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Does Nitrous Oxide cause brain damage?

doubt it, because it is so short-lived. but it does deplete your body's vitamin b12, so make sure to take supplements if you do a lot. otherwise, your nerves stop working right.
 
Also, nitrous and ketamine could potentially be very neurotoxic

51144just_NAN-med.jpg

(note: The nitrous was given for 3 hours, and that's a near-anaethetic dose of ketamine.)
Answered.
 
Thats in rats. They have a much faster metabolism rate which could result in much more exitotoxicity. Neurotoxicity has never been proven in humans or primates.

Look at john lilly. As far as i know he is a functional old man who is no longer psychotic thinking the Coincidence Control Center is running.

But thats for ketamine. I don't know the pharmacology of n2o very well. I hope it doesn't work like the solvents do. The highs kind of feel similar :/ I think solvents work by dissolving in through the mylen sheath of a neuron and screwing up the signals.
 
I believe the risk is slim to none in using nitrous oxide is supplementing with folic acid and vitamin b12 along with hyperventilating and taking breathes in between hits so you get a proper mix of nitrous / oxygen since it's not mixed.

I believe alot of the damage comes from excessive use and high doses after reviewing some of the educated posts at the dextroverse and speaking with some members that their percieved damage is temporary sometimes lasting up to years to fix based on how often you abused it and if you polydrug abused during that time.
 
Neurotoxicity has never been proven in humans or primates.
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No one has ever published any results in humans or primates, so that's a bit of a silly statement to make.
 
high on stemz-nseeds said:
Look at john lilly. As far as i know he is a functional old man who is no longer psychotic thinking the Coincidence Control Center is running.
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Actually, he is dead. But his doctor (who I randomly met at a hippie nudist beach on Maui) told me he was pretty functional going into the sunset of his life.

But thats for ketamine. I don't know the pharmacology of n2o very well.
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It, like ketamine, is an NMDA receptor antagonist. That is why they administered them together in the experiment behind the figure that BilZ0r posted/

I think solvents work by dissolving in through the mylen sheath of a neuron and screwing up the signals.
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This used to be the view of how many small, nonpolar molecules exerted their hypnotic, sedative, and anaesthetic effects. Meyer and Overton were the first to propose, in 1904 I think, that ethanol (and other alcohols known to be psychoactive) exerted their effects by intercalating with the cell membrane and screwing up its function. However, we now know they only start to compromise the stability of the membrane at concentrations around those that would induce severe alcohol poisoning in humans. It is now thought that most inhalants, anaesthetics, and ethanol act on discrete protein targets which often include GABA(A) and/or NMDA receptors.
 
thats interesting, I didn't know that.

BilZ0r said:
No one has ever published any results in humans or primates, so that's a bit of a silly statement to make.
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There was an unpublished study mentioned in Dr. Jansen's "Ketamine, dreams and realities" which mentions injecting monkeys with K, which didn't result in any neurotoxicity.
 
unpublished... exactly. You've got to ask, if he did the experiments why didn't he ever published them?
 
This sucks... I see this today and yesterday I was snorting K and did 40 whippets (I very rarely celebrate like that though).

I didn't even like the combo, it was weird and uncomfortable.

I feel fairly normal today, just a little tired maybe, and i woke up with a headache.
 
Really? Thats a RIDICULOUSLY overexposed paper. I would NEVER do K + Nitrous after looking at those pictures ;)
 
Where did Ketaine come into this discussion? Merely because its a fellow anaesthetic disassociative?

I have heard reasonable amounts of Nitrous, in moderation, cause no discernable negative effects. Excessive use will lead to Vitamin B12 depletion, as mentioned earlier, which can be identified by numbness in the extremities and lethargy, so watch out for that. Otherwise, from what I've studied, observed and experienced, Nitrous Oxide is the only inhalant worth attempting.
 
Patients wake in fright after anaesthetic gas
By Julie Robotham Medical Editor
May 5, 2005

The nitrous oxide gas used in most general anaesthetics is unsafe and should be discontinued, say Australian doctors who have found it doubles the rate of serious vomiting and pneumonia after surgery and raises the risk of wound infections.

Their study of 2050 patients also showed that those who had undergone surgery were slower to recover and likely to stay in hospital longer if gases used to keep them unconscious included nitrous oxide as a base, rather than oxygen alone or oxygen and air.

Paul Myles, director of anaesthesia at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, said: "This is going to really surprise people ... nitrous oxide is used in 80 per cent of anaesthetics. It's the stock in the stew. It's the foundation of anaesthesia and has been that way for 160 years."

Professor Myles, who led the 20-hospital international study, said he had already stopped using nitrous oxide in his own practice, though "it possibly has a role in simple surgery for young, healthy patients".

Because it changed the way the body metabolised vitamin B12 and folate, it was also possible nitrous oxide could cause immune system and heart problems, nerve damage, cancer and birth defects, Professor Myles said. Those potential effects, combined with those demonstrated by the new study, spelled "the end of nitrous oxide" in general anaesthesia, he said.

But it would still have a role in securing fast pain relief, such as after injury or while giving birth.

The preliminary results will be presented in Auckland on Saturday to the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists.

Richard Halliwell, an anaesthetist at Westmead Hospital who recruited 68 patients for the trial, said the safety of nitrous oxide had never been fully evaluated before. "It came into practice before there was rigorous testing of safety or efficacy of drugs and completely escaped current testing standards," he said. "The results suggest people should strongly reconsider its routine use - particularly in longer procedures and sicker patients because they have less margin to cope with the adverse effects."

Michael Cousins, the College of Anaesthetists' president, said a phase-out of nitrous oxide would be good news for patients.

"If we eliminate nitrous oxide from the equation there will be a lot fewer people feeling very sick," he said. Anaesthesia had already become much safer and easy to tolerate, and the death rate attributed to it was now less than one in 100,000, said Professor Cousins, who is also head of anaesthesia and pain management at Royal North Shore Hospital.

From:http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005...5092568710.html
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From this thread
 
ok, so if no one minds can i ask how nitrous oxide and other inhalents are different? I always get into a heated discussion with people when i mention nitrous because "you can die the first time" from it and its terrible for you. Basically i just bring up how dentists use it with no deaths but i need something more concrete and this thread has helped a little.
 
Nitrous is used medicinally and has a large safety margin (has been used for years.) Other inhalants have not been and are not meant to be inhaled.
 
When you say "inhalants" what are you talking about? Volaite anasthetics? Or solvents? Because they are undoubtabley very different.
 
BilZ0r said:
When you say "inhalants" what are you talking about? Volaite anasthetics? Or solvents? Because they are undoubtabley very different.
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I was referring to solvents. I'm still curious about halothane(sp?) the active ingrediant in "duster". I've heard of it being used medicinally somewhere as a local anesthetic.
 
high on stemz-nseeds said:
There was an unpublished study mentioned in Dr. Jansen's "Ketamine, dreams and realities" which mentions injecting monkeys with K, which didn't result in any neurotoxicity.
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lucky monkeys.

oh.
 
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