how to flush nicotine?

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  • RealmofOpeth
    Member
    • May 2007
    • 407

    how to flush nicotine?

    Is there anyway to get rid of nicotine buildup in the body? Somehow wash it out? I know I could drink water, or quit for a while...
    but I'm at a point now where I barely feel anything at all even from the strong snus variety (putting two pris worth of skruf stark in my upper lip to fill it).
    It's just I feel antsy or something if I don't have one in and I'm chain snusing basically, but not really getting a good 'buzz' so to speak at all. Also the back of my brain doesn't feel too great either.
    I'm sure others might relate....it's just gets to the point where you do it just for habit, oral fixation, etc..the real enjoyment just isn't there...like a pack of cigarettes..first couple of smokes are great if you haven't had one in a while then it dwindles pretty quick after that into just thoughtless usage.

    So I'd like to somehow 'reset' my tolerance in a practical fashion (quitting for a while just doesnt work too well) so I don't have to continuously do it, and get more satisfaction from smaller amount of snus.
  • Zero
    Member
    • May 2006
    • 1522

    #2
    Nicotine has a half-life of only about 2 hours, so within one day (24h = 12 half-lives) you only have 0.5 ^ 12 = 0.000244 times as much in your system as you did 24h prior. By two days you have only 60 billionths the amount - it goes away quickly. What doesn't go away quickly is your brain's sensitivity to it. Nicotine stimulates production of several neurotransmitters which, present in excess, reduce the sensitivity of your brain and body to them.

    I quote from a 2001 study :

    (...) (R)eversal of tolerance appears to be very limited, or very slow, following extended abstinence from smoking and presumed elimination of dependence. Tolerance to subjective effects of nicotine was moderate in exsmokers, who had been abstinent an average of nearly 7 years, because dose-response curves generally were shifted to the right, relative to those for nonsmokers, but usually not as far right as those for currently dependent and nondependent smokers. These results are consistent with one study (Hughes et al., 1989), but not another (Hughes et al., 2000), of tolerance to nicotine in long-time exsmokers, both of which examined the subjective effects of nicotine gum in exsmokers versus current smokers and nonsmokers. Preclinical research suggests that lengthy nicotine exposure can produce a "persistent inactivation" of nicotinic receptors that may be irreversible (Reitstetter et al., 1999). Thus, mechanisms responsible for at least some of these subjective effects may never fully regain the same degree of sensitivity to nicotine as that exhibited during initial exposure (e.g., teens experimenting with tobacco). Such incomplete tolerance reversal may help explain why many exsmokers who relapse can rapidly resume smoking at a high rate, often within days or weeks, after even extended abstinence (Norregaard et al., 1992), whereas those initially naïve to smoking invariably require at least a few years to escalate to high-rate smoking (McNeill et al., 1989).

    The finding of substantial chronic tolerance to most subjective effects of nicotine but little or none to cardiovascular and performance responses (except hand steadiness) supports the notion that tolerance is response-specific (Arcavi et al., 1994; Perkins et al., 1994). Although the timing of the performance tasks later in the battery could have reduced the chances of observing tolerance to those measures, this seems unlikely given that the hand steadiness task, which did show tolerance, was performed after finger-tapping, which did not. Moreover, we observed a similar lack of tolerance to cardiovascular measures, which were obtained concurrently with subjective measures that did show tolerance. Underlying mechanisms responsible for subjective effects of nicotine must show substantial chronic adaptation with repeated exposure, whereas mechanisms responsible for cardiovascular and most performance effects do not. Notably, we saw little evidence of sensitization, or increased sensitivity to nicotine due to past exposure, which would result in a shift to the left in dose-response curves of smokers compared with nonsmokers (Kalant and Khanna, 1990), although memory recognition was improved by nicotine in dependent smokers only.


    from :

    Dissociation of Nicotine Tolerance from Tobacco Dependence in Humans

    Kenneth A. Perkins, Debra Gerlach, Michelle Broge, James E. Grobe1 , Mark Sanders, Carolyn Fonte, Josh Vender, Christine Cherry and Annette Wilson

    Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (K.A.P., D.G., M.B., J.E.G., M.S., C.F., J.V., C.C.); and Department of Anesthesiology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (A.W.)

    THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS - Vol. 296, Issue 3, 849-856, March 2001

    Comment

    • RealmofOpeth
      Member
      • May 2007
      • 407

      #3
      that's interesting because like I posted before....I was a smoker, started snus, quit smoking for a while...before i ran out of snus i started smoking again. the effects of the nicotine while on cigarettes was extremely small before snus but quite the opposite when i picked it up again during the use of snus. the snus use opposed to the smoking was in great contrast. it was like i had never had nicotine or tobacco in my life when i picked up smoking again as the effects at that point were the strongest i've ever had i think. weird

      Comment

      • Zero
        Member
        • May 2006
        • 1522

        #4
        Well, who knows, then, dude :lol: Guess you just have to experiment.

