Helium

[Doggri]

What exactly happens when Helium is inhaled to give you a high voice? Can it have damaging effects? Just wondered.... Thanks

[kempie]

Firstly, we need to breathe Oxygen to survive; so inhaling Helium to the detriment of our Oxygen requirements can be FATAL.

Here is an explanation of the physics...

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/PHYSICS_!/SPEECH_H ELIUM/speech.html

[Aprilis]

Good link kempie. The sound files made me laugh though. Not because the bloke's voice sounded funny but because he was being ever so serious with the helium voice!

[chakka35]

Helium is very light compared with air so its impact on the larynx is light as well, producing a reedy , quacking result -like throwing a handful of rice at a gong instead of hitting it a proper wallop.
Providing you have enough oxygen, breathing helium is not harmful in the least. Oxygen/helium mixtures are breathed by deep divers to minimise the bends, less likely with helium because it is so much lighter than the nitrogen in air.

[kempie]

When diving, the use of any gaseous mixture other than standard air requires additional training and precautions; the Heliox gas blend is rigorously controlled.

Very few balloons, or helium tanks used to fill them, incorporate a regulator with a demand valve. This makes controlling the mix which enters your lungs even more precarious.

[Orangesauce1]

yet still with knowing the dangers, we can't help but inhale party balloons!! crazy (I am a culprit too) why is it sooo funny!

But seriously, you must not its bad for you ...... Imust not inhale balloons i must not inhale balloons .............

[chakka35]

I think you�re being unnecessarily alarmist, Kempie. You are quite right to say that breathing heliox professionally needs special training and that the mixture used must be strictly formulated and controlled. But that is only because divers are going to be breathing it for a long time. In ordinary life there can be no harm in anyone�s taking a gulp of helium from a cylinder or a balloon. The helium itself, being organically inert, can do no harm, and breathing it without oxygen for a moment is no different from holding one�s breath for few seconds, after which one merely breathes normally again. Hearing oneself and others sound like Donald Duck is huge fun.

[kempie]

... but how do you ensure that Doggri, or anyone else who reads this, will only take one gulp?

Surely you must recognise that to use the phrase "not harmful in the least" is irresponsible advice especially when it is not you who will suffer the consequences if something were to go wrong.

[kempie]

http://www.cganet.com/N2O/helium_safety.asp

[bonsaimaster]

i would guess it wud kill ya if ya breathed nowt but helium
but i no that it does nowt to ur vocal chords just that helium is less denser than oxygen so the sound waves travel faster and produce a higher pitched sound

[chakka35]

I get your drift, Kempie, but that drift is taking us way off the question. Helium is not harmful. Depriving yourself of oxygen, by whatever method, is harmful. So if in the process of breathing helium you asphyxiate yourself that is because of the daft method you are using; the helium itself is blameless. There isn�t enough helium in a balloon to keep you away from oxygen for very long even if you fill your lungs with it (which people don�t usually do). As for breathing directly from a high-pressure cylinder � well, that is just stupid. You will damage your lungs whatever the gas is, oxygen, for example. Your suggested website, in pointing this out, is stating the obvious.
As the Health & Safety nannies keep demonstrating, if you look for possible ways of injuring yourself in normally-harmless pursuits you will find them if you look hard enough. Did you know that people who wear glasses should not open beer-cans in case the beer splashes onto the glasses and temporarily blinds them so that they trip on a kerbstone and knock someone over creating a blood-flow which causes a sensitive person to faint and fall under a bus� True.

[kempie]

You address the issue of damage caused by high pressure gas entering the lungs but have conveniently neglected the section on gaseous exchange of ambient pressure helium within the lungs.

Since you obviously exhibit no knowledge of physiology in relation to mammalian respiration I suggest you keep your advice to yourself.

[chakka35]

I neglected it, Kempie, because it was a case like that I made up last time: a remote possibility. Helium breathers do not fill their lungs with helium; they usually squirt it into their faces and then inhale, taking in a lot of air with it. I am stretched to imagine how they could fill their lungs without either clamping their mouths around a cylinder outlet (already dealt with) or squirting the whole contents of a balloon into their mouths - so uncomfortable that no-one ever does it. And note your web-site's claim that falling over is 'the usual result'. How usual? What are the statistics? I have never seen it happen.
Your pompousness does not become you, Kempie, and I say it as a fair old fan of yours on these pages. Neverthless, I will now obey your orders and shut up. Cheers.