Re-Thinking My Re-Thinking On Smoking

So, after the blood pressure problems from giving myself way too much nicotine with the eCigs the previous week, I had decided I would just drop the eCig thing entirely.

Now, after nearly a week without them I can say this: I think I miss them more than I missed cigarettes when I was using the eCigs.  Part of it boils down to taste – I have this really tasty hazelnut fluid I use.  Cigarettes taste like ass, hazelnut doesn’t.  I was back to smoking for a week, but I didn’t really enjoy it at all.  But, the eCigs I enjoyed.  Go fig.

I began rethinking my plan, an decided to go a different route.  It’s the over-nicotine part of the eCigs that’s bad for me – pushing my blood pressure up in to the high-140’s, and even hitting 150 at one point.  I find that to be completely unacceptable, ‘specially where I’m about to begin my next attempt at a workout regime.  What if I went with a hazelnut liquid that had zero nicotine in it?  Unfortunately, both of my eCigs were broke – the batteries were fine (I actually have three), but, the part that held the liquid no longer held the liquid.  It ended up on my desk instead, in a nasty puddle.

I found a place I like here in Wichita when it comes to eCigs – Lucky’s Vap Shop or something like that near Harry & Oliver.  The reason I like them is simple – they give me way more information than anyone else.  For instance, I looked at buying two new tanks and some liquid without nicotine in them.  As I’m talking to the guy, he explained something that no one else I’ve talked to had: the tanks only last about 3 – 5 weeks.  It’s the wick that’s inside – as the element heats up the liquid, it slowly begins getting gunk on the wick, burning it, and eventually shrinking it.  That last part was why both of my existing eCigs started – the wick began shrinking.

Well, that means part of the cost of eCigs is buying new tanks every month or so.  At $6 – $10 a pop, that does add up (though, still costs less than actual smoking, even after adding in the cost of the liquid.)  He showed me something interesting though – some of the eCigs come with a replaceable element / wick combo!  Then it’s only $2.50 to replace ’em.  I got a little “fancy” with it, and bought two tanks (that have dual elements in them, which means they make quite a bit of vapor, but, do go through liquid faster), and two new elements for later.  That way, when they burn out, no biggie, I just replace ’em.

I ended up talking to the guy for probably 15 minutes, absorbing as much info about them (yes, the existing elements are cleanable, but, they still end up leaking eventually, and still end up tasting burnt after you clean them a couple times).

Which brings me back around to The Plan for next week:  I’m going back to the eCigs.  With that, I’ve got non-nicotine stuff, but, I still have a bottle of the hazelnut with nicotine in it.  In one eCig, I put straight non-nicotine, and in the other, I put non-nicotine liquid in it, with four drops of the previous nicotine packed liquid.  That way, I still get a little nicotine for a while, and ease off of it, but not nearly as much as when I was using it straight.  And, not nearly as much as smoking, either 🙂

Now I’m really, really looking forward to this 🙂

 

Today’s Stats

• [skill_bar heading=”Workouts: 0 Points” percent=”0%”]
• [skill_bar heading=”Smoking: 0 Points ” percent=”0%”]
• [skill_bar heading=”Healthy Eating: 1 Points” percent=”42%”]

Projects Worked on:

• I never got to work on any real “work” today.  Instead, had help from The Plumber to replace a section of plumbing at the house that was leaking, then the mystery with Kat’s truck having problems.  I really wanted to get some real work done, but, it just wasn’t in the cards.