        Comment

        • alex
          Member
          • Jul 2007
          • 226

          #5
          RealmofOpeth - you have mentioned in previous posts that you have quite the physiological reaction to snus, but you say that smooking gives you the biggest nic hit. Maybe it's just different 'bodily' interpretations at different tobacco levels.

          When I have smoked in the past after not smoking for a few days, i get the 'psuedo-high' shotgun blast of dizziness about a third of the way through the first cig. That may last a minute or two after i finish smoking.

          But, when I snus a fat loose portion of N&J, I get waves of warmth and calm through my whole body for up to 45 minutes.

          Different feeling but different nic hits. The smoke is a shot really quick, a fat portion is an avalanche in slow motion...

          hope that wasn't too euphoric :P

          Comment

          • RealmofOpeth
            Member
            • May 2007
            • 407

            #6
            Originally posted by alex
            RealmofOpeth - you have mentioned in previous posts that you have quite the physiological reaction to snus, but you say that smooking gives you the biggest nic hit. Maybe it's just different 'bodily' interpretations at different tobacco levels.

            When I have smoked in the past after not smoking for a few days, i get the 'psuedo-high' shotgun blast of dizziness about a third of the way through the first cig. That may last a minute or two after i finish smoking.

            But, when I snus a fat loose portion of N&J, I get waves of warmth and calm through my whole body for up to 45 minutes.

            Different feeling but different nic hits. The smoke is a shot really quick, a fat portion is an avalanche in slow motion...

            hope that wasn't too euphoric :P
            heh i think i know what you mean. the cig though only lasts 5 minutes...pris can be used for however long you want.
            but why the hell i would all of a sudden feel the effects of smoking when i had been on snus nicotine for a while...boggles me. perhaps the lungs really change the delivery to the nervous system.
            last night i really felt the nicotine with 2 pris of N&J in...really dizzified me..at first I was like this is nice...then it just got to the point where I was feeling rather nauseated. thats the first time i really felt it since my last snus shipment a few months ago despite i've used it before in the last week.

            maybe i got 'blockages' or some shit going on in my body to not let stuff be consistent.

            Comment

            • The Cook
              Member
              • Aug 2007
              • 166

              #7
              Originally posted by alex
              Different feeling but different nic hits. The smoke is a shot really quick, a fat portion is an avalanche in slow motion...
              Haha - Alex, I think you have it bang on. I just love those avalanches...

              Comment

              • Craig de Tering
                Member
                • Nov 2006
                • 525

                #8
                Originally posted by Zero
                Nicotine has a half-life of only about 2 hours, so within one day (24h = 12 half-lives) you only have 0.5 ^ 12 = 0.000244 times as much in your system as you did 24h prior. By two days you have only 60 billionths the amount - it goes away quickly. What doesn't go away quickly is your brain's sensitivity to it. Nicotine stimulates production of several neurotransmitters which, present in excess, reduce the sensitivity of your brain and body to them.

                I quote from a 2001 study :

                [snipped the study]
                I remember having read somewhere a long time ago that [paraphrasing]"Nicotine, having a similar molecular structure as some neurotransmitters (NTMs) present in the brain, takes over the function of these NTMs. After some time, the body recognizes that it no longer needs to produce the same amounts of natural NTMs because nicotine readily takes care of the same functions in the brain.
                When nicotine is no longer available to perform the function, the brain naturally doesn't operate at optimal levels, resulting in the well-known feeling of irritability, confusion and assorted cravings.
                Recognizing the shortfall of NTMs, the body starts making more but it takes a while to get to necessary levels again."

                If this isn't true, don't shoot the messenger. ;-)

                Sorta the same thing that happens with anabolic steroid use. At the end of the dope cycle, 'roid users without the proper knowledge have crashed natural testosterone levels (and possibly elevated levels of estrogen) resulting is "bitch tits" and impotence among other things you definitely don't want as a man.

                Comment

                • Zero
                  Member
                  • May 2006
                  • 1522

                  #9
                  ^ yeah, that's exactly right. That's also the reason it breaks down so quickly - it's a chemical very similar to what your body is used to having in its brain, so the natural mechanisms for destroying and reclaiming used neurotransmitters works quite effectively.

                  In fact, the brain chemical that does the breaking down is called monoamine-oxidase ("-ase meaning an enzyme which acts on the monoamine, a core unit in many neurotransmitters).

                  In terms of the tolerance associated with cigarettes - I've just dug up a study which notes that cigarette smoke contains monoamine-oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) (clicky link) : chemicals which retard the effectiveness of this chemical in breaking down neurotransmitters. It could well be that these are not present in snus and are a product of the heat of combustion in the cigarette. MAOIs extend the life of all of the neurochemicals it is ordinarily responsible for destroying, so things like dopamine, serotonin, etc, are all extended in lifetime in the synapse.

