I'm sure you can agree that like most good things in life, vaping comes with its own set of challenges.
From learning the lingo to understanding the differences in e-juice, vaping has a few hurdles you need to learn to overcome. A common roadblock that vapers, especially newbies, tend to encounter is a sore throat.
For some people, vaping can cause irritation or "scratching" in the back of the throat, a nuisance that can rob them of the joy that vaping could and should be. If you have a sore throat from vaping, there are several possible causes, and luckily most of them have solutions that aren't too difficult to implement.
In this article, we'll cover eight potential causes and solutions for your sore throat to help you get back to puffing up tasty clouds ASAP.
In addition to trying these solutions, be sure to stay hydrated before, during, and after your vaping sessions to avoid sore throats. The chemicals in the steam absorb moisture, which can dry out your mouth and throat very quickly.
Index
Sore throat from vaping: 8 possible causes and their solutions
1. Smoker's flu
'Smoker's flu' (also known as 'quitting flu') is street slang for tobacco withdrawal. If you've recently switched from cigarettes to vaping, it may take a while for your body to adjust.
The lack of tar and other harmful vaping chemicals often found in cigarettes allows your body to begin to heal itself and absorb more oxygen with each breath.
Tobacco withdrawal symptoms can include things like:
- Sore throat
- chest/nasal congestion
- Fatigue
- Digestive problems
Solution:Unfortunately, smoker's flu is not a real flu, so flu medicines will not help you in this situation. In addition to hardening, you can help speed up the process by:
- How healthy
- resting and exercising
- Keep hydrated
2. High nicotine content
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While most vapers love the guttural hit of nicotine that can come from vaping, it's important to make sure the nicotine strength you've decided on isn't too high for you.
While a throat hit alone isn't a problem, overdoing it with nicotine can cause a scratchy throat, leading to a rather unpleasant vaping experience.
Solution:Try to gradually decrease the nicotine strength until you find one that doesn't hurt your throat but still makes you enjoy your vape. You may want to try using a different type of nicotine (salt nic vs. freebase nicotine) to see if that allows you to stay at higher concentrations without irritating your throat.
3. Vaping Style
Whether you've ever smoked or not, inhaling from an e-cigarette may make your throat sore when you first start. This could be due to the way you are inhaling.
There are two ways to extract vapor from a vaporizer:
- Straight to Lung – This is when you inhale the vapor from your device directly into your lungs, almost as if you were inhaling steam.
- Mouth to Lung: Refers to the style of vaping that involves drawing vapor first into the mouth and then into the lungs, similar to smoking a cigarette.
Solution:Fortunately, this problem has a very easy solution: try another style of vaping! If you've been using one method since you started vaping, try the other and see if it works for you.
Keep in mind that mouth to lung (MTL) is much easier with a smaller vaping device like vape pods than it is with larger devices.
4. High PG content
Your standard (and safest) vape liquid consists of two basic liquids: Vegetable Glycerin (VG) and Propylene Glycol (PG).
The VG generally determines the density/thickness of your cloud, while the PG helps deliver that nice throat hit. However, if the PG content is too high, it can push the throat hit past the point of 'good' to 'not so good', leaving you with a sore throat.
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Solution:Try looking for e-liquids with lower PG content. Fortunately, most vape juice bottles will tell you the ratio/percentage of PG and VG they contain, making it easy to identify those that might be causing your sore throat.
5. Specific flavors
Due to the variety of vape liquids available and the diverse tastes of people, you are likely to encounter some flavors that cause irritation, whether in the mouth or throat.
Strong flavors, such as desserts and tobacco, may contain chemicals to which you may be sensitive. These scents can make you nauseous and easily give you a sore throat.
Solution:To avoid this, switch to lighter liquids or experiment with a different dessert flavor. Fruit flavors like strawberry, banana, and watermelon are much lighter on the palate, while menthol flavors are even better.
Try choosing a mix of berries and menthol to find the flavor that's easy on your throat.
6. In the year inside the coils
As more people started vaping, it became clear that there are sensitivities to vaping among people. A not so uncommon problem that arises for some vapers is being allergic to nickel.
There are many coils that use nickel on the inside, and allergy sufferers will experience a sore throat or irritating cough if using one of these coils.
Solution:If you think this might be your problem, try looking for coils that do not contain nickel, or at least in much smaller amounts. Avoid Ni80 (Nichrome-80) coils, which are heavily nickel-based wires.
While other coils can also contain nickel, often in amounts too low to cause a reaction.
7.dry blow
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One of the most common pitfalls that almost all vapers experience at one point or another is the dreaded dry hit. A dry hit occurs when little to no juice is left on your coils/cotton, giving you a harsh, burnt taste that is sure to hurt your throat.
Solution:Before vaping, always check that there is enough juice in your tank or coils, especially if you use the drip technique. If you feel like your hits are getting a little dry, try dripping some e-juice directly onto the coils and cotton over the top; you can do this whether you are using an RDA (rebuildable dripping atomizer) or not!
8.Vaporization frequency
As fun as blowing huge clouds can be, and as delicious as their flavors can be, the saying “too much of a good thing can be a bad thing” is definitely true with vaping.
If you're an avid vaper or the stresses of life make you crave nicotine, your throat may sore quickly. This is because vaping always affects the throat, although it often goes unnoticed.
Vaping too much can exacerbate these effects until your throat is too sore to keep chasing clouds.
Solution:Waiting longer between vapes will help your throat heal quickly. Be sure to take a deep breath of clean air between puffs so you can soothe your throat and keep vaping longer.
You can also try increasing your nicotine strength to reduce cravings between doses; although, as mentioned before, taking it too high will also cause a sore throat.
To involve
That concludes our list of eight common causes of vaping-related sore throats. Try each of these solutions one at a time to make sure which issue is causing your annoying sore throat.
Finally, remember that we are not doctors, and if your sore throat does not go away or you have other symptoms, see a medical professional for a check-up.