Nitrous Oxide

What are the advantages of Nitrous Oxide?

Nitrous works very rapidly, it reaches the brain within 20 seconds and relaxation and pain killing properties develop after 2 or 3 minutes.

The depth of sedation can be altered from moment to moment, allowing the person who administers the gas to increase or decrease the depth of sedation. Other sedation techniques don't allow for this. For example with IV sedation, it's easy to deepen the level of sedation, but difficult to lessen it. Whereas with laughing gas, the effects are almost instant.

Other sedation techniques have a fixed duration of action (because the effects of pills or intravenous drugs last for a specific time span), whereas gas can be given for the exact time span it's needed for. It can also be switched off when not needed and then switched on again (though to avoid a rollercoaster effect, you shouldn't do this too abruptly).

There is no "hangover effect the gas is eliminated form the body within 3-5 minutes after the gas supply is stopped. You can safely drive home and don't need and escort.

With Nitrous oxide, it's easy to five incremental doses until the desired action is obtained ("this is called Titrition"). So the administrator has virtually absolute control over the action of the drug, preventing the possibility of accidental overdoses. While giving incremental does is possible with IV sedation, it's not possible with oral sedation (as a result, oral sedation can be a bit of a hit and miss affair).

For certain procedures those involving gums rather than teeth e.g. deep cleaning it may be possible to use nitrous instead of a local anesthesia. Nitrous acts as a pain killer on soft tissues such as gums. However, it's pain relieving effects vary a lot form person to person and can't be relied upon.

No injection is required. In cases of very severe needle phobia, getting laughing gas first can help you feel relaxed enough to needle required.

Inhalation sedation is very safe. It has very few side effects and the drugs used have no ill effect on the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain.

Inhalation sedation has been found to be very effective in eliminating or at least minimizing severe gagging.