TheJotunn

You might be using food in some cases. Food is how you heal out of combat, inhaler is in-combat (though will be used out of combat if you don't have any food). They both use the same button (down on the d-pad for you I think?). You can see what will currently be used under your health bar. If you're out of combat and have food, you'll see a little symbol with a fork and knife indicating that it will use food to heal. If you are in combat or out of food, the symbol will be for your inhaler and it will use that. I'm guessing that's what's happening for you but lmk if you have any more questions.

You are missing the Toxicity mechanic. You have inhaler charges and that's the total amount of times you can use the inhaler with the ITEMS you have (i.e. all the things you've picked up that give you inhaler charge). Think of this like your food amount. It's the total you can heal. Then there's toxicity, the green bar that fills up when you use an inhaler. By default, you'll get 1-2 quick uses of the inhaler before the toxicity meter fills. Once it's filled, you can't use the inhaler and have to wait for toxicity to totally drain before you can use it again. Since you didn't mention toxicity, I'm guessing that's what's causing the confusion. I'm guessing you have it set up so that one hit puts you at max toxicity and you can't use the inhaler again for a bit, yeah? You can raise your toxicity threshold through the Medical feat and you can change the amount of toxicity you're getting per-inhaler-use by changing the Primer(s) on your inhaler (in your inventory, it's one of the tabs).

Encountered a bug where I cannot progress to the Vox Relay station without killing my way the the entire Protectorate faction or doing other janky things. TL;DR I can't use the Writ of Conscription to get in. I did the quests for Milverstreet to recruit/sabotage the people in Westport and got the Writ of Conscription from Vigilant Hogarth. However, I can't show the Writ to the Protectorate guard on the bridge leading into the Vox Relay. This is (likely) because I already chatted with the guard about finding the traitors (and turning in Inez, though I didn't follow through that dialogue option) as an alternate means of getting access. I refused the quest to find the traitors, but in my exploration, I must have come across one of them. I had dialogue with the guard relating to a person jumping to their death and needing proof of this but I don't recall where this person would have been and don't actually have the quest in my quest log (since I never accepted it). It's worth noting that, during the Westport sequence, I also sent the guard's cousin (Charleston?) to see her and try to convince her to leave. This interaction where he gets crucified may also be contributing to the bug. Regardless, I can't show her the Writ to get past, I don't want to do the quest to find the traitors, and it would be a huge pain if I did want to because it's not in my quest log. My only options are basically to turn over Inez to be hanged or stumble upon the arm of the traitor. I'm just starting over because it's only 7 hours in but definitely a punch to the gut.