Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Controlled Drugs Experiment

Sax

07:12 / 16.04.03

I lay on a bed surrounded by strangers and was administered a prescribed drug last night.

The drug was Entonox, commonly called gas and air, a mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide. Laughing uncontrollably for five minutes in front of strangers is quite an odd experience.

But I can heartily recommend Entonox. It doesn't half cheer you up.

(By the way, this was at "parent craft" classes which me and Mrs Sax had to attend - the midwife asked if anyone wanted to have a toot and guess who leapt forward? Although I imagine it's slightly less amusing when you're trying to pass a seven pound lump of baby out of your business end.)

Cosmicjamas

07:29 / 16.04.03

Etonox is great! While my son was being born I used it, and was heard to say "If this was popular in clubs someone would make it illegal!"

Olulabelle

09:47 / 16.04.03

Entonox *is* great, and would have been greater were it not for the business end involvement. It's what I believe they used to call laughing gas, and I think they should sell it in Supermarkets. (Something about everyone having such a good time laughing no-one can be bothered with scrapping...)

Mourne Kransky

09:51 / 16.04.03

I am so old I can remember when it was a common thing, as a child, to be given laughing gas at the dentist's. It was great, particularly since I didn't have to love and care for any loinly fruit thereafter.

that

09:56 / 16.04.03

I went through a phase of getting completely hysterical at the dentist's anyway (and this was through some pretty hefty dental work), so it would've been redundant on me.

Isn't nitrous supposed to pop brain cells like nobody's business?

William Sack

10:06 / 16.04.03

I've had it twice, both times when sleep-deprived junior A&E doctors have attempted manual setting of broken bones. The first time was a broken finger and I remember looking at my hand thinking "my finger - it's all rubbery," and the 2nd time was when the doctor was trying to twist my foot (unsuccessfully) through a right angle. Then, it didn't so much kill the pain as provide a sense of detachment from it. It was as though I was perceiving the pain rather than experiencing it - hard to describe.

Sax

10:25 / 16.04.03

Sense of detachment is a spot on analysis of its effects... after about five puffs the delivery room started to recede from me and I suddenly started guffawing and rolling around, slapping the bed. A bit like an amyl nitrate rush replaced by a heavy pot laughter jag.

And on the NHS as well!

Xoc - I remember having gas as a kid at the dentists, but I wasn't sure if it was the same stuff.

Persephone

11:25 / 16.04.03

since I didn't have to love and care for any loinly fruit thereafter

LOL, oh dear...

14:32 / 16.04.03

You kids are aware that they sell nitrous at the supermarket under the guise of "whipped cream bulbs", yeah?

Quantum

14:40 / 16.04.03

..but it's expensive and gak, and eating that much squirty cream has an intoxicating effect all it's own

gingerbop

15:18 / 16.04.03

Fantastic! hEh the other week my mum started goin on about how great temazipan was, an i was absolutely shocked! (shes the most anti-druggi person iv ever met) but apparently they gave her it when she was giving birth. Id never heard of them giving that... junior doctors takin the piss, methinks.

grant

15:44 / 16.04.03

You're totally talking about whippets, aren't you.

a.k.a. "Hippie crack".

In Varieties of Religious Experience, William James called whippets (and ether), "a great exciter of the Yes function in Man." And Oliver Wendell Holmes said it opened the gates of heaven.

You can buy canisters of the stuff at most head shops and some kitchen supply outlets in the states. If you go to the New Orleans Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street is littered with empty canisters - they're a bigger safety hazard than the beer bottles, I think.

Erowid.org has a nitrous vault.

Saveloy

16:04 / 16.04.03

I had a go on it at a pre-natal class, where the cannister was passed round like a bong. I didn't get any laughs but plenty of detachment. Did anyone do that hyperventilation-followed-by-a-scarf-held-tightly-round-the-neck thing as a kid? Reminded me of that. Very floaty. My wife said it was completely useless during the birth, though, and had to have an epidural (don't worry, I reduced her rations to punish her for her weakness).

William Sack

17:51 / 16.04.03

I can imagine that it wouldn't be much use during childbirth. Detachment goes only so far. I found my bendy little broken finger quite amusing but the greater pain of a broken leg I could merely *remove* myself from the pain with entonox, not laugh at it. From what I have heard, child-birth is a different order of pain. Kudos to Cosmicjamas, Mrss Grant and Saveloy, and best wishes to Mrs Sax.

William Sack

17:56 / 16.04.03

And kudos to Mrs Gingerbob. Caning the jellies.

gravitybitch

01:40 / 17.04.03

I've got a very generous dentist (would offer me nitrous for cleaning my teeth if I wanted it...) so I've had a number of lovely experiences with it, but for some reason I've never had the urge to laugh. I get nicely dreamy and floaty, completely unable to walk a straight line... but not even tempted to giggle a little.

Anybody else have this happen to them?

Sax

10:14 / 17.04.03

giggling while someone's got a drill in your mouth would probably be a little hazardous. I think it only makes you laugh when you're not actually in pain. And they don't really do general anaesthetic stuff in UK dentists any more... too many people have died while under.

Ariadne

10:30 / 17.04.03

My cousin was given temazepam (temazepan?) a couple of years ago when she hurt her back, and she loved them. I think she was torn between taking them and thoughts of what she could sell them for in Glasgow.

Ariadne

10:36 / 17.04.03

I remember getting gas at the dentist when i was about 7 - all I remember is insisting that it wouldn't work, because I "never go to sleep fast" (insomniac even then?) and then still insisting it but realising that the dentist was finishing off and it was all over. Pretty dull - no laughing or jollity for me, just confusion and a bloody tooth to take home as some sort of gory souvenir.

Add Your Reply