Ashley, Health Educator

Hey everyone. Long story short I am 23 and started smoking when I was 19. I bought patches and started using them 2 days ago. I smoked close to a pack a day on avg. for 2 years prior to switching to a vape which I used for the last 2 years. I tried weening my self down from 12mg strength to 6mg over that time with the intention of going to 0 and then stopping all together. However, I found myself just inhaling the vape more often than before, to compensate, and the last month I have been very stressed and have used it a lot more than I would ever use it. I did notice some benefits from switching to a vape such as less coughing in general, however, recently with the excess inhalation, my lungs seemed to be worse to me. For example, I laugh kinda funny in general when I think something is really funny I kind of exhale hard, and when I do that I notice right away that it sounds like they are congested like a person with bronchitis would sound like. After doing that and hearing the same sound for about 2 weeks, it absolutely terrified me and pushed me to quitting right away, especially with the unknowns, as far as research, of vaping. I don't have a noticeable shortness of breath and workout 6 days a week doing heavy lifting where I breathe harder than if I didnt, but I am going to start adding days of cardio to that as of tomorrow morning. I am hoping cardio and a healthy diet will clear up my lungs so I do not need to go to a doctor because I am terrified of the potential of COPD, Lung cancer or lung disease of any kind. As of now I am 2 days in to my journey of quitting and have used a patch both days. I have severe cravings throughout the day when I am doing something where I used to vape heavily. However, at work today the same congested laugh happened and it terrified me even more than before. Honestly, I think it will be easier for me to quit now than I would have ever imagined, just because the fright factor I've mentioned. Anyways, I am not sure if anyone has taken a similar path (going from cigarettes to vape to quiting via patch) but if so I would very much appreciate any feedback you guys are willing to give. Im still pretty nervous about my lungs and the potential damage I have done to them so hopefully someone somewhere on this feed may be able to help me out. Thanks for reading.