Ontario teen was on life support after only five months of vaping: doctors

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LONDON, ON – Doctors say the case of an Ontario teenager highlights how much we still have to learn about vaping.

They write in Thursday’s edition of The Canadian Medical Association Journal that the 17-year-old boy went from being in perfect health to being on life support after just five months of regular vaping. He narrowly avoided a double lung transplant and was in the hospital for 47 days earlier this year.

Dr. Simon Landman with the London Health Sciences Centre is one of the six doctors who helped care for the teen, and says his story offers a cautionary tale.

“Avoid that if you can, because we’re still trying to find the long-term consequences, but it doesn’t appear to be safe at this time.”

The teen responded to intensive steroid treatment that helped reduce the inflammation, and he was eventually discharged back to his home hospital. He has continued to recover, but has not regained full breathing function even months after returning home.

“We know that vaping is seen in a younger population, is often targeted to a younger population,” Landman says. “We don’t want to see anyone sick but it’s quite eye-opening when it’s very young people who have been previously healthy.”

The doctors say the boy’s condition resembled the sort of damage usually seen in factory workers, forced to breathe in toxic chemicals like those in microwave popcorn.

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