An example of just how disruptive nicotine pouches can be and highlighting how difficult getting help for the problems they are causing may be from your medical professionals
Video discusses a post at the QuttingZyn board illustrating just how disruptive nicotine pouches can be and highlighting how difficult getting help may be from your medical professionals for the problems they are causing
Below is a post that was made on the QuttingZyn support board on Reddit. The response was actually run through ChatGPT to sanitize the language a bit for use with the general public. I recorded a video reply to the original poster asking for his permission to use this post as well as for permission to clean up some of the more colorful language.
Under his post here I am including my video response to him as well as our follow-up correspondence.
Original Post
Day 3 - this experience is incredible
Discovered this reddit a few days ago and it's been tremendously helpful - so thanks to everyone contributing. This is my story with the pouches, and why I firmly believe they should not be legal.
Been a nicotine addict for 10 years - first smoking cigs, then started using 10mg VELO pouches (similar to Zyn) while in the office to distract myself from not having smoke breaks. Then decided to quit smoking altogether and go full-on with the VELO pouches. This was 14 months ago I quit smoking and picked up VELOs (roughly 15-20 pouches a day of 10mg) and since then, my health has significantly deteriorated. The irony is amazing, right?
8-10 months ago while at work I came very close to fainting all of a sudden. Huge shock but I'm a big guy, so went to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face, and went about my day, not thinking more about it. Weeks later this happened again, and I started feeling heart palpitations, dizziness, difficulty breathing, difficulty sleeping, restlessness... Went to the doctor who checked EKG, bloodwork, all looked superb. Was very dissatisfied as I was sure my symptoms were real, I was literally terrified, and so I demanded a long-term heart monitoring (Holter monitor, wearable EKG that detects artifacts). Turns out my heart was as healthy as ever; no issues at all. Doc came to the conclusion that I was suffering from anxiety or a similar mental illness, as all my physicals were on point. I have absolutely never experienced any mental conditions whatsoever, so I was very surprised by this - but also eager to tackle it and find a solution. Months go by and I try meditation, breathwork, cold plunges, better exercise, lowering caffeine intake, better diet. God, I tried it all, but with very limited / no direct effect. I still experienced insane heart palpitations; sometimes feeling very sure I would drop dead. It could happen multiple times a day, then vanish for a month, then return, and it seemed all random; I could not tie it to workload, alcohol, diet, or similar. But truth be told; I was extremely scared, and my girlfriend got scared as hell as I was a complete mental mess at times. I even started leaving my apartment door unlocked to make sure I could get help if my heart failed during sleep. It was really that bad..
Then, on a flight home from a business trip 4 days ago, I started getting crazy palpitations, becoming dizzy. It was scary as heck as we were nowhere near an airport or any help. For some reason, it occurred to me that it might be the pouches; all this started as soon as I ditched the cigs and went full-on nicotine pouches. After landing at home, I decided to ditch the pouches. This is now ~60 hours ago, and to be very honest, I cannot believe how incredible this is.
60 hours only, and my heart palpitations are COMPLETELY gone. I feel I can breathe 2x the volume of air as I could before. Yesterday I had the best sleep of my entire life; not having to spend 1½-2 hours twisting and turning and being afraid my heart is gonna stop. Blood pressure back at 120 / 75, resting heart rate stable at ~50 BPM. Overall my body feels amazing. Sure, the nicotine withdrawal is very real and that part sucks massively, but it is NOTHING compared to that terrifying feeling of your heart exploding or stopping at any minute.
To anyone considering quitting, this will very likely be the single best decision you ever make for your health - both mentally and physically. I have been a mess for the past 10 months, honestly believing I could drop dead any second; and it is only now clear to me that I'm good - it's the pouches wrecking my system like crazy. If I can do it after 10 years of nicotine addiction, ~200 mg per day for the past 14 months, so can you!!
Link to my video response to original poster
Follow-up communication
Glad you got the three days under your belt here. You hit on some really important issues. I just shot a video response to address your specific experience and to ask you a couple of questions. It would have taken me a long time to write out this response which is why I went to the video format here. Please give it a look and get back to me here if you have any feelings on what I am asking about.
Thanks,
Joel
OP's reply
Hi Joel,
Thanks a lot for taking the time to record a video.
To answer your questions:
- No, I actually never told my doctors about VELO. They were aware of my smoking. At the time the thought never crossed my mind that it might be the nicotine, so I never bothered to tell them. For a good while after switching from cigs to VELO I was actually thinking that nicotine was a good performance enhancer and without any drawbacks, now that I was not inhaling toxic smoke anymore..
- Absolutely, if you feel any value in using the post for your page, by all means feel free. You are also allowed to run it through ChatGPT or similar to remove my "less clean language" :)
To those of you who maybe havent watched the video response from Joel - please let Joel know if you have any stories that share similarities to mine that Joel is allowed to use for his page. Its a very important piece of work in my opinion, so Joel needs all the material he can get!
My reply
Thanks for your response and request for others to help too. I really appreciate it.
Joel
OP's reply
You're more than welcome to use it Joel 👍