                  Basically, what happens is that, in normal operation, a neuron discharges neurotransmitters into the narrow space between itself and its neighbour. The neurotransmitters bind to receptors in the neighbouring neuron and cause it to react by firing neurotransmitters itself. After firing, monoamine-oxidase does the work of destroying the messenger chemicals in the synapse. If, however, you have monoamine-oxidase inhibitors in your bloodstream, these will slow the destruction of these and extend the duration of the synaptic firing - making the sensory message more "intense".

                  So it could be the case that the MAOI effect of the cigarette smoke is what causes the heigtened response rather than the nicotine. MAOIs are notoriously non-specific, so they wlll heighten the sensations of many neurochemical pathways in addition to those stimulated by nicotine. The study I quoted was testing people only on nicotine response and not on cigarette response - maybe that's an explanation.

                  Comment

                  • Craig de Tering
                    Member
                    • Nov 2006
                    • 525

                    #10
                    Very interesting that!
                    That's the first time I understood the MAO/MAOI story. I've read about them on both OTC and prescription medications' warnings labels , never knowing WTF they are.

                    Comment

                    • alex
                      Member
                      • Jul 2007
                      • 226

                      #11
                      Originally posted by RealmofOpeth
                      heh i think i know what you mean. the cig though only lasts 5 minutes...pris can be used for however long you want.
                      but why the hell i would all of a sudden feel the effects of smoking when i had been on snus nicotine for a while...boggles me. perhaps the lungs really change the delivery to the nervous system.
                      Like I said, I think it's in the speed of delivery. But, if you notice, the need for another cig comes quickly. Whereas a portion of pris can last several hours, while never feeling like you just smoked. Less body shock...

                      Originally posted by RealmofOpeth
                      last night i really felt the nicotine with 2 pris of N&J in...really dizzified me..at first I was like this is nice...then it just got to the point where I was feeling rather nauseated. thats the first time i really felt it since my last snus shipment a few months ago despite i've used it before in the last week.
                      Do you normally snus a large amount (I'm guessing you did that time)?? Did you possibly go overboard from being excited? Have you snussed N&J before (I know I was a long time smoker, and now I snus all day, but a fat pris of loose N&J still ****s me up! )

                      It may have been partially the excitement, and then that 'high' got to you. Sort of like that point after a long night of drinking where the dancing turns to spinning :?

                      Comment

                      • Lanci3250
                        Banned Users
                        • Oct 2007
                        • 48

                        #12
                        Hi All

                        Frequently read, infrequently post. I'm always impressed with how correct your posts are, and scientifically accurate. Inhallation is the fastest absorbtion method (next to intravenous infusion) followed by sublingual (oral mucosa). Hence why smoking gives you a heavier and faster high. Oral mucosa and Inhaled absorbtion. Also, Zero is correct that nicotine both stimulates the release of and potentiates the effect of other neuro transmitters (nicotinic receptors- no coincidence). It also affects other hormones in your body, such as ADH (anti-diuretic hormone)- Ever notice you pee more if you quit smoking?

                        Anyways- I just want to commend you all with your posts. I really appreciate scientific accuracy when people post on boards. If that were the case with the whole internet, Wikipedia would be as reliable as Michael Scott thinks it is

                        Slan!
                        Ryan

                        Comment

                        • Zero
                          Member
                          • May 2006
                          • 1522

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Lanci3250
                          It also affects other hormones in your body, such as ADH (anti-diuretic hormone)- Ever notice you pee more if you quit smoking?
                          hehe, yeah, and can hold less beer :lol: I notice it a lot with decongestant/antihistamine pills with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine in them as well - can put back pint after pint without needing to let one out...but man, when they do decide to come out it's like you gotta start paying rent in the gents, man! Anyway, good to hear I'm not totally talking out of my arse - I'm a physical scientist, not a medical one, so I'm nothing near an expert on any of this. Neuro/somatic chemistry is just a pet hobby of mine...or rather was, moreso, at some point in the past when I used myself as something of a, er... lab rat, for some, erm... dodgy neuroactive chemicals. :lol:

                          Comment

                          • Lanci3250
                            Banned Users
                            • Oct 2007
                            • 48

                            #14
                            Between both of us we can conquer the world- I'm in clinical research. "Neuroactive chemicals"- sounds intreaguing

                            Comment

                            • Zero
                              Member
                              • May 2006
                              • 1522

                              #15
                              intriguing for a time...then I almost killed myself in severe delerium with 2,5-dimethoxy-4-(n)-propylthiophenethylamine and haven't touched anything but beer and ganja since :lol: Conquering the world sounds good, mind you.

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