A glamorous bartender in Illinois inhaled, so much ‘smiling gas’ inhaled that she was paralyzed with parts of her brain dead.
Rachel Kelly tried for the first time nitrogen oxide in 2018 at the age of 21 while attending an EDM festival, where she would dance for hours.
By 2023, she paid more than $ 220 a day to breathe eight two-liter tanks of the gas daily, which she bought for convenience stores.
Usually used in dental offices such as a calming agent, stumbles nitrogen oxide oxygen from the lungs, reducing the oxygen supply of the brain and slows the nervous system.
The effect is a dizzying euphoria that lasts only about a minute – making it ripe for abuse.
For Kelly, the damage became clear during a bartending shift in April 2024, when her feet and right hand became numb and her hips felt like they were broken. ‘
The now 29-year-old said: ‘People thought I was drunk and I seemed into beyond [the nitrous oxide] poisoned my brain. ‘
Despite her symptoms, she bought another tank that same day. Within a few days ‘closed her body’.
Rachel Kelly (depicted here), a 29-year-old receptionist in Illinois, began to use nitrogen oxide at 21. The medicine ensured that she developed ‘dead zones’ in her brain
Kellt is depicted here to breathe in smiling gas from a bus. At the height of her addiction, she inhaled eight tanks every day with two liters of gas, which cost $ 220 daily
Kelly lost the feeling in most of her body and did not allow her to hold her phone, brush her teeth or use the bathroom alone.
At one point she woke up and couldn’t feel anything.
Nitrogen oxide draws vitamin B12, which is essential for maintaining the myelin sheath – a protective layer around nerve fibers, especially in the spinal cord.
Without B12, the casing deteriorates, damages nerves and causes numbness, loss of coordination, weakness and even paralysis.
Doctors told Kelly that the nitrogen oxide created ‘dead zones’ in her brain, so that she lost the function of her hands, feet and bladder.
Kelly said: ‘Everything [my nerves] Was died and my body was just closed.
“It’s like rat poison.”
She now warns others that only because the gas is easily accessible, it can still cause permanent damage.
She said, “The majority for me is that the nitrogen oxide was so accessible to me.”
Health authorities estimate 13 million Americans have used laughing gas to become high at least once.
The possession of nitrogen oxide is legal. The FDA has banned its Dstribution for human consumption, but it is difficult to maintain that law.
It is still sold in pressure on the print on the whipped cream buses in convenience stores and online retailers such as Amazon and Ebay.
Earlier this year, the FDA warned against the recreational use of nitrogen oxide in the midst of ‘an increase in reports of side effects’, including blood clots, reduced bladder and intestinal function, numbness, paralysis and hallucinations.
Last year, 30-year-old Ashley Weir from Florida was found dead in her bed by an overdose of nitrogen oxide.
In 2024, the smiling gas made sure that Kelly lost all the function of her hands, feet and bladder, and at one point she woke up and could not feel anything. It took a few months of therapy for her to regain the feeling. She is depicted here in Rehab
Kelly, now depicted at the age of 29, now warns about the use of nitrogen oxide to become high
After 10 days in the hospital, Kelly was taken to a rehabilitation center, where she underwent professional and physiotherapy for 30 hours a week for a month.
During these sessions she had to learn to walk and write again, as well as brushing ‘boring’ tasks such as her teeth.
She then entered her parents and spent five months using a walker and got her independence back.
A little more than a year later, Kelly regained most of her capacities, although she still has some numbness in her toes and has to take B12 supplements.
She now works as a receptionist and is planning to become an employee of drug support.
She is planning to become a drug -supporting employee in the future and is insisting on others not to inhale nitrogen oxide because ‘the 30 seconds high is not worth it’.
Kelly said: ‘The high 30 seconds is not worth it. Come out [of the hospital] I no longer touched nitrogen oxide and I wouldn’t do it now.
‘Only because something is sold in a store does not mean that it is safe to use.
‘The final phase of this is that you end up in the hospital and it’s just one [matter of] When this will happen to you and when you wake up and you can feel nothing. ‘
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