THESE shocking scans show how vaping can block your lungs with solidified oil – after an eighth person died from using e-cigarettes.
Anthony Mayo, 19, was lucky to survive after being struck down with a mystery lung disease that’s plaguing vapers across the US.
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The teenager, from Erie, Pennsylvania, became severely ill and unable to breathe on his own, last week.
His parents took him to hospital where doctors carried out X-rays and discovered his lungs were filled with “hardened e-liquid oil”.
Dad Kieth Mayo, told Metro US, that the doctors likened it to bacon grease that hardens after it has cooled.
Anthony was warned that at the age of 19, he now as the “lungs of a 60-year-old, two-pack-a-day smoker” and that the damage will likely scar him for life.
The teen took up vaping about two years ago and would use flavoured oils, including blue raspberry, cotton candy and cinnamon toast crunch.
He also vaped THC – the psychoactive chemical in cannabis, his dad said.
‘Solidified like bacon grease’
Anthony first went to hospital on September 8 with a worrying cough, but docs assumed it was bronchitis and sent him away with antibiotics.
Two days later he started to feel worse and went back to A&E where medics said he may have developed walking pneumonia, which causes the lungs to inflame and fill with liquid.
They prescribed him a strong antibiotic and steroid, but his condition continued to worsen.
He spent all of Sunday night coughing so returned to hospital the next morning, where tests showed his oxygen levels were dangerously low – at 37 per cent.
This is what vaping looks like when your otherwise healthy 19-year-old is admitted into the ICU
Tanya
His mum Tanya, who has set up a fundraising page, shared the pictures of his two lung scans – taken a week apart – on her Facebook page as a warning to others.
She wrote: “A warning for those in denial. This is what vaping looks like when your otherwise healthy 19-year-old is admitted into the ICU.
“Left lung about 80 per cent congested and right is about 50 per cent, oxygen level was 37.
“According to the doctor this is showing areas that have essentially solidified like bacon grease.
“The pulmonary doctor said he had seen dead people with a higher oxygen level.”
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Anthony was put on oxygen to help him breathe and expel some of the oil.
His dad Kieth said: “They [doctors] heat the oxygen mixture and put a little moisture in it, so it will go in there and liquefy some of that stuff [solidified oil] and encourage him to cough it up.
“The first couple days he has been coughing and it was blood-tinged, now it’s just brown, dark dark green.”
He added: “He is going to have some scarring. Whether it’s profound, we don’t know yet. It’s a wait and see type of thing.”
The family are hopeful that as a young man Anthony, who is being kept in at Millcreek Community Hospital, will be able to make a full recovery.
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How safe are e-cigarettes in the UK?
In the UK, e-cigarettes are tightly regulated for safety and quality.
They’re not completely risk free, but they carry a small fraction of the risk of cigarettes.
E-cigarettes do not produce tar or carbon monoxide, two of the most harmful elements in tobacco smoke.
The liquid and vapour contain some potentially harmful chemicals also found in cigarette smoke, but at much lower levels.
While nicotine is the addictive substance in cigarettes, it’s relatively harmless.
Almost all of the harm from smoking comes from the thousands of other chemicals in tobacco smoke, many of which are toxic.
Nicotine replacement therapy has been widely used for many years to help people stop smoking and is a safe treatment.
There’s no evidence so far that vaping causes harm to other people around you.
This is in contrast to secondhand smoke from smoking, which is known to be very harmful to health.
Source: NHS
It comes after health officials confirmed an eighth person has died from a vaping-related lung illness, today.
The man, in his mid-forties, had normal lung function until he took up vaping in May, health officials in Missouri said.
He developed mild respiratory symptoms that worsened and he was taken to hospital on August 22 where he later died.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 530 confirmed and probable cases have been reported across the US – up from 380 a week ago.
The growing toll has prompted officials to launch a criminal investigation.
The focus [of the investigation] is on the supply chain
Mitch Zeller
However, they are still struggling to identify a single product or chemical in e-cigarettes behind the outbreak.
But Mitch Zeller, a director at the Food and Drug Administration, said: “The focus is on the supply chain.”
The illness was first reported in April and all patients are known to have used e-cigarettes — some containing the cannabinoid THC.
Symptoms can include fatigue, coughing, breathlessness and vomiting or diarrhoea.
States have begun banning e-cigarette sales and the first case has been reported in Canada.
Anne Schuchat, from the Center for Disease Control, urged vapers to give up. On the deaths, she said: “We do expect others.”
It came a day after India said it was banning e-cigarette sales and imports.
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