Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Harm Reduction Tips!

[phase_dancer]

Another thing I neglected to mention earlier about tanks, the NOS systems they use for direct injections in cars ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR INHALING AND ARE VERY DANGEROUS!

To some of you this may seem like a no brainer, but a lot of the time these tanks are referred to as nitrous when in reality they also contain various other nasties. There have been reports in the US where people have acquired these and used the tanks for inhaling.

Just a warning in case the thought crossed your mind. However, I have been led to believe these tanks are quite expensive.

The most nasty of the 1% or so of impurities in Autograde nitrous is hydrogen sulphide (H2S) This is a very toxic gas, only slightly less toxic than cyanide gas (HCN) However, it is detectable by the nose at much lower concentrations.

This impurity can be adequately removed by running the gas through a limewater filter**. A double (serial) filter worked well.

**Edit: limewater filter was placed after a peroxide/carbonate filter; p_d

 

[Splatt]

I'm not trying to bump my own thread or anything, it was just the first appropriate nitrous thread in the search, and didn't wanna make a new thread.

For people that use a bulberator (a soda or cream syphon), I'm sure most do.. if you're skilled at getting them in and down very quickly (even in your other personality/side..) do you ever find that inhaling too quickly (just say the damn things leaking and you need to push it in fast) causes thias weird really sensation.. I mean simular to maybe holding your nose when you sneeze, but it normally results in some tyupe of weird scary effect, which sounds like its possibly frozen your voice box? Not just the deep sound, I mean some weird "digital" sounds start coming out. Like say only a modem or computer or some type of machinery would make, inhuman frequental jumps! I'm sure this isn't a hallucination. But I'm more concerned about the forcing gas into your lugns and holding it for a long time... it actually feels like nitrous gas is going places it shouldnt (like my eye!), causing bubbles over your vision (im talking about neon purple, or red/blue straining dots over your open eye vision.)

Anyone done some serious injury or have any insight to what this may be? I know im on a drug at the time, but this happens way too mujch to be a repeated mental trip. I feel it and everything, my eye is straining really bad sometimes. Maybe my lung capacity isn't what it used to be from smoking and I cant even fit a whole bulb in anymore :/

 

[Fry-d-]

Great thread to bump anyway

 

[TheYellowDart]

Splatt: I'd be inclined to think that it is due to you not having enough lung capacity to deal with the still expanding gas. I can recall an experiment I often tried at swimming pools when I was younger than about 10 (at which point the novelty wore off) where I'd close my mouth, block my nose and try and compress my lungs. I found that air bubbles would first come out through my eye sockets and then if I closed my eyes would start coming out through my ears.

Why this would cause visual disturbances in the way you've mentioned, though, I don't know. It may be a psychosomatic reaction to the sensation of the gas passing through your eyes or due to the absorbtion of N2O through the thin membranes in your eyes.

Also regarding the sound I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Are these sounds being produced by your vocal chords or simply by the passage of gas through your sinus'? When I used to perform my little experiment I did get a variety of squeaks at various pitches due to this effect.

Nothing conclusive but an explanation I think is reasonably plausible none the less. I'm interested in reading what others may have to say.

 

[frog_e]

Splatt, isn't that why you're supposed to use a baloon? not only to stop leakage and that black shit, but so you can control the force at which the gas enters and how much gas enters at a time?

I have made those noises you're talking about... they are a little unhealthy sounding i know! i think it's from the gas entering too fast...

and now my own question

I have one of those really big soda syphons, the glass ones with metal meshing around it. I wanted to know a couple of things

1. how many bulbs can you put into these? will the glass explode if you put too many in?

2. do i need to leave the straw in it? it seems a little obsolete since there's no liquid to suck up.... plus i bought it off e-bay, so i don't know what kind of residue is IN the straw... eww

3. I have a really really hard time screwing the little black bulb-holder on to the machine.... IE i have to stop after about 5 bulbs because my hand is hurting so much... is there some way to make it faster? like maybe i could get a replacement bulb-holder...

 

[xcidium]

Frog_e
1. I've managed 3 in mine before it started leaking, ie: a slight Tsssss noise coming from the top.

2. Mine didn't have a straw, but seeing that it's second hand, give it a really good clean, so no, you don't need the straw in there.

3. I get that too, I use a tea-towel so it doesn't did into my hand so much. I guess using some sort of lubricant may help? I haven't bothered as mine needs some fixing (will crack a bulb, but the seal is totally screwed, and it lets out 80% of the nitrous.)


