Documented cases of frozen lungs from inhaling nitrous straight from the dispenser?

[Hilopsilo]

After some dark experiences with gascid this past weekend (wrong set and setting, got paranoid about health, why I was doing this, felt as if I was chasing the dragon of past experiences), basically the "nitrous gods" told me to cut it out rather sternly and didn't seem to want to reveal anything to me. I decided to read a bit more on how to use nitrous safely and respectfully.

The last one I took though, I inhaled from the dispenser as I always do, but mid inhale I felt this sort of sharp pin prick on on my tongue, hurt. I didn't really feel cold, but I was high as hell so I couldn't really tell, and the memory is foggy. In the midst of the trip I thought "Oh shit thats the nerve damage they're talking about", but soon after I realized thats definitely not how thats starts and I was just paranoid and high. Either way, it scared me and I stopped for the night.

Anyways, I'm reading ALL over the internet about how inhaling from the dispenser can freeze your lungs/vocal cords and you die. Now, over the years I've seen people inhale from the dispenser thousands and thousands of times between festivals and just parties, never a single issue. Nor have I ever experienced it even feel cold coming out of the dispenser.

I had read this before, but I thought this freezing of the lungs was in regards to using the small handheld cracker and launching the nitrous straight into your lungs FROM the charger. Which is obviously completely idiotic, I've never anyone do that and that would surely cause some damage from the sheer cold and force.

Looking around I can't seem to actually find any documented cases of someone inhaling nitrous directly from a dispenser and freezing their lungs, just a lot of people saying that will happen lol. I'm not sure if cases of people launching bulbs into their lungs with the tiny metal crackers has been confused over time with people doing it from the dispenser?

I like going straight from the dispenser, feels like like a dirty huffing thing. As well, people don't hyperventilate on balloons for minutes on end this way, which to me seems like a major plus.

 

[Bitchniggaz]

Im not gonna claim it to be totally safe.
However ive done thousands of whippets straight from the dispenser.

I basicly never use ballons for nitrous, even when we get a tank we just share the nostle between us.

I do remember getting weird tingling and headaches from doing to much though.

So nowadays i only do gas a few times per year.

 

[Solipsis]

I don't think it will be freezing your lungs and dying but rather like damaging subtly or a la frostbite. The air you breathe during freezing temperatures lacks humidity to lubricate the bronchial tubes. You can get breathing difficulties as your airways tighten. Some symptoms include dry mouth, wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath.
It seems really wasteful to inhale the gas without rebreathing it, but yes ultimately that is better than the hypoxia you can get. You tend to go further into hypoxia with rebreathing nitrous than just from holding your breath or something like that.

It can be unhealthy enough without killing you, it's not that black and white is it? I regret thinking about damaging my body that sort of way when I was younger.

These are not the only options, you can use balloons and still include some oxygen. Other than that, you're only justifying a bad habit.

 

[Hilopsilo]

I don't think it will be freezing your lungs and dying but rather like damaging subtly or a la frostbite. The air you breathe during freezing temperatures lacks humidity to lubricate the bronchial tubes. You can get breathing difficulties as your airways tighten. Some symptoms include dry mouth, wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath.
It seems really wasteful to inhale the gas without rebreathing it, but yes ultimately that is better than the hypoxia you can get. You tend to go further into hypoxia with rebreathing nitrous than just from holding your breath or something like that.

It can be unhealthy enough without killing you, it's not that black and white is it? I regret thinking about damaging my body that sort of way when I was younger.

These are not the only options, you can use balloons and still include some oxygen. Other than that, you're only justifying a bad habit.

Is there any data on how much nitrous is even left after you hold it in for as long as you can? I always felt rebreathing it was bad cause you just get a bunch in CO2. I usually just hold the first hit until I start to feel a slight discomfort, then I exhale, take 2 breaths of oxygen, then take a second hit of nitrous. I've sort of tested this by having a friend hold it in, breath it back in the balloon and pass it on to me to take the secondhand nitrous, and it usually does next to nothing.

If I'm doing damage I'll definitely stop! It just didn't feel any different than the balloon, like I said breathing it in it has never felt cold in my mouth or lungs. On a cold day I can feel the air I'm breathing being cold, this is how I know the air is cold. I figured if it were really cold enough to do any harm, I'd actually feel it being pretty damn cold.

I realize its not so black and white, I was just asking since there are hundreds of people on the internet saying inhaling straight from the dispenser will "freeze your lungs and you will die", but yet zero evidence of this actually happening anywhere that I can find. I was trying to find out if its actually a bad habit, or hearsay thats been passed around the internet (which is all too common).

