Hey everyone!
After considering for a while, I decided to translate my blog post regarding vaping and diabetes to English, since the original one is in Portuguese.
I figured that it would also come in handy for some new vapers who have diabetes, in order to just have an idea of what will happen to their bodies and some info regarding e-juice and some extra information on top of the original post.
Hope you enjoy and happy vapin’! 🙂
Today I’m going to write about something which has little to almost no information in the vaping world.
As you saw on the title, this article will be about vaping and diabetes, its effects, my personal experience and point of view.
When I was only 7 years and a half of age, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease called diabetes (type 1), which I had no idea of what it was at the time.
Fast forward a few years, as a teenager, I saw my health in a state that was quite bad due to the diabetes.
I was a smoker, every day I smoked a pack (or two, sometimes) and controlling diabetes was a harsh chore. The glucose (blood sugar) levels were too high and I took way too much insulin to (try) keep them down, all with no success.
When I discovered vaping and bought my kit, a few weeks later I started noticing some differences regarding my health and control of diabetes.
I started to need less doses of insulin and I noticed that my glucose levels were closer the to the advised ones.
So, what was happening?
We all know that tobacco and cigarettes are bad for you.
But especially worse if you have diabetes, either type 1 or 2.
A person who has diabetes and fails to keep it well under control, is at risk of developing ulcers, cataracts, blindness and other eye-sight problems, heart and kidney diseases and nerve damage.
A diabetic who smokes and fails to keep it controlled has twice the risk of developing all of the above, and more.
Well then, why not take more insulin?
It’s not that simple.
Tobacco and nicotine are components that have been tested to make a diabetic develop insulin resistance, even though it’s not too much, but after a few years you can really see the difference. Once you have that resistance, your body needs even more insulin to compensate for the fact that your body doesn’t know what to do with it.
By giving higher doses of insulin, you will get hungrier, as insulin is a hormone that also makes you feel hungry, and the more you eat, the fatter you will get, and the more insulin you take to compensate for the food you’re eating, the hungrier you will get, and the excess fat will also have a role on your insulin resistance. And a diabetic who has insulin resistance rarely has their glucose levels between the recommended values by the doctors, therefore needing more insulin. A deadly vicious cycle.
So, let’s make this simple: + nicotine = + insulin = + hunger (and eating more than you should) = fat = insulin resistance + nicotine = hard to control diabetes
And with that, I developed type 2 diabetes (insulin resistance) atop of having type 1 already.
I also noticed that the more I smoked, the more insulin I had to take, because of that insulin resistance that nicotine adds.
When I stopped smoking and started vaping, all those negative aspects were slightly disappearing, I could also breathe better and didn’t have the negative side-effects of having my blood sugar high (drowsiness, increased thirst, blurred vision, fatigue) and I started becoming more active.
Nowadays, I mostly have my diabetes under control and I still take some type 2 medicine, although rarely. As of now, my body is slowly recovering from the crap I used to do.
Another question that I see on forums and groups a lot is:
“Do the sweet e-liquids damage and harm, in any way, diabetes?” (flavoring, sweeteners,etc..)
By my experience, not at all! But I would also like to note that everyone is different.
There are also those who question about the VG, if it alters your glucose levels, since it is something sweet and that is metabolized by your body into a type of glucose. Well, it might have some hand in the matter, but the glucose that comes from the VG is at a dose so small that it’s not even enough to tamper with diabetes.
Now, regarding liquids with nicotine, they might make your hemoglobin levels higher (HbA1c, to be exact, and they tell your doctor if you’ve been naughty or nice with your diabetes!).
But, I have noticed that whenever my glucose levels are high, I cannot taste any type of flavoring (besides menthol) on the e-liquid. That is mainly due to when your levels are high, your mouth will get dry, you will be really thirsty and with a slight metallic/alkaline taste.
Besides that little negative aspect, there are a lot of positive ones while being a diabetic and a vaper, but there’s nothing that a good control and a few cups of water that don’t fix the problem!
Vaping With Dee 