symptom of a nicotine overdose.
Note how it says “early phase symptoms”?
Now of course the term “overdose” is kind of fuzzy, in a personal sense you might say “yo I ate too many cherries, now my stomach hurts”. But in a medical sense that’s not an overdose: You’re simply at a point where you get a clear-cut signal from your body that it’s time to stop, powerful enough to overpower “mmmh cherries, tasty”, you are nowhere close to having to have your stomach pumped.
Also on a more general note be careful about public health information about nicotine, much of it still hasn’t been corrected.
In a medical sense an overdose is just taking more than the recommended dose. That clear cut signal from your body is a symptom of an overdose.
And yeah, the lethality of it is way over stated. Especially the “it can be super absorbed by the skin” stuff. I’ve spilt 250mg of nicotine on my hands and left it for a few minutes before washing it off, and all that happened was the spot was tingly for a minute or two.
But then there wouldn’t be a difference between a plain junkie and someone who overdoses on heroin. The medically recommended dose of diamorphine in both cases was zero.
What distinguishes those two cases is that one exceeded the effective dose. “Recommended dose” here doesn’t mean “what a doctor tells you” but “more than needed to achieve an intended effect”. For some getting past the boosting effect of nicotine into the depressing effect range might be an overdose. Yet others might enjoy some brief dizziness in an armchair.
Toxicologically speaking nicotine has quite low overdose toxicity because any serious symptoms happen way after any desirable symptom. Toxicity, though, is what pedestrians generally think of when they hear “overdose” so that is what I focussed on.
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I broke my addiction to nicotine, which is indeed very addictive. Not sure what your half-truths really are good for.
I am having real difficulties deciphering your comment… the reason pipe and cigar smokers have an easier time quitting is due to lower intake of nicotine because it’s generally a more casual habit. Vapers tend to vape as often or more often than smokers smoke… and vaping is, itself, highly addictive. Your comment is full of quite a few logical statements tied together with giant unsubstantiated leaps of faith.
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I don’t think that pipe tobacco or cigars are inherently more healthy… but most consumers smoke significantly less frequently than cigarettes. I agree that smoking twelve cigars a day is definitely worse than twelve cigarettes… I’m not familiar enough to know anything more precise than that though.