 

[MDPV_Psychosis]

It's not easy to say how damaging inhaling directly from the dispenser is.

There is possible damage not only because of the cold but also the force. One chargers worth inside of a dispenser probably isn't too risky but if you load two, three or more then the force at which the gas that comes out could be damaging in and of itself. Balloons generally deflate slowly enough where this is not as much of a risk. Though you can still hurt yourself by forcing too much into your lungs even with a balloon.

As far as the cold issue it's hard to say. Doesn't feel too cold coming out of the dispenser but that doesn't mean it's safe.

Expanding gases cool down. The more rapid expansion that occurs the colder the expanded gas will be.

The nitrous in a charger is at room temperature inside until it suddenly escapes and expands. This is one reason why inhaling directly from a cracker is dangerous... The gas expands so rapidly that it cools down ALOT. Enough to cause moisture to condense and freeze on the cracker.

But when you crack a charger into a dispenser it's temperature normalises again somewhat in the dispenser. Then the change from the pressure inside the dispenser to atmospheric pressure is much less of a change then it is when done directly the charger to atmosphere so less cooling happens.

Would be interesting if somebody could build a rig to test the temperature of the nitrous as it's exits a dispenser. Then repeat the experiment using two chargers worth, then three. You'd expect it to come out colder when charged up with more.

I also suspect the dispenser could get colder and colder if you were quickly cracking chargers into, inhaling, cracking another charger, inhaling, etc. I suppose it could get cold enough this way too if you were going crazy fast between hits and not giving the dispenser enough time to warm up in-between.

 

[Hilopsilo]

Bump? Seriously nothing? I still hear all the time about death due to "frozen lungs", yet there is absolutely zero information on this ever happening, even from a tank. The only deaths I can find are from asphyxia, or some secondary reckless behavior.

I've never used a tank, but I imagine it would freezer burn the shit out of your mouth long before it would fill and freeze your lungs?

I feel like if this ever really happened, the news would be ALL over it... But they're not, there is no evidence, period.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

People ideally should be using a demand-valve regulator. Akin to the octopus rigs they use for scuba diving (did some diver training a while back), or as with medical nitrox tanks. Shouldn't be difficult to find one that will correspond with the fitting of the nitrous tank.

As for crackers, it sounds like taking a hit directly out of the cracker would be downright dangerous, if its not vented first into a balloon. The gas comes out fast enough to make a metal cracker a hazard to hold, unless using gloves or some other sort of insulation to hold it, or it could easily freeze to the hand. And the speed it comes out, if it is going to be enough to punch a hole in a lung then there isn't going to be any time to stop before it happens.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Bump? Seriously nothing? I still hear all the time about death due to "frozen lungs", yet there is absolutely zero information on this ever happening, even from a tank. The only deaths I can find are from asphyxia, or some secondary reckless behavior.

I've never used a tank, but I imagine it would freezer burn the shit out of your mouth long before it would fill and freeze your lungs?

I feel like if this ever really happened, the news would be ALL over it... But they're not, there is no evidence, period.

there are other dangers. I suffered a collapsed lung from heavy nitrous use. Was hospitalized for 3 days. When it got very bad when I first went to the ER there were episodes where I could barely breath and was scared of dying. I had been using lots of nitrous. I was using directly from the dispenser and over filling my lungs.

 

[Solipsis]

- The pressure from a canister can be damaging, it may be the main reason not to inhale directly from the dispenser.
- The cold is unlikely to hurt you so seriously (like deadly etc) acutely - as in all of a sudden rather than from doing too much over a period, you'll have problems breathing before then... but the gas does dry out. Over time you'd get issues resembling those of being in very cold and/or dry conditions.. discomfort, shortness of breath etc. I've had that... I think you can't damage yourself very suddenly purely from the cold and dryness because there is a huge surface area and the heat exchange is pretty quick, not to mention your mouth and windpipe will pre-heat the gas a bit. But chronically at some point it must be just as bad for you as staying and breathing in freezing temps too long. You would have to do quite a lot because in freezing temps every breath you take is cold and dry.

Agreed: there are more worrisome problems associated with nitrous abuse, however the thread was about inhaling from the dispenser.

IMO you can get away with it a bit, like when you are at a party, you got a buzz and don't care quite as much plus everyone is hogging the nitrous... but I think under more regular circumstances you'd be a lazy idiot to not just use a balloon.

And yes if you inhale too much which can be from poor control of the dispenser, then you can acutely harm yourself.

