A Tel Aviv resident in his 30s was taken to the Poriya Medical Center near Tiberias with neurological symptoms: he had seizures, memory loss and ringing in the ears. If one of the doctors had not realized that these symptoms were caused by deliberate inhalation of laughing gas used to whip cream in balloons, the damage might have been irreversible and the patient might have died.
Doctors contacted the patient’s relatives, and one of the relatives brought to the hospital a cylinder of gas used in siphons for whipping cream. But unlike canisters for household use, which have been increasingly abused by Israeli teenagers and young people in recent years, a patient at the Poriya hospital inhaled gas from an industrial cylinder containing 2.2 liters of gas.
Having found out the exact cause of the poisoning, doctors were able to choose the right treatment, which helped save the patient. He was given mechanical ventilation, but until thorough tests are carried out it is impossible to say whether the neurological damage has become permanent.
Poriya Hospital doctor Moshe Maruf said that in recent years, the number of cases of use of gas for household siphons has been growing, especially among young people and teenagers. Many of them do not suspect that the use of this gas for a long time is extremely harmful to the nervous and immune systems, it can cause brain damage, seizures, and chronic psychotic states.