Things I learned while sorting out what strength Nic Juice works for me…
If you’re going to mix flavours and nicotine, make sure you have plenty of small 5 ml bottles. Don’t mix anything larger than this no matter how tempting until you know you’re going to like the combination. Especially when trying to determine how much nicotine you can handle. You may find yourself with several 10 ml bottles of nic juice that’s too strong or too weak.
Buy more bottles than you think you’ll use. I need to find more as I’ve used all that I’ve ordered in my experimentations and now that I know what works, I’m ready to try a few different flavours but I’ll have to either use some makeshift containers or wait until I order some more bottles.
Start out with higher amounts of nicotine first. If it’s too strong you can always dilute it to lesser concentrations. You can’t easily do the opposite. I now have several bottles (yes, some are 10 ml) of flavoured nic juice that I’ll need to dilute down to my tolerable level.
If you find that the higher concentrations cause you issues, don’t keep vaping it hoping you’ll get used to it, especially if you have issues with asthma. Mix a lower concentration of nicotine and try again. I really made things worse for myself the first few days by trying to ‘get used to it’ while my body was busy telling me it wasn’t working.
Don’t assume you’ve found the right amount of nicotine to use by your first few vapes of a particular strength. Make sure you can get through a day with the same mix as you may find it unsuitable in certain conditions. I thought I’d found the right amount several times until I’d gone without a cigarette or vaping for a while and then took a deep inhale and it kicked off an asthma attack. I don’t have that issue with the 6 mg amount. If I have a big vape I only have a little bit of a slight twinge.
I should mention I don’t normally have asthma issues on a regular basis, but I’ve also had issues with asthma when using traditional nicotine replacement therapy such as gum or lozenges. Oddly I don’t have that issue with smoking cigarettes. Go figure.
Measurements are important. If you use syringes to measure the various components such as nicotine, PG and VG juice, make sure to get comfortable using them and check your ‘recipe’ against what you’ve measured. It’s easy to make mistakes. Slow down, check your measurements carefully – more than once. If in doubt ask someone else to check too. They may catch something you missed. Such as using 1.5 ml instead of the 2.5 it shows in the ‘recipe’. It’s all too easy when working with unfamiliar equipment like syringes and trying to see the individual measurement lines to not notice that you’re looking at the wrong section. Or is that just me? At any rate, I ordered a small mini-scale to help me get it right in the future.
Don’t use cartomisers to test your nicotine mixes. Save your cartomisers for once you’ve found the right mix. I made this make. More than once. I ended up having to steam the cartomisers so I could reuse them. This was an added job I could have avoided. I’ll write about using steam to clean out cartomisers in the future.
If you get frustrated, set it aside but do keep trying. Eventually you’ll find what works for you, and vaping, once you get the nicotine amount worked out, is much healthier than smoking. You may also find you prefer vaping without the nicotine, and that’s OK too. What works for you is what’s important.
These are a few of the lessons I learned in the last week while trying to find the perfect amount of nicotine to let me switch from smoking to vaping. You could read this as a list of things I learned the hard way… And you’d be right too!
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