Actually a question of my own. Anyone have any ideas where I could get a new seal? My g/f went to a plumbing store and they didn't have anything, but then again, maybe she didn't look hard enough.

 

[dabb]

I also ripped a part of my bottom lip off using bulbs in winter, it was a small bulb machine and it froze up a lot.

I have a bulberator where you can take off the nozzle (which i do if i load 3 because the gas doesnt really shoot into your lungs if you don't use the nozzle) doing this i can feel the steel puncturing part is pretty cold when i put my lips over it a bit making a seal on the nozzle hole, its crossed my mind that this part could be really cold one time and i would end doing something similar to you but im not sure if this is a real risk though, is the puncturing part ever likely to get that cold?

I've seen and experienced all sorts of avoidable frost-related injuries and scares.

Just make sure the thing is in tight, and NEVER twist the bulb back a tiny bit after puncuring it, if you're going to double-load, do the action of unscrewing really, really fast!

Thanks for the advice, i think my friends and i do the twist back a tiny bit thing all the time so we've had to learn to load a bulb turn the machine upside down and unscrew the bulb holder thingy at the end with our finger tips before just tipping the bulb out, this way our fingers are never near the cracked bulb and can't get frost burn from any spewing gas.

Psychosis? PFFT!!!! - It's ignorant to think just because bulbs only last for a minute or so, that they couldn't cause some sort of psychosis. If you're doing it every weekend or every few days, or daily, and with psychedelics or MDxx and sleep dep, you can start to believe some really deluded crap.

This is a real risk, it's happened, the story someone told me is possibly the scariest bad trip- subsequent psychosis for a few days stories i've heard, including all the stories i've read online.

do you ever find that inhaling too quickly (just say the damn things leaking and you need to push it in fast) causes thias weird really sensation.. I mean simular to maybe holding your nose when you sneeze, but it normally results in some tyupe of weird scary effect, which sounds like its possibly frozen your voice box? Not just the deep sound, I mean some weird "digital" sounds start coming out. Like say only a modem or computer or some type of machinery would make, inhuman frequental jumps!

I know the 'similar to holding your nose when sneeze' feeling you can get sometimes but i've never had made any weird digital sounds with frequental jumps or heard anyone else do this though. I'm pretty sure this is something different, and its not linked to when i've had that sensation but I've heard someone make a weird sort of distorted 'ahhhhh' noise which they make about 10 seconds after they zone out, apparently i've made this noise a few times too, you seem to stop before you come back from nangland and i can never remember doing it, the other person i've heard doing it couldn't remember themselves doing it either. The thing im talking about i think is just something you do when nanging rather than the effect of expanding gas or a fucked up voicebox or something.

it actually feels like nitrous gas is going places it shouldnt (like my eye!), causing bubbles over your vision (im talking about neon purple, or red/blue straining dots over your open eye vision.)

Anyone done some serious injury or have any insight to what this may be?

I think the red/blue straining dots over your open eye vision is part of the trip, i get this basically everytime i do nangs, when i first start fading back my visual field is just thousands of red/blue squares which strobe and then fade into vision of the actual world. I've asked other people and been really surprised no one else gets this, to me its a far more distinctive part of the trip than even the nanging sound in your ears. The reason i think its part of the trip is because never get it at the start i always get it fading back in, 30 secs+ after i exhaled and started breathing normally again, that and it happens everytime nothing to do with if i inhale strangely. If it is something weird not part of the trip i would have seen the red/blue dots hundreds and hundreds of times and my vision does not seem to have suffered/gone weird in any way.

One thing i wanted to ask if anyone is still reading this is if anyone has had the experience of someone actually 'passing out' for like 30 minutes after hitting the nangs. The other day a friend was over and having been up all night walking around about t+6h after one and half tabs of reasonably strong acid we did 20 nangs each. After we were done i put the stuff away came back my friend had his eyes shut, i asked what he wanted to do now and got no response, i started shaking him lightly and talking to him and still got no response then i started shaking him pretty firmly asking him if he was alright when i did this he would open his eyes for a few seconds and i would see them roll back in his head just before he shut them again after doing this about 4 times though i got a quick 'I'm alright' before he passed out again. The situation was the same when i checked him again 10 minutes later. I was slightly concerned at the time that he was so out of it, i've seen plenty of people fall asleep after a sesh but never pass out like that. Also weird was he had like total amensia about what happened during the sesh he couldn't remember how many bulbs we did and was really surprised that he had 2 missed calls from his mum on his phone when he woke up when i know he was aware of the calls when they came in and we even discussed what he was going to say to his mum for 5 minutes waiting for the bulby to warm up.

