Inhalant Brain Damage?

[Eric23]

In 1994 I experimented for the only time with what I believed to be nitrous oxide. After 5 minutes of inhaling the gas I felt a strong tingling in the back left side of my head and shook for a second. I was able to get up and seemed generally alright, but the light in the room now seemed a lot dimmer. Throughout the next week the dimming sensation continued, I felt dizzy, and had difficulty carrying on conversations. I saw an internist who told me I would almost certainly return to normal. The symptoms continued for a second week before miraculously everything suddenly returned to normal. I remained normal for 7 full months, before one morning after consuming a fair amount of caffeine I was having an intense discussion when I felt a sudden tingling sensation again in the back left side of my head. Immediately the dimming sensation and dizzy spells returned. I went to see a neurologist who ordered an MRI which didn’t uncover anything. He made a diagnosis of migraine headaches and prescribed Midrin and a beta-blocker. Neither seemed to help and I decided to see if things would just get better over time.  For the past 7 years I’ve had little improvement. I experience the dimming sensation regularly, often with a lot of anxiety. I experience non-localized pinprick like sensations in my head.  When in conversation I often start feeling dizzy and lose my train of thought. I seem to feel significantly less emotion, which I think is the result of my brain suppressing emotions to avoid the dizzy spells. I’d appreciate your thoughts as to what damage I have and how to treat.  Thanks!

[G'Kar]

I don’t think that this is any type of anxiety disorder.  It seems to me that a direct causational relationship can be established for your problem.  It was during your experimenting with this inhalant that you started having this problem.  If your symptoms are brought on by excessive caffeine use, and they feel exactly like your first experience, then I would think that it is a physical reaction to your previous inhalant use.  

Caffeine is a vaso-constrictor, it constricts your blood vessels.  It also increases your heart rate and your blood pressure.  If you were to over use caffeine and cause these physiological changes to take place with the result being a return of your initial problem, I would think that some type of physical damage has occurred.  I would most defiantly have this checked out by another doc.

Are you sure it was Nitrous Oxide?  I was under the impression that it was relatively benign.

[G'Kar]

I just though of something.  Nitrous Oxide is easy to get a hold of in a denatured state.  That is, you can get it from car speed shops (it makes cars go real fast!!) but it is cut with some really nasty stuff.  Actually this could kill you if you tried to use it.  Just a thought.

[joey25]

This might sound real stupid but hear me out.  You have been dealing with this for 7 years now with no real improvement.  My idea is to go do a lot of Nirtris as soon as possible. What do you have to lose, maybe it will reverse something that originally ****** you up.  It can't get any worse, and maybe this thing can be reveresed.  I have done Nitrous a thousand times and nothing like that, thank god, has happened to me.  I would give it a shot.  Good luck to you either way.

[crystl2]

I don't believe that using Nitrous Oxide once in a small dose can cause brain damage of any sort. Nitrous is similar to Ketamine in that it is a dissociative, which makes it good for sedation in such things as animal surgery or human tooth extraction.  Dentists use Nitrous Oxide all the time without bad side effects.  As far as disassociatives in general, I believe the jury is still out whether long term use of them can cause permanent brain damage.  To me, this does sound much more like an anxiety problem than a problem with the Nitrous itself.  The symptoms you have are extremely similar to the symptoms suffered by those with Panic Disorder.  Doing something like nitrous could well have triggered a panic attack in someone who is unfamiliar with what it would feel like or what it would do to your body.  And once you have one panic attack, it seems to me that it's easier in the future to have another.
Of course, I could be totally wrong.

[James_1045]

After reading your Nitrous Oxide story I felt like I had to comment on my experience with this frightening drug.  In the past several months I have used several types of nitrous on several occasions and now am regretting it in a big way.  It took me countless hours of inhaling to feel kind of what you describe but worse.  As I continued on with the gas I starting hallucinating and seeing what seemed to be pixels in everything.  It would typically last only for a few moments and it would lighten up.  Just recently when using I felt my brain moving around during use and now does regularly amongst many other uncomfortable scary feelings while completely sober.  I also felt that fuzzy feeling you were referring to but in my head it feels like someone is blowing air softly on my brain or some crazy ****.  I also hear noises that often aren’t there.  My vision in my left eye now seems worse than my right and feel frequent misfiring of receptors in my brain all the time.  It’s only been a few weeks since I quit but the side effects are still regular.  My friend who used a lot a few years earlier told me that when using this gas the chemicals burn out your electro-light receptors in your brain hence the dimming you experience in light.  Every other day I experience the dimming and anxiety along with pressure on what feels to be the top of portion of my brain a few times a day.  It seems when I’m in deep thought about something the feelings return.  For anyone who reads this please do not use this stuff. I think it causes long-term irreversible damage to your brain.  I don't know if their's a cure sorry for not having an answer.

[jt808]

I USE TO TAKE ALOT OF NITRUS I MEAN ALOT ALTHOUGH I HAV NEVR HEARD OF THAT WHAT THE NITRUS DOES IS LIKE LITERALLY FREEZE A LAYER OF UR BRAIN SO WHO KNOWS WHAT REALLY HAPPANED. I WAS JUST HOPPING U FEEL BETER AND GOOD LUCK.

[jt808]

and alot of times when u suk a ballon or whatever the nitrus u are suking is car nitrus unless ur able to get the clean tanks ex. dental or whippetts but at least in my examples it was from a car shop only certain ones u could use and just thnk ur sukin what should be using on a car of coarse it gna fk ya up, i would do so much when i got tanks that half way thru i would turn mostly blue and people would be like dudue u gota stop well i didnt and thnk god notnh dangerous happaned other than passing out and hittm my face off a pole but that was it. so like james said dont try ths drug

[roBear15roulette]

The danger of nitrous isn't really the nitrous itself but the oxygen deprivation. You're brain can go up to 3-5 minutes before irreversible damage occurs (unless you're frozen underwater or something odd; there are exceptions). If you don't get oxygen, and you just keep huffing, even something benign and inert such as nitrous oxide, then brain damage will ensue. But this shouldn't be too bad, you probably kill more brain cells drinking tap water or something HAHA.

But anyway, sorry to hear of your troubles. I hope you get better.

The other danger of Nitrous oxide is vitamin B 12 deprivation, but you can just take supplements to counter this.

SWIM is a heavy nitrous user, and has yet to cause serious/noticeable brain damage. Pleasant tripping to all. Try not to get permanently stuck on the hedonistic treadmill.

And if you did cause permanent brain damage, it might be a heartening to realize that we all die and become brain dead anyway. The beauty of decay, no entrapment is permanent.