Mum watched teen son’s health decline as he got hooked on vaping

A Christchurch mum watched as her teenage son got hooked on vaping, his health deteriorating before her eyes.

Everyone was doing it, he told her. It couldn’t be that bad.

But one GP says vaping is extremely addictive, known to cause asthma-like symptoms, and puts users at increased risk of blood clots.

And that was without knowing the long-term impacts it could have on one’s health.

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The teen’s mother, who agreed to talk on the basis of anonymity, said her son became hooked on nicotine at around 16 or 17 years old and was totally obsessed.

It started because the other kids were doing it, even the goody-goods, he’d told her.

He reckoned there was no-one he knew who didn’t use a vape. And because everyone did it, it couldn’t be that bad.

Research from 2021showed one-in-five teenagers used an e-cigarette daily, and there’d been reports of primary school aged children taking it up.

The woman didn’t know how much her son, who had never smoked, was vaping but later found dozens of disposable vapes hidden around the garden.

And she thinks he was choosing vapes with signifiant amounts of nicotine, a combination of the disposable and rechargeable ones.

What she did know was that as he became dependent on the vape, his health took a turn for the worst.

The addiction to vaping, combined with social drinking, had significant affects on both his physical and mental health.

He was always sick, had high blood pressure, was struggling to breathe, and had an underactive thyroid. He became lethargic, anxious, depressed, and couldn’t focus.

It was hard to watch, the woman said.

A previous A-grade student, he attended school less and less before dropping out. He wanted to join the army, but failed the fitness test.

He couldn’t exercise or play sport without running out of breath, and feeling like his heart was going to stop.

In the end, that was the final straw. He wanted to play football.

The woman’s son, who is now 20, has given up vaping and is doing it with his girlfriend.

His blood pressure has returned to normal, as with his thyroid. He was able to play sport again, and was studying successfully at university.

“He just feels way better.”

But it had not been easy, and a puff on New Year’s Eve, supposed to be a treat for a special occasion, brought back a few weeks of cravings.

“It was really hard. Both of them did it together… He got really scared about how sick he got.”

General Practice New Zealand Chair Dr Bryan Betty said the addictive nature of vaping, shortness of breath, and increased risk of blood clots – especially for young women taking birth control – was concerning.

But it was the unknown long-term consequences that worried him the most.

Doctors didn’t know what the consequences of a 16-year-old, who had never smoked before, taking up vaping might be when they’re still doing it in 10 or 20 years.

The high nicotine content in many of the vapes young people chose made it easy to get hooked, and difficult to stop.

He said there could be unintended consequences of vapes being readily available to young people.

“I am concerned that if we don’t start to think about this we might create a health issue”.

Betty said vaping was still, without a doubt, a better option than smoking and a valid tool to help quit.

“Its young people who weren’t smoking that’s really a concern,” he said. “We need to think about how we access it.”

While he wasn’t necessarily a fan of the prescription only crack-down Australia had gone with, something needed to change.

He suggested they be sold at pharmacies instead of at the dairy, petrol station, and vape stores.

They could be made free with a script from a doctor, he said.