Gerrard Kaonga
A psychologist has broken down a concerning symptom of vape addition, despite the e-cigarettes often being considered less addictive than cigarettes.
While many people have marketed vapes as a ‘healthier’ alternative to traditional smoking, they still come with a slew of issues.
Even if only used occasionally, a person can still become addicted to vaping.
Though vaping is considered a suitable alternative for a person to wean themselves off smoking cigarettes, over the years there has been growing concern over young people picking up the habit.
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Australian researcher and psychologist Claire Wakefield, from the Minderoo Foundation, spoke in early 2024 on the Abbie Chatfield's It's A Lot podcast about the continued popularity of vaping and how people are becoming addicted.
She noted some of the red flags about when a habit has become an addiction.
She said: “The clues for me that I reckon are worrying, is when you start thinking about it when you don't want to think about it.
“You wake up in the morning and the first thing you think is, ‘Where's my vape?’ Or if you get, like, anxiety about wondering where I'm going to get my next one.”
Outside of the mental impact, Wakefield described a physical symptom, saying: “The ones that hit home for me - where there's tons of evidence - is acute nicotine toxicity, which they call ‘nic-sick’. That's essentially when you have too much nicotine at once.”
She highlighted one case she came across, where a woman began throwing up strawberry-flavored vomit due to how much she was vaping.
Wakefield added: “She says she knew she had a problem when her vomit started tasting like vape.
“Strawberry-flavored vomit, because she'd had so much vape. If you Google ‘Vape burns’, it's not pretty.”
All in all, it might be best to put the vape down altogether and give your body a chance to repair itself.
Amir Boghal, Superintendent Lead Pharmacist and Director of Pyramid Pharmacy Group, has said we are still learning about long term lung recovery from vaping as the practice hasn’t been around very long compared to smoking.
He explained: “What we do know from existing research is encouraging in some respects.
“If someone stops vaping, their lungs can show improvement over time, particularly in terms of inflammation and mucus clearance.
"However, whether complete healing occurs depends on different factors including how long someone vaped, their age when they started, their overall lung health, and whether they have underlying conditions like asthma.
“The key point is that stopping vaping allows your lungs to begin healing immediately, even if complete restoration to pre-vaping baseline isn't guaranteed."