All You Need To Know About The Nicotine Overdose & Its Signs

How many times have you heard someone say something like this?

Nicotine is more poisonous than cyanide!

Only half a teaspoon of e-liquid can kill a child!

Nicotine is highly poisonous in any form

The implication is clear: vaping provides nicotine to consumers, and nicotine is extremely poisonous.

It is the type of thing that produces vapers concerned about nicotine poisoning or smoking overdose from vaping and may make smokers wary about switching to vaping.

The Hazardous Dose of Nicotine: Shattering the Myth

Currently, many high-profile sources record the toxic dose of smoking as between 30 and 60 mg.

To put this in the context of vaping, this would be about 4 ml of 12 mg/ml e-liquid. Your system does process nicotine quite fast so you'd need to consume it all basically in 1 go, which makes it quite a tall order.

In addition to this, the lowest amount of nicotine present in the blood of people who perished from nicotine was about 20 times greater than the existing recommendations. Mayer revises the LD50 of nicotine to an estimated 500 to 1000 mg (or 0.5 to 1 g) based on the outcomes.

Signs You Have Had Too Much Nicotine

Vapers aren't likely to endure nicotine poisoning, but one fairly basic thing is having a little too much nicotine in one session.

The largest tell-tale sign you have touched this point is feeling nauseous. You might recognize this towards the end of a long vaping session, and it's efficiently your body telling you to have a break from vaping for a while.

In my experience, this nausea grows gradually, but it's best to simply take a break when you detect it starting.

Nicotine Poisoning Symptoms

Should you continue vaping - or if you spill e-juice on your skin and do not clean it off - then the symptoms could get a bit more serious.

• Increased salivation
• stomach cramps
• diarrhea
• headaches
• additional symptoms like confusion or agitation.

It is unlikely you'll reach the stage by vaping, however, it's worth understanding the primary things to look out for.

These include coma and seizures, slowed heart rate, and in the worst cases, respiratory failure. It might not be as toxic as many sources claim, but it surely is still poisonous.

Could You Get Nicotine Poisoning by Vaping?

Could you vape your way into a nicotine overdose? Could you end up with some of the serious signs of nicotine poisoning?

The simplest way to consider this is to work out how much e-juice you'd have to vaporize from the space of a few hours to hit the minimal toxic dose of about 500 mg.

Employing a 12 mg/ml e-juice, you would have to vaporize over 40 ml to strategy 500 milligrams of nicotine vaporized. Realistically, this just isn't going to happen. For an 18 mg/ml e-liquid, you'd still need to vape almost 28 ml of e-juice in a few hours to have a chance.

After five minutes, experienced vapers ended up with about 8 nanograms of nicotine per ml of blood. After the full 65 minutes, vapers plasma nicotine levels rose to 24.1 ng/ml, although the maximum recorded concentration was 48.1 ng/ml.

Based on the vaper who obtained the highest plasma nicotine levels, their blood nicotine level would need to be over 80 times higher to get to the minimal lethal dose. To pile on yet more implausibility, they'd need to achieve this in under two hours. To put it differently, they would have to get about 80 times more nicotine in their blood in under double the length of time.

What Could Occur When You're Vaping

So fatal nicotine poisoning from vaping looks strangely unlikely, but you can still feel some symptoms should you vape overly much. This is especially likely you are utilizing higher Salt nic vape juice.

Nausea and headaches are clear signs that you're vaping overly much, and if you get them regularly, you need to consider reducing the nicotine amount of your e-juice.

But if you only occasionally have these indications, the best advice is to simply take a break from vaping till you're feeling better. 

The Risks of Ingesting Nicotine

If pets or children get a path to e-juice, they could probably drink a harmful amount. There are also instances where individuals have drunk e-liquid in an attempt to commit suicide.

Iy you drink 20 ml of 18 mg/ml e-juice, for a total of 360 mg of nicotine absorbed. You did not demonstrate any symptoms. 

The big problem appears to be nausea. Even if you drank like above the amount of e-juice anticipated to be toxic, it must get through your digestive system to make it into your blood.

In addition to this, for kids and pets, the problem is much more serious.

The Dangers of Getting Nicotine On Your Skin

Harvesters of tobacco sometimes suffer from something called “green tobacco sickness.” This can be due to nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and headaches, and is particularly common after rain, a dewy morning or a long day of work. You should recognize these signs: they're all indications of smoke poisoning.

Employees can get these symptoms because nicotine may be absorbed through your skin, which is also why nicotine patches work. 

The pretty low rate of absorption for its 8 mg/ml e-liquid examined. The study showed that just 0.00482 mg per cm per hour was absorbed, which would be approximately 0.482 mg per hour if your palm was coated in e-juice.

Does the e-juice travel throughout the skin gradually, the notion that you would have a 100-square-cm patch of skin coated in e-liquid and just leave it for hours, is completely absurd. You would wash it off almost immediately. The research doesn't address what could happen in this circumstance, but this could likely lead to slower absorption into the skin. Higher nicotine levels would likely increase the absorption rate, but it's unlikely to raise it enough to change the overall conclusion that there's little to worry about.

For children, though, their lower body weight and possibly increased sensitivity make this a serious concern. It's probably not hugely dangerous, however, spills on children's skin are likely more of a cause for concern than spills on adults' skin.

If you get nicotine in your skin, you should wash it off immediately.

What About Nicotine Base for DIY E-Juice?

Things get a bit more serious if you're speaking about the nicotine base employed in DIY e-juice mixing. Strengths as large as 72 mg/ml or even higher are used for DIY mixing, and this changes things very considerably when it comes to the dangers of nicotine.

If a kid was supposed to get access to it and drink it, then it really could take as little as a quarter of a teaspoon to get a lethal dose. 

If you're mixing your e-liquid, you have to be quite careful. Wear nitrile gloves and other protective equipment when you mix, and keep your nicotine foundation somewhere well away from children or pets. 

Things to Do if You Develop Symptoms

If You Have Vaped Too Much

The most common and serious problem is being nauseous or having a headache after vaping a lot.

Typically, if you stop vaping you will feel better soon. It is key. Whenever you do this, it can be a bit too much alcohol - the effect can continue to construct after your last vape.

If you are vomiting or experiencing any more severe symptoms, but still do not think that it's anything life-threatening, in case you feel it's more severe seek medical care immediately.

If You Have Got Swallowed E-Juice

If you, your child or your pet has consumed e-juice, the severity of the situation is dependent upon how much and how strong it was. By way of example, if you have inadvertently swallowed a few ml of low-strength nicotine juice (e.g. 3 mg/ml), you'll probably feel somewhat sick and endure several other symptoms you could get from vaping too much, then feel better shortly afterward.

Use the symptoms as a guide. 

• Being ill
• Dizziness
• Unusual, noticeable heartbeats (palpitations)
• Breathing problems
• Uncontrollable restlessness or agitation
• Seizures (fits)
• Drowsiness or lack of consciousness.

These are not specific to e-juice, but nicotine poisoning can cause all of these symptoms also. 

If You Have Spilled E-Juice On Your Skin

For any spills of e-liquid, the same information as above applies. If it's just a little amount of e-liquid, simply wash it off immediately. When it's a larger amount, wash it off quickly, remove any clothes with liquid on them and wipe down any surfaces that are affected.

You can also open windows to ventilate the space after a big spill. 

As always, watch out for serious symptoms, and when in doubt, seek medical attention.

You likely won't overdose on nicotine by vaping. Most vapers store e-liquid safely rather than let children or pets access it. And the vast majority of people who make DIY e-juice know about the dangers of high-strength nicotine and take more measures to ensure they stay secure.