All the gas and air I want.

[Fresnel]

About 9 months ago I dislocated my shoulder coming of my bike. In the ambulance and in the emergency room I was given a Nitrous/Oxygen 50/50 canister to have as much as I wanted, and prior and during a nurse doing the reduction on the shoulder (popping it back in its socket) I was told to huff as much as I possibly could.

The odd thing is I got zero psychedelic effects. I've used nitrous recreationally and briefly gone to some pretty wild places, but here I was with as much as I wanted and all I got from this was analgesia (thank god, it hurt like nothing else) and a mild feeling of disassociation from the pain.

How come I got no magic? Could it be the pain/accident had flooded me with adrenaline. Maybe the 50% oxygen had some counter-anaesthetic effect, especially with me huffing so hard. I must have had crazy hyperoxia.

 

[Renald]

I am thinking the opposite thing, maybe some action of nitrous is associated with hypoxia, because most of us take it without oxygen.

 

[MyExcuse]

Makes sense, just because it gets you high and does all of these wonderful things in low-stress environments (higher concentration for recreational use also helps). 50/50 is common, think dentists. Where do you live that they dole out nitrous like that?

I broke and dislocated my shoulder in 2006 and all I got was a cold pack and a "calm down, we're only 10 minutes away" from some asshole medic.

 

[sekio]

Nitrous has a pretty high MAC (minimum concentration in lungs to provide anethesia), hence why it's normally only used for induction/analgesia... I would be suprised if they relied on it to fully narcotize you.

 

[Fresnel]

Where do you live that they dole out nitrous like that?

The UK. Paramedics carry it.

One thing I noticed was it took a big act of will to keep huffing it because I was so oxygenated by 50% O2 that I didn't want to breath at all (Renald, hyperoxia is the opposite of hypoxia, and if hypoxia potentiates it, perhaps hyperoxia reduces its effect).

I think standard is morphine, benzos and mild anaesthesia before putting it back. But the nurse seemed to think he could do it himself and saved me being admitted.