The idea that vaping is a healthy choice has been questioned for a long time, and now there are more details about how much it can actually hurt the lungs. People used to think it was safer than smoking, especially when it first showed up as e-cigarettes that looked like long, thin tubes, but the popularity has grown so much that the problems are becoming more obvious.
There are so many types now, and stores are everywhere, so more people are ending up in the hospital with vape-related illnesses. Some people even shared how they vaped constantly, like one man who took a puff every ten seconds or another who vaped for nine years before his lung collapsed.
One of the issues that keeps coming up is something called popcorn lung, which is scarring in the lungs, and it cannot be fixed once it develops. If you do not have that condition, then there is a chance your lungs can heal from some of the damage, and one group explained that cells in the lungs can actually regenerate and that the lungs show a strong ability to repair themselves after illnesses or injury.
They said: “cells in the lung can regenerate, and studies show that the lungs demonstrate remarkable reparative capacity in response to illnesses or injury such as scarring or fibrosis”.
Even with that, the healing depends on how much damage a person already has, how much they vaped, and genetics, so some people will not recover fully. If someone develops a vaping-associated lung injury, then they would not be able to cure it, and that damage would be permanent.
The symptoms can be things like a cough, trouble breathing, and pain when taking a breath. In very serious cases, a person’s oxygen levels can drop, and there is a risk of death, although that does not happen often.
A doctor who talked to a university said, “Our lungs are not a good organ to absorb substances for recreational use”. He went on and said: “They are an incredible organ, providing our bodies with vital oxygen and exchanging carbon dioxide, all while protecting us from infections and other harmful elements from our environment. We all begin to slowly lose lung function after about our early to mid-20s, and yet they must last us a lifetime. If people don’t take care of their lungs, they really suffer more difficulties breathing later in life due to habits such as vaping”.
