Once hailed as a safer alternative for adult smokers, vaping is now under intense scrutiny, particularly for the risks it poses to young people.
While e-cigarettes may help some adults quit smoking, their increasing popularity among children and teens has sparked alarm among health experts, regulators, and parents alike.
Excessive vaping also raises significant health concerns for adults, who may face risks related to addiction, and respiratory issues.
Most vapes contain nicotine, which is the main reason why they are so addictive. Because vaping is still fairly new, its long-term health implications are still unclear.
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People who vape have spoken about the implications they’ve faced as a result of their habit. One 23-year-old man from Texas who vaped ‘every 10 seconds’ was hospitalized after experiencing sharp chest pains.
Once under the watch of healthcare professionals, it was discovered Hudson had a collapsed lung, which happens when air leaks into the space between the lung and chest wall.
Doctors warned that even if Hudson Williams quit vaping, the collapsed lung could occur again.
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His hospital admission was 'the wake-up call he needed' to quit after he'd become so addicted to his vape.
"A lot of my friends had also started vaping and I made the switch because it tasted better. "When I first started it wasn't very much, but as I vaped throughout my life it would happen a lot more.
"I was hitting my vape every 10 seconds and I would get through two or three disposable vapes in a month.”
Another man who vaped for nearly a decade also issued a warning. One day he felt a ‘searing pain’ between his shoulder blades and collapsed.
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“I was holding in screams. About a minute later, while walking in the mall, I passed out.”
An ambulance rushed Raymond Dehn, 24, to hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a spontaneous pneumothorax.
He was given an x-ray, which is when they discovered that his lung had collapsed.
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He said: "I was honestly so shocked. It was so scary to think I suddenly had a broken lung, especially being so young and healthy.”
But the good news is that you can still take control and start prioritising your lung health today. Research shows that the adult lung has the capacity to repair and regenerate under some circumstances. The timeline and how long it takes for lungs to heal will vary from person to person.
However, if the damage is severe, for example extensive scarring, fibrosis or an event such as EVALI, then irreversible damage may occur, especially depending on how much you vaped or smoked, how long the exposure was, and individual factors like genetics.
In EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury), symptoms include shortness of breath, chest pain, cough and other respiratory distress. While some patients do recover significantly, the long-term outlook is still uncertain and full recovery cannot be guaranteed in all cases.
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According to Doctor Andrew Freeman, who spoke with the University of Utah, the total outlook of what vaping does to us has not yet been recognised.
“Our lungs are not a good organ to absorb substances for recreational use,” Freeman said.