 

[Xorkoth]

I've never heard anyone claim you can freeze your lungs and die, but it does amaze me you've never even felt the gas be cold when inhaling straight from the dispenser, because it is, in fact, cold. Ever use a cracker to fill a balloon? The cracker immediately becomes covered in a coating of frost and it's so cold your hand becomes numb while you're holding it.

I have felt some really concerning effects from inhaling from a dispenser. When it gets dirty, you can get ice particles shooting into your lungs which feels really unpleasant, especially while under the effects of nitrous. For a while I was using a dirty dispenser and I kept getting what felt like long shards of ice that would poke my lungs, it really creeped me out.

The main way I've felt bad effects has been if I'm using a dispenser, and I press the handle too hard and the gas shoots out really hard. That feels bad on the lungs. The gas in the bulb is very highly pressurized, and in the dispenser it is less so but still under quite a lot of pressure, so if it shoots out at full strength, it's like getting blasted with a concentrated stream of air into your lungs. Not gonna kill you, but not good for you, either.

 

[Hilopsilo]

People ideally should be using a demand-valve regulator. Akin to the octopus rigs they use for scuba diving (did some diver training a while back), or as with medical nitrox tanks. Shouldn't be difficult to find one that will correspond with the fitting of the nitrous tank.

As for crackers, it sounds like taking a hit directly out of the cracker would be downright dangerous, if its not vented first into a balloon. The gas comes out fast enough to make a metal cracker a hazard to hold, unless using gloves or some other sort of insulation to hold it, or it could easily freeze to the hand. And the speed it comes out, if it is going to be enough to punch a hole in a lung then there isn't going to be any time to stop before it happens.

Yeah, we're talking about dispensers or tanks, not the small metal crackers. I don't even think it would be possible to unleash a cartridge into your lungs with a metal cracker, I imagine it would just burn your mouth and you'd recoil, I doubt it would make it past your mouth and throat all the way to your lungs before you'd fling the cracker across the room. And again, no documentation of anyone trying this or anyone dying from it.

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah to be clear I am also not talking about crackers in my post or my experience, I am just using the fact that the cracker become ice cold and covered in frost as the gas exits the bulb as evidence that the gas is, in fact, quite cold when it exits the bulb. It has to be that cold to compress that far, and in a whip cream dispenser, it's still compressed, though not nearly as much.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Given the speed gas exits a whippit then I don't think in that case that one COULD recoil and toss it. It comes out so fast there'd be no time. And overpressure of the lungs would be no laughing matter, IMO stick to using balloons. I HAVE heard of people freezing their throats when (mis)using (obviously) butane etc. and using it direct from the gas canister. Obviously nobody ever should use butane gas for anything but its flammability or solvent properties, never as an intoxicant; but there are known cases of people inflicting cryo-burns on their airways because of it.

 

[Bitchniggaz]

Ive done houndreds of whippets in a night many times without issues.

However i am familiar with the feeling of something cold flying out of the dispenser sometimes.
I usually put my tongue in a certain way in my mouth that blocks any particles from just flying down my throat.
There is def a optimal rhytm to inhale the gas.
If you find it then you will be good.

 

[Hilopsilo]

Ive done houndreds of whippets in a night many times without issues.

However i am familiar with the feeling of something cold flying out of the dispenser sometimes.
I usually put my tongue in a certain way in my mouth that blocks any particles from just flying down my throat.
There is def a optimal rhytm to inhale the gas.
If you find it then you will be good.

Yeah after this happened a couple times, we realized the obvious solution lol, just inhale it through your t-shirt or any other thin filter that would block it. This is also just more sanitary if everyone is sharing the dispenser.

 

[thegreenhand]

Was doing some research for my most recent druggie adventures and came across this thread

just to bump, I’ve heard some people say that small metal shards can fly out of old/cheaply made dispensers. Perhaps the sudden prick everyone is talking about? Using a t shirt obv eliminates this risk so no biggie.

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

At new years we did whippets at a guy that's more of my friends friend. He always hits the dispenser. Most of my friends did, actually, despite the fact that they had bought a packet of balloons.
I called them savages. I don't have stones to do it without a balloon or something, it just wouldn't happen.

He's been doing this for years without problems, but after like 15 whippets, he started complaining about his teeth hurting.

I haven't spoken to him, but I could ask him. It might be unrelated.

It does however, in my opinion, seem like a completely unnecessary risk to take, but to each his own.

 

[thegreenhand]

Personally I prefer the dispenser as it easie to control the gas flow. And if I do too much and zonk out I won’t choke on a balloon. Much easier to let the canister fall away

Definitely wouldn’t do it without a cloth filter though. And I understand your apprehension for sure