JT2
Nitrous oxide and Nitrox are different gases and are not related.
Nitrox is air that has been "enriched" with the addition of more oxygen. The net effect is to reduce the nitrogen present in the breathing mixture to help avoid some of the problems associated with breathing nitrogen at depth.
Nitrous oxide is a gaseous compound at room temperature. The chemical formula is N2O. Under pressure, it exists as a liquid at room temperature and is stored as such in cylinders. The gas is odorless and some people notice a sweet taste--giving it one of its nick names, "Sweet Air".
Nitrous oxide is used in dentistry as a sedative to reduce anxiety. It kind of creates a "no problem mon" attitude when used properly. It is always administered with the addition of oxygen and, in fact, the device used to blend the breathing mixture must supply a minimum of 30% oxygen and if the oxygen supply cuts off for any reason, a fail safe valve shuts off the nitrous flow. Local anesthetic is also administered for the control of pain.
In general anesthesia, nitrous oxide is commonly mixed with oxygen and administered with IV agents such as narcotics and/or Phenobarbital/Valium/Versed to create surgical anesthesia. It can also be used to dilute other liquid inhalation anesthetics. Increasing their effectiveness but lowering their dose and toxicity.
If you are taking medications like these (sedatives or narcotics)and go to the dentist, please notify him/her. It would not be wise to use nitrous oxide under this circumstance--the possibility of surgical anesthesia is created without the doctor's knowledge.
If purposely abused, and inhaled directly without the addition of oxygen, hypoxia sets in and unconsiousness will eventually occur. Continued inhalation without oxygen will result in death. This has occurred during abuse. Abuse can also cause psychological dependence.
The actual mechanism of action of nitrous oxide is not known. It is exhaled unchanged. The exhaled gas has been inplicated in the increased incidence of spontaneous abortion of operating room personel. It is now common practice to use a gas scavenging system to remove the exhaled nitrous oxide before it accumulates in the room air.
The sensation of nitrous oxide is indeed much like nitrogen narcosis. At first, you may be a little light headed, then concentration becomes more difficult or you may focus on sounds lights or patterns in the room. Time may seem to go more slowly. You are experiencing audio and visual hallucinations although you may not be aware of it. If taken "deeper" you can become excited, paranoid or panic. You may also become nauseated and possibly throw up. These same effects occur with narcosis.
In auto racing this gas is used to increase the power of the engine. Contrary to popular belief, nitrous oxide is not explosive and, in fact, will not burn at atmospheric pressure. It is the same gas as used by dentists--nothing is added to it. In racing, the nitrous oxide creates a power advantage by two methods. First, it is injected into the manifold as a liquid which instantly expands into a gas. This drastically cools the air/gas mixture making it more dense and containing more fuel and oxygen from the air per piston stroke. Second, the nitrous oxide under pressure can be split to release additional oxygen for more complete combustion of this cooler, denser air/fuel mixture. The net result is more power.
Finally, it was a dentist who is credited with the first use of inhalation anesthetics. Dr. Horace Wells used it to do extractions "painlessly". Unfortuately, during a demonstration by his partner, Dr. William Morton at Harvard Medical School, he failed to use enough gas and the patient cried out in pain. The demonstration was a failure. Dr. Crawford Long, MD, of Atlanta, Ga. was finally credited with the first, successful introduction of inhalation anesthesia.
Now you know why MD's and Dentists always fight.
I am enclosing a brief nitrous oxide history with this answer.
I hope I never have to write this much again--although it was a pleasure.
While I may kid and kibbitz around with my answer, NEVER, NEVER attempt to inhale nitrous oxide outside a medical or dental setting. Unfortunately, this gas is readily available in other forms and can be abused. YOU WILL DIE!!!
Dive safely,
Laurence Stein DDS
Nitrous Oxide
The gas nitrous oxide was first identified by Joseph Priestley in 1772. Years later, in the late 1790s, the British chemist Humphry Davy began experimenting with the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide. He noted it exhilarating effects, and the way it made him want to laugh-which gave the gas its popular name of "laughing gas." Davy published his findings in 1800, remarking that "As nitrous oxide...appears capable of destroying pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operation." Little attention was paid to Davy's observations, or to those of Henry Hill Hickman (1800-1830), a general practitioner from Shropshire, England, who in 1824 explored methods of painless surgery on animals using both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide gas. Nevertheless, nitrous oxide became widely known in the first half of the nineteenth century. Davy repeatedly demonstrated the gas's exhilarating effect to gatherings of his friends, and inhalation parties became quite popular. Use spread to the United States as traveling lecturers spread knowledge about the new chemistry to the general public, usually including a demonstration of the effects of nitrous oxide inhalation on audience volunteers. One of these public lectures in Hartford, Connecticut, in December 1844, given by Gardner Quincy Colton (1814-1898), was attended by local dentist Dr. Horace Wells (1815-1848). Wells observed that a volunteer, Samuel Cooley, obviously hurt himself while under the influence of nitrous oxide but didn't notice the pain. Wells immediately thought of using the gas to banish pain during tooth extraction; the next day he took some of Colton's gas while a fellow dentist removed one of Well's teeth. As he had expected, Wells felt no pain.
After confirming the anesthetic effect of nitrous oxide on other patients, Wells arranged through his former dental partner, William T. G. Morton (1819-1968), to demonstrate his discovery to a group of Morton's Harvard Medical School classmates in January 1845. Unfortunately, the nitrous oxide was applied incorrectly, and the patient yelped with pain when his tooth was pulled, embarrassing Wells before the group.
After Morton used ether successfully as an anesthetic in 1846, Wells pressed his claims for primacy as the discoverer of anesthesia. Frustrated in these attempts, Wells began to abuse chloroform. He committed suicide in 1848 after being arrested for throwing acid at two women in New York, New York.
Nitrous oxide was finally made a practical anesthetic by Colton in 1863. Edmund Andrews (1824-1904), a Chicago surgeon, began to use nitrous oxide in combination with oxygen in 1868, and as this method gained popularity, nitrous oxide became a staple in surgical as well as dental practice.
Source: Travers, B., ed., World of Scientific Discovery, Gale, (1994) pp. 476-477.
