Urgent health warning has been issued to vape users by dentist

An urgent warning has been issued to vapers after an expert noticed a disturbing trend among users.

Urgent warning issued to vape users

A dentist has issued an urgent warning to vapers after noticing a disturbing trend among patients.

Dr Stewart Beggs, a cosmetic dentist based in the UK, took to TikTok to urge social media users to be on the look out for “vape tongue”.

“Vape tongue is when you start to lose your taste because you’ve been vaping so much and this is really on the rise because of the popularity of these disposable vapes, which have all these ridiculous flavours,” he said.

He said the overconsumption of the vapes, and therefore nicotine, can cause such severe dry mouth that some people are losing their sense of taste.

Dr Beggs added it was horrible for users’ health, with Better Health Vic’swebsite confirming that excessive dry mouth can cause tooth decay.

Dentist Dr Stewart Beggs has issued a warning to vape users. Picture: TikTok

He said vapers tongue can be helped by cutting down vaping, drinking more water and taking care with their dental habits.

The dentist’s revelation comes as Lucy Turchin, 35, told news.com.au in May that she picked up vaping as she believed it was a safe alternative to smoking. Just four months later, she noticed something wasn’t quite right with her breathing.

Ms Turchin began visiting doctor after doctor to speak about her lung issues and ask if it had anything to do with vaping.

But she was consistently told vaping was safe and instead told she had anxiety as nothing was coming up in her X-rays.

“As my symptoms worsened, I became more and more depressed,” Ms Turchin said.

Lucy Turchin has a vape-inflicted illness. Picture: Facebook

Within six months of quitting vaping her symptoms disappeared and she felt as though she had got her life back.

Ms Turchin was still following up with doctors and an allergy expert diagnosed her with vocal chord dysfunction without performing any tests.

She started smoking cigarettes for four months and was completely fine but on a night out of friends she took a hit of a friend’s vape.

All the symptoms came back and she was furious, feeling let down by the doctors.

It all came to a head when, in February, someone blew a vape cloud in her face and she “felt her lungs swell up”.

Eventually she was hospitalised and assigned a doctor who Lucy felt was actually hearing her out about her lungs.

Woman smokes disposable vape cigarette while talking on smart phone

The doctor ordered a high resolution CAT scan of Ms Turchin’s lung and found hypersensitivity pneumonitis, which is inflammation of the lung tissue and is triggered in the immune system. after breathing in certain substances such as mould.

It’s been three years since Ms Turchin quit vaping and she is in constant pain and terrified about leaving the house in case she accidentally inhales vape smoke from a passer-by.

Around the time Lucy shared her story with news.com.au, the biggest crackdown on e-cigarettes in Australian history was unveiled in the May budget amid fears vaping has emerged as a serious behavioural crisis in schools across the nation.

Under current laws vapes with nicotine can only be bought with a prescription from a chemist but that hasn’t stopped thousands of convenience stores and online providers selling to kids.

The changes will include tough new laws to stop the importation of non-prescription vapes, ban single use vapes, reduce the allowed nicotine concentrations, require pharmaceutical packaging and cut down on flavours and colours.

But the reforms won’t stop there, with the Albanese Government preparing to work with states and territories to close down the sale of vapes in retail settings, ending vape sales in convenience stores and other retail settings.