Nitrous Oxide, taken as a recreational drug, was discussed on TV yesterday (The One Show), focussing on the downside .....and named it : B12 deficiency.
Nitrous Oxide inactivates B12: the lack of active B12 can cause irreversible neurological damage. The medical profession are seeing increasing numbers of young people with this, because of laughing gas use.
The same episode of this show had Davina McCall discussing the effects of the menopause:
memory loss- particularly related to remembering names, lack of libido, mood-swings, brain fog, loss of energy .....
to paraphrase Sally Pacholok:
could this possibly be ...... ?
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Cherylclaire
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Having suffered severely with both, there are some similar symptoms but they are distinct different issues; one from low/inability to absorb dietary B12 and the other from low oestregen progesterone and testosterone.
I was asked by my GP if I abused Nitrous Oxide because that's the most common reason they see for B12 Deficiency.
It would be interesting if some researchers looked at the effects of nitrous oxide vs. other causes for B12d i.e. what process occurs in the body after excessive consumption.
Presumably it is a more sudden and severe effect whereas typical deficiency will take years and perhaps less likely to be neurological?
A paper like that could help the medics understand more of the impact of lack of absorption.
Yes, it would. Also why some affected and not others ? Is it just about quantity ?
Research in this area could lead to increased general knowledge about the whole B12 process.
I think that it is easy for a GP, given the lack of appointment time they have and the problems with diagnosis, to have an image in their head of a "typical" B12 deficient patient. Strangely, at my surgery, the head nurse once told me that most of the B12 patients she injects are old men.
I think my own image is probably a woman presenting in her late fifties (post menopausal). But that's just me. Literally.
I copied an excerpt from a medical reference book from 1932 about PA as it was then understood, which includes the following :
"The essential cause is not yet definitely known. It occurs in males more than females (proportion about two to one), and usually between the ages of twenty-five to forty years."
This could be because this is the age of those having medicals prior to national service.
Why you are looking, where you are looking and what you are looking for becomes an issue.
Absolutely. Some demographic statistics around B12 Deficiency based on data would be helpful wouldn't it. Then a cascade of types or causes, e.g. PA, Gastrointestinal, substances, perimenopausal, diet - followed by median age, sex/gender, lifestage. In many cases it will be a combination of these, as I believe it was in mine.
Since B12 is absorbed in Gut and Stomach it would be interesting to know what happens in the body following NO use or abuse and where it shuts down B12 and how.
I think you're absolutely right. Empirically, it must be middle-aged women as the highest no. of sufferers.
Perhaps in the 1930's there was alot of PTSD for returning infantrymen or those who fought in the Great War. And the ongoing/looming threat of another one. Who knows. But surely, after 90 years, we can move the dial forward to investigate! Let's hope someone does.
Where I live, I'm noticing more and more discarded nitrous oxide canisters .
If you want to know how serious it can get, search online for "young people nitrous oxide paralysis" and "Nitrous oxide SACD"
SACD stands for sub acute combined degeneration of the spinal cord.
Gas and Air mix
One of the things that gets me riled up is that pregnant women are not as far as I know warned that nitrous oxide in "gas and air mix" could affect their B12.
NHS page on pain relief in labour says that there are no harmful effects for mother and baby.
This is probably a controversial view, but I suspect back in the 1930s (and 1950s..60s.. 70s… 80s??) PA was considered to mainly affect men because symptoms appearing in women would have been ascribed to ‘hysteria’, ‘nerves’, or ‘neurosis’, or just part and parcel of the monthly processes going on?? I do feel that - even now - certain aspects of women’s health is just not taken seriously enough.
It would be extremely interesting to see a comparison of what the different diagnostic outcomes would be, if different people (ages/ genders / body types etc) presented to a medical professional with the exact same symptoms.
I know research was done maybe 5-10 years ago about job application forms - and there were significant differences in whether the candidates got shortlisted for an interview or not, depending on the name / sex / race.. I think the details (experience / education etc) were identical for each. It would be really useful to tease out the unconscious (or conscious) bias that GPs / consultants have..
I hedge my bets - whenever I go for an appointment with a hospital consultant, I always dress as if for a work meeting, hoping that I will then be more likely to be taken seriously…!
Well that's an interesting approach - one I've never heard anyone say before !
I remember when my mother, who had had several heart attacks, gave up trying to tell medical professionals that her early-warning sign was shoulder pain and not chest pain. She would just say "Yes, I've got chest pains." Not the time to start quibbling, is it ?
It has now been shown that women do not necessarily have the same patterns as men when it comes to heart attacks. Let us hope that this new knowledge has now filtered through.
Off-topic, yet could be relevant to medical treatment for women generally... anyway, back to B12 deficiency:
Far and away, the most common initial misdiagnosis discovered in the PAS survey was one that was given to 16% of the respondents : that of "anxiety and depression". This from a survey of almost 900 participants, who all had a Pernicious Anaemia diagnosis (eventually).
It would be interesting to know what percentage of these were women in comparison to the response ratio.
Maybe we're all just suffering from a fit of the vapours !
I’ve just experienced what it does when given for general surgery in hospital. I felt like I did before my B12 injections started . All the burning, stinging and pins and needles came back, and very intense. Totally fatigued again for two weeks.
What really annoying is I told the doctor at the pre op assessment and again in the operating room I was b12 deficient with confirmed PA.
I told the anaesthetist that I could not have nitrous oxide as I was B12 deficient, and he seemed to know what I was talking about. Bit of a relief.
Before I knew about B12 deficiency or any of this, I once had an operation to pin my broken shoulder - which was fairly routine and expected to last an hour. It took three and a half hours. On asking why the delay, my partner was told "She's a bit of a bleeder" !
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I know Nitrous Oxide can cause b12 deficiency, but could Nitrogen Dioxide do it too? 
Nitrous Oxide
Serious Nerve Damage from Use of Nitrous Oxide 
Nitrous oxide and nitrox
Nitrous oxide question
