Questions-0

TLDR

3 days after drastic cut-down on cigarettes smoked I got severe depression, after 2 very hard days I lit up cigarette with modified filter tip what immediately (first puff) lifted me up out of depression, then I confirmed this effect next day(s).

Background

33yo male smoking 30+/day strong roll-ups for 15+ years spontaneously decided to limit daily intake of smokes to 5/day. Last tried to quit a year after started smoking. No history of depression. The goal was to lit up filtered, medium strength, commercial cigarette no more than every 4 hours.

Smoking

Till the reduction day I smoked using very strong, frequent, deep inhales. I was chasing fast and strong sensation, usually ending my cigarette before others were in the middle of theirs.

Process of reduction

Day 1

It wasn’t as hard as I expected, I was quite excited that it’s possible to smoke in so big intervals and feel & function acceptably, I felt pains in chest, wanted to inhale anything that make fumes.

Day 2

Woke up early, felt energetic/searching/boosted, was lacking of concentration, strong cravings but nothing crazy. I yawned every half hour at least (beside feeling quite fresh/awake). Strange feeling that I’ll call from now lagging eyes.

Day 3

Satisfied of holding my goal so far. Cigarettes smoked by schedule almost stopped to give anything beside limiting cravings. Almost none concentration, yawning. Started feeling fatigue.

Day 4

Extremely fatigue, anxiety, exasperation, aggression. No satisfaction from scheduled smokes, no desire to smoke more, no plan, minds in fog, totally lost and down, never felt in such way before.

Day 5

When woken up I felt better than day before but after first 2 scheduled smokes I knew that I’m on same, or even worse, course that yesterday. At 3rd cigarette, out of desperation, I did what I used to do when got light cigarette or wanted special boost - I bite of part of filtering material. At first puff I got WOW effect, immediately (as I remember, it occurred even before I exhaled this first smoke), it was euphoric. Whole „darkness” from past days started to fade out, after second, third puff I’ve got sharp mind, fatigue went away. Rest of this cigarette I spent cheering and asking myself what has happened. Rest of schedule unmodified.

Day 6

First cig of a day was ok, an hour before second cig I started to get lagging eyes and yawning, decided to take last 2 puffs of 2nd cig with filtering material removed, symptoms disappeared, situation repeated around 3rd cig.

Next 3 weeks

I smoked by schedule, modifying filter for last puffs for most of times, light symptoms (lagging eyes, yawning) never occurred. Acceptable concentration but i.e. had to change my glasses to a bit stronger. I found it to be very hard keep my smoking regimen in longer run, cravings didn’t ease with time, a lot/too much self-control required. About month after reduction I tired nasal snuff and it was bulls eye, I quit smoking in 2 days following.

Next 3 months

I mostly snuff, occasionally smoke cigarette without inhaling, some pipe (no inhalation also) and vaping (mouth to nose). Concentration is very good, I can easily use my old glasses, far from depression.

What happened?

My first thought at day 5 was: ”there has to be strong psychoactive substance other than nicotine in cigarette smoke that is delivered in much higher amounts when filter is modified/removed”.

I tired to make a graphical representation of how I understand this situation showing demonstrative plasma nicotine levels and some X levels:

plasma nicotine and X levels

Notes regarding the chart

• 2 days preceding reduction shows 20cig/day 6AM-10PM habit
• nicotine increase by single cigarette is set to 10ng/ml, half life is 2 hours
• ratio of X intake using modified filter vs standard filter is set to 10:1, half life is 48h
• the green “X threshold” line shows X level below which my symptoms kicked in
• nicotine chart doesn’t include increased nicotine delivery through modified filter (up to 2x), omitted for clarity #TODO ref here

Why does it matter?

• if there are two strong psychoactive substances in smoke users should be informed
• when they have different kinetics it might make smoking addiction more complex (it’s complex even without it)
• you might not get out of depressive/withdrawal state using single filtered cigarette, you might have to intake a pack to feel difference (pattern often reported by quitters) and by doing so - you’re again into smoking
• maybe I could i.e. chew my used filter buds to get rid of symptoms? :)
• …
• it’s interesting?

Questions

• what is X?
• does higher drag from filter modification matters?
• maybe it isn’t X, maybe filter tuning leads to higher nicotine absorption rate (alkalization?) so tuned smoke pierced through my nicotine tolerance and lifted my depression?
• am I vulnerable to depression or it was reducing/quitting result only?

Terms

Lagging eyes

Eyes don’t catch up with fast head movements, they need more time to catch focus. Moreover I felt extra weight on top of the head but only when moving my head, so it was like extra inertia. All this also when rested, physically fresh. It was like brain falling asleep while rest of the body is going opposite.

Yawning

Every 15-60 minutes tension on facial muscles, especially around eyes, sometimes with a tear or two. What’s different between standard yawning that it didn’t actually lead to opening mouths to take breath in. Also happened when I felt rested overall.

Filter tuning

Pull-out filtering material using front teeth, bite off or chip away tiny portion of material fibers, place the rest of material into filter tube using rotary movements.

It takes about 3 seconds when practiced.

Cigarette filter tuning

For the sake of science ;) I smoked whole cigarette with tuned filter first time in 4 months, felt nothing special (I intake quite a lot of snuff daily though).

