The Symptoms of Vaping-Related Lung Illness May Actually Feel Like the Flu
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given vaping-related illness an official name: e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury, aka EVALI.
There have been 1,299 reported cases of people suffering lung injuries after using electronic cigarettes or vaping products in the U.S., along with 26 official deaths.
Doctors weigh in on the potential causes of this lung illness, EVALI symptoms to know, and what treatment currently looks like.
It seems like every day there’s more news about vaping-related illnesses or injuries—and people are starting to die from it. In fact, just yesterday, The New York Times reported the story of another young person who nearly lost his life to vaping.
Gregory Rodriguez thought he had the flu when he went to the emergency room with headaches, terrible nausea, and diarrhea in September—but his lungs had actually stopped working properly. The 22-year-old had been vaping THC because he thought it was safer than smoking marijuana. As he continued to feel worse, Rodriguez’s blood oxygen levels dipped so low that he had to be connected to a ventilator. He was “essentially dying,” his doctor said, and had to spend 12 days in the hospital before his condition started to improve.
Unfortunately, cases like this have become more and more common—and it’s completely puzzled doctors, researchers, and other public health officials. There have been 1,299 reported cases of people suffering lung injuries after using electronic cigarettes or vaping products in the U.S., along with 26 official deaths, according to a new Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The numbers are expected to rise along with awareness of the illness.
While the concept of vaping-related illness is fairly new, the CDC just revealed there’s now a name for it: e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury, aka EVALI. There’s a lot health officials still haven’t figured out about EVALI, but here’s what they do know about its potential causes, symptoms, and treatment.
Back up: What causes EVALI, exactly?
While experts know that e-cigarettes and vaping products are involved, they’re not exactly sure what it is about those products that’s causing the lung illness. The CDC did note that more than 80 percent of cases of EVALI involved products with THC (the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological effects). As a result, officials are looking into thickeners and additives that are found in black market THC cartridges.
Some pathology reports have also shown that vaping causes fat to accumulate in the lungs, and that triggers an inflammatory response that makes it hard to breathe, says Osita Onugha, MD, a thoracic surgeon and director of thoracic surgery research and surgical innovation lab at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.
Is EVALI different from smoking-related illnesses?
While cigarette smoking can take years to cause illnesses and symptoms, EVALI moves fast, says Dr. Onugha. “People can die acutely,” he says.
Other than that, it’s hard to tell. “Since not much is known about the cause of EVALI right now, it’s unclear if there may be any overlap with smoking-related injuries or whether this is a completely different phenomenon,” says Joanna Tsai, MD, a pulmonologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “The only difference is that many of these individuals exclusively used vaping products and were not also smoking.”
What are the symptoms of EVALI specifically?
EVALI can cause symptoms that resemble those of pneumonia or the flu, the CDC warns, including the following:
Coughing
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Abdominal pain
Nausea
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Fever
Chills
Weight loss
How is EVALI detected?
There isn’t a specific test for EVALI. “The diagnosis is actually quite difficult,” Dr. Onugha says. “You have to be asking the right questions to understand what’s happening.”
The CDC recommends that doctors take a patient history, including asking about their use of e-cigarettes and vaping products. That should be followed by a physical exam, which includes taking the patient’s vital signs and pulse-oximetry (a test to measure oxygen levels in the blood). A respiratory virus panel is also recommended to rule out other illnesses and a chest CT scan. “A patient can have pneumonia or the flu,” Dr. Onugha says. “It’s a diagnosis of exclusion at this point.”
What does treatment for EVALI look like?
Many patients with EVALI have been hospitalized, and the CDC says treatment with corticosteroids has been shown to help in some cases. Some people will be placed on ventilators to help them breathe, Dr. Onugha says.
The CDC and Food and Drug Administration are now urging people to stop using e-cigarettes and vaping products until they get to the bottom of EVALI. “It’s best to take a pass completely, especially at this point in time,” Dr. Onugha says. “We don’t really know what’s causing this.”
If you’re using vaping to help you quit smoking, Dr. Tsai recommends having a conversation with your doctor. They’ll likely steer you toward an evidence-based way of quitting and using FDA-approved medications, she says.
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