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Comment by scythe | Hacker News Reader

I've started chewing nicotine gum while in the office/class and found that it helps a lot with making the noise more tolerable. I have a history of smoking and vaping, so I don't recommend it to naive people. It appears to be bad for me so I try to minimize it:

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.cir.94.5.878

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Do you have (or suspect you might have, but be undiagnosed) ADHD?

Nicotine is a stimulant. It improves concentration for individuals with ADHD, for much the same reasons that prescription stimulant drugs do. I picked up nicotine gum, and eventually switched to vaping myself, as a form of self-medication for my ADHD. If it really helps you block out distracting noises and sights from a busy office, that might be part of why.

If I could go back a few years and warn you against using nicotine to self-medicate ADHD, I would. I also have ADHD and kicked a 5 year vaping habit about a year ago. Nicotine might help you focus in the very short term, but if you can't re-up every half hour, it makes it a lot harder to focus in the long term! I spent 4 years as a developer, unable to vape in my shared office, being interrupted every hour by the need to consume more nicotine! Every time I'd come back in from a smoke break it felt like a race against the clock to get back into "the zone" before the nicotine cravings kicked me out again.

You know what has really helped my focus? BREAKING THAT ADDICTION. Please, if anyone else is reading the parent I'm replying to and thinking about starting to use nicotine to self-medicate ADHD trust me it is NOT worth it. It's not worth not being able to enjoy a whole movie or show because you need to intake nicotine. It's not worth being trapped in airplanes without being able to vape. It's not worth the chemical dependence, even if you "only" get addicted to the gum or patch. Please hear my appeal to what a terrible idea the parent comment is proposing! Nicotine is the absolute worst drug.

Oh geez, yeah, I'm definitely not endorsing self-medicating with nicotine, just saying, that I did, and that if nicotine helps you concentrate, you might wanna get evaluated for ADHD.

I was never a smoker, and I vape the lightest dose nicotine available (3mg/ml). I have definitely developed a light addiction over the years, but I can go all day without needing my vape. The worst my cravings get are a feeling of "Man, vaping would be really nice right now." I even went on a week-long vacation last year, left my vape at home, and didn't even think about the nicotine I was missing until I got home.

But please! Don't take my anecdotal evidence and think it means you should pick up vaping! I know it's not the best for my health, and you may become far more addicted than I am.

Huh.. your experience sounds similar to mine, although I was a heavy smoker for ~10 years. I currently vape 3mg and a) my vape never leaves the house (I never vape at work or around town) b) I often forget about vaping c) I left on a two week vacation, forgot my vape at home and nothing happened. I have the exact same craving sensation 'would have been nice to have a vape right now', usually when I'm bored. But I am a strong advocate against smoking (obviously) and vaping. Nobody should pick up vaping unless it's to attempt to give up smoking. It's still a nasty habit and super dangerous. When I say dangerous I mean the fact that in contrast to smoking, vaping has the risk of becoming a hobby.

It does. A very fun hobby, with lots of cool toys. I already mix my own juice. Originally that was just to save money, but now mixing is its own hobby. What do I feel like this week? My usual apple-flavored juice? Do I want to throw a little cranberry in this week just for fun? Or maybe I'm in the mood for something minty, my wife likes mints so we've always got an array to choose from.

I haven't even gotten into the world of rebuildables or anything like that. I use a basic Smok sub-ohm box (a T-priv), that I'm probably going to upgrade to the latest model in a few months, but I know there's an entire world of vape devices out there I've barely even glimpsed over the horizon, let alone explored. Luckily it's not too hard to talk myself out of fancy new hardware ($$) when my current mod gets the job done.

But flavors? I went and spent around $70 on flavors a couple weeks ago. Sounds crazy, but it's still cheaper than spending $100/month on commercial juices. And now I have a vast array of cool flavors to play with, and design my own recipes from.

Vaping can absolutely become a dangerous hobby.

Just chew nicotine gum, sheesh! These kids and their vapes..

Anyway, you're right, nicotine is a pain to quit and I wouldn't recommend it obviously. But vaping seems to be even more unhealthy and more distracting.

Nicotine gum is as expensive as cigarettes, if not more. I spend about $30/year for my vape supplies. I buy juice by the liter and the coils are the only other consumable and those are about $2 apiece every few months.

I mix my own juice. I did the math a few months ago, and I can make 60ml of juice (which lasts me about a week) for about $1.50. Coils usually last me about a month to a month and a half, and I usually pay $5ish a piece. So yeah... my monthly vaping costs are about $11/month at the most.

So, doing the math, as I use 3mg/ml juice, I vape about 720 mg of nicotine a month. If I bought the cheapest Wal-mart generic brand gum, in the 2mg pieces (because to replace my vape, I'd want a low dose per piece), 720 mg of nicotine in gum form would cost $81/month.

That is a huge difference. Even accounting for the fact that my vape device cost me originally $70, it's still cheaper, potentially as soon as the first month, to vape over chewing gum.

Presumably you could make your own gum (coat regular sugar-free gum?) using the same nicotine solution that vapers use.

Coating regular gum would probably not work. The nicotine is embedded in the gum base itself. That's why the instructions for using nicotine gum say to chew just long enough for you to feel the tingle that nicotine creates against your oral mucosa, then tuck it between your gum and cheek for 30ish minutes or until the tingling stops. Then you give it another couple chews, just enough to expose more of the nicotine to the surface, and place it between gum and cheek again.

The nicotine is slowly absorbed through the oral mucosa. Coating the gum would give you an initial burst of nicotine, but would not have the sustained drip of nicotine that the traditional nic gum does.

I suppose one could melt down gum base, add a vaping nicotine solution, stir it together, let it set and then cut into pieces... but I would worry about the PG or VG that the nicotine is contained in doing something weird to the gum base. And you would have to be careful to stir it quite thoroughly to prevent nicotine "hot spots" in your gum.

Making a homemade lozenge or mint would be much easier, and I believe some people do, in fact, do just that. It would be similar to making hard candies, only at some point you would mix in the nicotine liquid. Since many of the flavorings used in vape juice were originally designed for use in baking and hard candies (and usually have a PG or sometimes VG base), I'm pretty certain the PG or VG of the nicotine won't screw up the texture of the candy.

You can make your own gum.

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Chewing-Gum

There doesn't seem to be any known interaction with gum base.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3544094/

I know how to make gum and it would be a hassle and a half for this purpose. I'm fine with unflavored juice composed of compounds that have been used for inhalation purposes for decades.

Great study, thanks, I had no idea that had been studied so specifically.

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