I have had some chest pains recently and a persistent tickle in my throat coupled with a dry cough. At first I thought it was from a cigar I drunkenly smoked a few nights ago and after the pain and cough went away after 2 or 3 days I didn't think anything more about it.
However it came back today so then I was sure it was something in my vape.
I've vaped everything from 80/20 PG/VG to 100 VG to 50/50 and this problem never really came around until I started DIYing. I eliminated VG or PG as the culprit by playing around with my ratios and not seeing the symptoms recur.
So then I started looking through my flavors. The night the pain started I was vaping a Gambit clone.
70/30 PG/VG
10% TFA Apple Pie
5% TFA French Vanilla
2% TFA Caramel
1.5% TFA Ethyl Maltol
I then had a flavor order come in, mixed up some new juice and changed to this.
70/30 PG/VG
10% TFA Juicy Peach
5% TFA Bavarian Cream
3% TFA Cantaloupe
2% TFA Vanilla Swirl
My pain magically went away and I thought the rest of the cigar was out of my system. I wanted to try some blueberry wild so I mixed this up.
70/30 PG/VG
15% TFA Blueberry Wild
5% TFA Vanilla Swirl
2% TFA Bavarian cream
1% TFA Ethyl Maltol
Lo and behold the chest pain, tightness in my chest and a shortness of breath when I inhale deeply returned later that night. I didn't really think much of it, but it persisted through the morning. It was just now that I compared my recipes I had been vaping and deduced that Ethyl Maltol is the only common ingredient.
I don't use it often, but I have used it before, and only in small quantities, but apparently it is enough to cause a quite uncomfortable and painful reaction for me.
Has anyone ever heard of or had this kind of reaction before with EM? For the longest time I thought I had a PG or VG sensitivity and I'm wondering if any other people are having the same issues and unable to figure out what's wrong.
Should Ethyl Maltol usage be disclosed by juice vendors? I am interested to hear everyone's opinions.
tl;dr EM sucks butt and doesn't even add anything good in the first place.
To get a solid conclusion on your allergy, I would remove it from your mixes for at least 2 months. Reintroduce yourself and see if the issues return, if they do, well you got an allergy.
>Should Ethyl Maltol usage be disclosed by juice vendors? I am interested to hear everyone's opinions.
I think this depends. Is it life threatening? Can it cause a serious medical condition? I don't think the allergy is as serious as say a Nut Allergy, so IMO I wouldn't think so.
I've gotten the same type of chest pains before and the only thing I can attribute mine to is high VG content. I usually mix 50/50 and no problems, I even have some 30/70 PG/VG and no problems, only with 0/100 PG/VG mixes does it bother me (not including any negligible amounts of PG in flavoring). I know what I think my VG issue isn't your EM issue, but I am interested since I have the same symptoms and I don't know definitively that mine's VG and it sounds like you don't know definitely that your's is EM (more of an educated guess on both our parts). Maybe it's neither one of these on both our parts??
I'm toying with the idea of making unflavored 100/0 and unflavored 0/100, then start adding ingredients one by one and seeing how each one affects me. One of the many big upsides to DIY'ing!
Interesting.. i've had those chest pains/shortness of breath before in the past.. i noticed it only occurs in some e liquid, while other brands or flavors i will feel fine. I tried varying levels of VG and PG and couldn't find any correlation.
i just started my first DIY batch yesterday and made 3 small batches of different flavors--all of them with EM.. and lo and behold.. mild chest pains.
i'm gonna try a new batch tonight without EM and see how I feel.. thanks for bringing this up.. if you are interested... i can PM you with the results.
~~EM~~ FA Marshmallow :~)
Not sure what you're getting at since I didn't mention FA or Marshmallow in my post.
No, but I cannot vape any juice that has sucralose in it (one reason I wanted to try DIY).
You might be allergic to EM - you have to work at narrowing down what it is in the juice that's getting you. For me, this involved emailing vendors - some would help me (I explained it was a health issue, and TVC and Gremlin were so great at answering my questions so that is who I order from - btw neither use sucralose) and some wouldn't (Good Life Vapor were jerks about it).
Anyway, if you think that's it, avoid the EM, ask vendors if they use it and explain why, and see if you start feeling better.
Thanks for the tip. The last juice I bought from a vendor was my local B&M a few weeks ago, the last time before that I can't remember. I'm going to remove it from my mixes completely and if the symptoms ever return then I may do a little more thorough experiment to find the culprit. For now, my chest pain is still there but lessening. We'll see how it is in the morning.