Update: 2019-10-24

Diet

7 months quit. My daily diet (on average):

• 2g nasal snuff
• 2ml 18mg/ml vaping liquid
• 1 portion of swedish snus (1g 9mg/g)
• 1/2 small pipe (1.5g, not inhaled)

After 2 months of not smoking first 10 times I used pipe for longer than 10 minutes I got strange heart rattlings, I reproduced similar feeling once by inhaling tuned cigarette, I couldn’t reproduce it by overdoing snuff nor vape. Now I can smoke pipe for 30 minutes without those.

Body weight +5%.

Alcohol

I always had a tendency to go nuts while drinking, especially after vodka (got excited, felt very good, sharp, strong -> me chasing this -> overdoing -> aggression, obsession).

Noticed that nicotine (tobacco-free nicotine pouches, pipe smoking) effectively sedates rush after initial dose of alcohol thus [almost :)] completely removes an urge (crazy urge) for repetition.

The problem was that when I started drinking I had no urge to smoke, just wanted to drink (+indoor anti-smoking policies). When alcohol and nicotine are in balance - everything is smooth.

Answers for my questions

Still looking for them.

Update: 2019-11-11

Hidden potency

Taking X substance out of equation.

Let’s look at a filtered cigarette as a crazy potent device locked by filter.

First use of filter was to prevent “tobacco-like matter” to fall from paper tube into user’s mouth.

Later it was used to advertise safer cigarettes.

Next, filter ventilation was used to manipulate smoke measurements (thanks to Dutch Health Institute there’s big database and wide description). Dutch measurements showed up to 20X higher concentrations of nicotine and tar while using different than standard (ISO) smoking regime (Canadian Intensive, CI).

Machine-Smoking regimes base on puff volume, average air draw and puff intervals. But each user of commercial cigarettes, after smoking 1000’s of them, knows exactly (consciously or unconsciously) how to smoke his beloved brand to make desired effect (learned by experimenting/accidentally). Average air draw doesn’t describe puff enough, smokers tend to begin the puff with high draw, easing it later. I’m sure that it changes smoke profile a lot (by different temperatures), possibly introducing effective amounts of constituents not seen in lab measurements.

Eased or removed filter introduce higher draw and consumption of bigger particles.

What can be seen by simple observations is that smokers in rush (being late or when it’s cold outside) are able to feed their cravings (w/ reserve) using 1/3 of cigarette length(~3 puffs), if asked to smoke the rest calmly - they’re not interested and do put off. What is also noticeable - the much more intense smell they breathe out (often loudly commented by bystanders), what might indicate different smoke profile, maybe even more like different product.

What I noticed years ago, when was smoking not filtered roll-ups, when I was given a commercial and eased filtering material (I probably craved for tar) I was totally done in about half of its length.

Update: 2019-11-15

Video 1

I’ve found an interesting video titled “The End of Vaping? - IQOS 3 Multi and IQOS 3 inteReview | Heat Not Burn, No More Vaping” from channel Jai Haze on popular video-sharing platform. Pair of hosts, I guess they run vaping-related business, review heated tobacco product, they are former smokers, one states he hasn’t smoked cigarette in 6 years, I guess that the other one is also abstinent for some long time too. We see them frequently using advanced vaping devices, they vape nicotine enriched liquids.

First time they use heated tobacco is 13:02. Both show signs of instant, euphoric, satisfying sensation, once or twice they look “high”. They state many times that heated is exactly like smoking. Few puffs later they’re both cooler and rationale, they want to hit another one but have to wait for device to recharge. Male host tries to ignite and smoke used tobacco cartridge.

On 21:10 they choose menthol cartridge, male host wants them because he used to smoke menthols. Now reactions are nothing similar to those after first usage, sensation is way below their expectations and they’re able to be critic on taste and smell.

Video 2

Former smoker and I guess experienced vaper tries heated tobacco, starts at 5:06.

First two puffs he’s rather surprised, he looks like enjoying 3rd puff, after 5th puff he says that “nicotine rush is coming on”. His reactions are more calm/in-control than those from Video 1.

Why bother?

Former smokers after years of abstinence and using nicotine alone when exposed to full tobacco product do feel extra pleasure/satisfaction (even overwhelming euphoria). Pleasure degrades during continued and subsequent use.

Looking at Video 1 I see my reaction on smoke through modified filter, smoke that helped me.

Maybe it’s just coincidence but I suspect that maker of heated tobacco product knows exactly what (former)smokers mostly crave for and is able to deliver it in less harmful way using more controlled environment (reconstituted tobacco inside heating device). Maybe (!) some substances that are craved more - are present in larger quantities or are more effective in this newly designed smoke than in conventional cigarettes behind the filter.

Thus, maybe, heated tobacco products can be useful for depressed quitters with only few puffs.

Me

I tested heated tobacco product, it’s nowhere near to combusted tobacco in terms of smell and taste (awful), it’s impossible for current smoker to say it’s exactly as smoking, it does deliver some nicotine though.

I smoked de-filtered cigarette after being 4 months smoke free, using nasal snuff, and I felt almost nothing while started smoking it, pretty neutral, of course it was pleasurable to inhale smoke deeply. What felt next was heart pushing hard, nothing pleasurable but also nothing overwhelming.

Discussion

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