Hey ya’ll, just wanted to speak on my experience using nicotine gum. I vaped for around 5 years, starting with a juul and switched to a refillable pod system about a year ago. A few months back I was getting wild chest pain, mainly across my left pec/neck/arm. I went to the ER and it was diagnosed as costochondritis, an inflammation of the chest lining/cartilage connected the ribs to the sternum. I had covid and a nasty case of bronchitis earlier in the year and was coughing hard for at least a month each time. I also began working out my chest, trying to do the same workouts/weight I was doing when I stopped. It’s hard to say which one caused the inflammation.

Either way, coughing from my vape wasn’t helping and the anxiety that it could be something related to my lungs made me decide it was time to give it up, especially because I still smoke weed.

I’m here to say Nicorette gum just works. Treat it as your vape, take as many pieces as you need throughout the day without worrying about it for the first few weeks. It’s actually pretty nice to not worry about reaching for your vape every few minutes but still having the mental security that you’re getting a nicotine hit (if that makes sense). Eventually, your brain will trick itself into only needing a piece or two a day. You already have a piece of gum in your mouth, why grab another one? At this point, you have a gum fixation, not nicotine. It got to the point where I would chew a piece because I wanted my breathe to smell better, not because I wanted nicotine. I’m now chewing regular mint gum and I have zero desire to hit a vape/tobacco. It’s reassuring to know that nicorette is still an option if I ever get a strong enough craving, and I have zero guilt using it as it’s for my general improvement. I realize how difficult this is, my health scare was the only thing that was going to get me to stop.

I’ve seen some discourse about the use of gum and how it’s just replacing the issue with another one. I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s by far, irrefutably the safest way to use nicotine and it’s designed to help you ween off of it. It worked wonders for me, I never thought I’d get this under control. Just wanted to share my experience with it and encourage anyone who’s thinking about making the switch.