Was Demi Moore Hospitalized Due to Whippets?
The celebrity circuit was abuzz with news that actress Demi Moore was rushed to the hospital on January 23, after suffering from an apparent seizure.
The actress’ friends told emergency workers that she had been doing “whip-its,” before experiencing seizure-like symptoms and becoming semi-unconscious.
“Whip-its,” also known as “whippets,” “whippits,” and “nossies,” are steel cylinders filled with nitrous oxide (NOX). NOX, also called “laughing gas,” is usually used by dentists prior to administering novocaine injections or performing dental procedures.
Dr. Harris Stratyner, regional vice president at New York’s Caron Treatment Center, shared that nitrous oxide can result in a euphoric, dissociated, and out-of-body experience for the people who inhale them. It is also found in whipped cream aerosol cans, which NOX abusers use by emptying the gas into a balloon, and then inhaling it. The gas is also used to boost engine power in race cars.
Inhalation of nitrous oxide may lead to a lack of oxygen, which may be fatal.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hospital in New York City, shared that abuse of whippets can cause the following side effects: nausea; vomiting; disorientation; and vitamin B-12 deficiency, which can cause numbness in the fingers and toes. Severe side effects of nitrous oxide abuse include lung collapse; blood vessel hemorrhage in the lungs; heart attack; seizure; and slipping into coma.
When asked whether “whippets” can be addictive, Stratyner responded that NOX can be psychologically addictive, but it was “not highly usual” for people to go to rehab because of it.
Tags: Demi Moore, Demi Moore hospitalized, Demi Moore nossies, Demi Moore whip-its, Demi Moore whippets, Demi Moore whippits
January 28, 2012 at 9:16 amJohnSalone
link
What bothers me is that over the 911 call, her friends are saying that she smoked ‘something, not marijuana, but incense’. This is why I believe it wasn’t whippets, but it was Spice, AKA synthetic Cananbinoids.