Inhaling laughing gas, 15 year old girl suffers spinal cord nerve damage

On April 17, Bai Chay Hospital ( Quang Ninh province) announced that it had just treated a patient with spinal cord injury and numbness in the limbs due to N2O gas poisoning after long-term use of laughing gas .

Female patient VTLA (15 years old, residing in Quang Ninh) came to Bai Chay Hospital with numbness in her limbs; her legs gradually weakened, making it difficult to walk, and losing a lot of weight.

Using laughing gas in large quantities for a long time can cause nervous system poisoning.

Previously, the patient had used laughing gas continuously for 10 days, about 10 times a day. The results of the cervical spine MRI showed damage to the posterior horn of the cervical spinal cord. The doctor diagnosed the patient with cervical spinal nerve root disease, and monitored him for N2O laughing gas poisoning. The patient was treated with neurotransmitter-enhancing drugs, supplements, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

According to doctors, Bai Chay Hospital has recently received many cases of patients with N2O gas poisoning due to long-term use of laughing gas. The main neurological symptoms commonly encountered are numbness, weakness or slight weakness of the limbs, unsteady walking, with or without cervical spinal cord injury...

Doctor Le Thi Mai, Department of Neurology - Physical Therapy - Rehabilitation, Bai Chay Hospital warns that using laughing gas in large quantities for a long time can cause poisoning of the nervous system, nerve damage from the brain to the spinal cord, especially the cervical and thoracic spinal cord. Patients may experience disorders such as numbness, weakness in limbs, memory disorders, sleep disorders, heart rhythm disorders and hypotension, anemia...

More seriously, this gas will cause inhibition, coma, hypotension, paralysis, and death. For people with cardiovascular disease, asthma, and respiratory diseases, if used and exposed to N2O gas, their lives can be in danger due to suffocation and respiratory failure.

N2O (Dinitrogen oxide or nitrous oxide) also known as laughing gas is one of the colorless inorganic compounds, slightly sweet taste. This substance enters the body in gas form, will take the place of oxygen causing lack of oxygen, inhibiting the central nervous system causing many feelings of high, paranoia. N2O is a group of addictive substances, belonging to the group of hallucinogens with a tendency to increase the dose, users can become dependent, addicted, hallucinating similar to heroin.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/suc-khoe/hit-bong-cuoi-thieu-nu-15-tuoi-te-bi-chan-tay-di-lai-kho-khan-20230417162148717.htm