 

[Splatt]

He must of just been fully detached from his body, unable to control it. Or it could just be the sleep state of not bothering to reply, only being 1% ware of the outside world and wanting to sleep?

Thanks for the replies. I forgot air can escape through ears and eyes and people do this as party tricks with liquids and what not, so it can't be that bad I guess.

I'm amazed someone has seen the dots I speak of. Yes, it's always after the trip, and you're not so aware of them forming. I'm really inclinded to think those dots mean something tho.. or at leats you can use them to measure things internal to you (like blood flow, heart beats etc..)

 

[Diacetylus]

^Are these dots you speak of, do they resemble little flies at first glance? If so... I get these even when I haven't been using nitrous. Mainly get them if I get up too quick, I think it might have something to do with blood pressure... I'm sure I read that somewhere. I don't know what action Nitrous Oxide has on your blood pressure levels though.

 

[person]

Thanks! I found also with the the big food catery NOS tanks, is not to go crazy, like myself :/ and get one of those huge mother balloons, then NOS pump it full, found I kept ending up with a blue mouth and not feeling so good, cheers.

 

[phase_dancer]

^ the condition person speaks of is Hypoxia, where a person is not getting enough oxygen. In medicine a condition known as cyanosis is often indicative of the heart and/or lungs not working correctly. The condition is characterized by blue lips.

Not getting enough oxygen is a serious problem, all too common when nitrous is available in a virtually unlimited supply. Try to take half a lung full of air with every hit of nitrous; say have a breath first, then the balloon.

Taking a 50-50 mixture of O2 with N2O is very safe and creates a much more pleasant euphoria IMHO. Breathing slow allows the feeling to first be noticed as a physical effect, like a tingling throughout the body.

I seem to remember B12 being more affected by low oxygen when N2O is used. Be careful, B12 deficiencies aren't often fixed overnight.

 

[person]

Thank you! this site is awesome.

 

[dabb]

^Are these dots you speak of, do they resemble little flies at first glance? If so... I get these even when I haven't been using nitrous. Mainly get them if I get up too quick, I think it might have something to do with blood pressure... I'm sure I read that somewhere. I don't know what action Nitrous Oxide has on your blood pressure levels though.

Could be a blood pressure thing actually because i have mild orthostatic hypotension, which is low blood pressure when standing up to quickly, when getting up too quickly i normally white out though and have never seen anything like the blue/red squares .

 

[Splatt]

bump!

 

[Dr.Feelgood]

An excellent way to avoid frostbite and freezing your throat up in general is to aim the nozzle of the bulb machine at the roof of your mouth when inhaling. Also, don't push too much gas into your lungs at once, you WILL know your limits. If you feel as if your lungs are full, just circular breath whilst inhaling the nangs. I've found that this occurs to me naturally, and while inhaling I also exhale out my nose. It doesn't seem to affect the severity and strength of the trip either :D

 

[Splatt]

heh, you got it pat down sir. circular breathing is the key.

 

[BingoBango]

great thread Splatt!

 

[lady grey]

Is it possible over an extended period of time, say a year of semi regular use that that you could developed a tolerance to nitrous? When i first started with nangs one would leave me quiet euphoric and tingly, whilst 2 to 3 would take me to another world. In the past 6 months however, i seem to be able to go through numerous (5-10) boxes without even noticing it. Even whilst following conversations, which is strange as it's become something very "normal" for me to do in a social situation and no matter how many i do in a row i never seem to be able to get those old nang experiences back. Only with k or if im extremely delirious is it possible, and even then it's not like it used to be. I guess im just curious to know if this is a physical tolerance or a psychological tolerance? And if maybe im heading down a bad track if i continue using nangs the way i do...

 

[Doooofus]

I've noticed the same thing - I never really abused nitrous, just used 1 or 2 boxes every now and then. When I first started I'd be lost in a world of my own and slowly come drifting back. 2 was enough to dissolve reality. These days two don't do much really, unless combined with weed. My guess is a psychological tolerance, because the time in between my doses is months and the tolerance has never disappeared.

Should I be worried if I ever need to have nitrous at the dentist?

 

[Splatt]

I think its just bulb-whoreism.. Are you actually enjoying the first 2 bulbs or are you just racing to get a third or fourth going? Making 4 bulbs = one trip.