Health - Safe to use around pets/non-users?

[Palomar]

SWIM wants to use nitrous this weekend (balloon/cracker method). She is wondering if it'll be okay to do it in a room where a cat and someone else (who won't use nitrous, for personal health reasons) are.

In other words, she's wondering if the nitrous that gets into the air will affect the kitty or the person who's not using, in any way. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but she's admittedly a little clueless about such things

She does have several electric fans that she can run, if that'll help. She's not going to be doing a whole lot of N20, btw. Just a couple of chargers.

Advice/opinions? She does not want to accidentally harm her cat, nor hurt the health of the other person who cannot use it.

Thanks!

[Mint boi]

The Nitrous won't affect them. My ferret personally doesn't do certain drugs with his pets around, he puts them in another room or outside. It may seem wierd, but he doesn't think its fair to them if he's completely out of it. Whatever about your friend being there, s/he can decide to leave or can voice discomfort but your pets cant.

Make sure to research any new drug well. Dont do anything that swiy is clueless about.

[Paracelsus]

Such small concentrations are most likely 100% harmless for others, unless one is chronically exposed (dentists who use N2O on their patients are at risk of serious health problems).

[Lettish]

If someone was to fill a balloon with N2O (double charged) and they inhaled it, then exhaled and inhaled normal air, they wouldn't feel anything.

[geezaman]

SWIM would suggest they woul probably get light nitrous effects, stronger effects if they held it in.
SWIM would suggest pets be removed from the room as many dispensers emit a very loud noise when filling the balloons, this could scare animals quite easily.
at a friends house this issue was not considered and a dog became quite distressed

[Pondlife]

The hissing noise produced by escaping gas contains a lot of energy in ultrasonic frequencies, so it probably sounds much louder and more disturbing to dogs than it does to us.

[Palomar]

Hey everyone, thanks very much for the answers. Though SWIM has tried nitrous before, she did it elsewhere with no pets present, and hence didn't know about the noises disturbing animals. That was good info

So, SWIM has decided to have someone take the cat into another part of the house while SWIM partakes. Since this is a shy cat who scares easily already.

SWIM will also have the throat-problems person go elsewhere for awhile, just in case. Though SWIM agrees that such small amounts in the air probably wouldn't hurt him much, she's decided to be cautious and not take chances.

Thanks again!

[JackTLogan]

I'm afraid you are receiving misinformation. N02 is considerably heavier than air. That's why it makes your voice lower. Nitrous that escapes from either your mouth or the cracker will fall to the floor and dissipate; it will not permeate the room the way smoke does. As long as your cat isn't in some small box beneath you with no way for the gas to escape, you aren't really looking at any risk of "second hand nitrous" exposure.

-Jack

[Palomar]

Meh, it's ok. swim didn't want the kitty to get freaked out by the balloon noise anyway (and now that swim has heard it while sober, she finds the inflating noise to be pretty damn annoying to her human ears- so she can see where it'd really irritate an animal).

Thanks for the info though Good to know she won't accidentally get her pets high or something XD

[geezaman]

SWIM found that by inflating the balloons under a thick blanket/douvet most of he high end of the sound is taken out, and for SWIM at least the loud noise is more annoying than pissing about with a douvet.