helium gas

[dinsdale]

Is it dangerous or dodgy to health to partake in the hillarious act of sucking out the helium from a balloon in order to speak in a daft high pitched voice?

[BillyNoMates]

Quite simply - Yes !

[zgma]

Whenever I've done it I feel dizzy and get a little headache, so I assume it's not particularly good for you. For one thing, you're depriving yourself of oxygen while you're sucking helium.

[SteveD]

Divers sometimes use a helium/oxygen mix: "Heliox is a mixture of helium and oxygen used for very deep diving, usually to greater than 200 feet. Helium's great advantage is that it does not lead to nitrogen narcosis. Helium diving requires as much or more decompression time as nitrogen, so there is no saving there. Beyond 300 feet heliox may cause the 'high pressure nervous syndrome', a shaking sensation that can be incapacitating. Another disadvantage of helium is that it conducts heat about six times faster than nitrogen, so divers get colder than with air diving. A third problem is caused by the fact that helium is much less dense than nitrogen or air; as a result, the vocal cords vibrate much faster and divers sound like Donald Duck. Professional divers can use voice unscramblers to make their speech intelligible. Overall, helium offers no advantage for recreational divers. Diving with heliox is strictly for technical and professional divers." There is more information about breathable gas mixtures on the site where I found the above: http://www.mtsinai.org/pulmonary/books/scuba/sectionl.htm I would assume that the occasional breathing of a small amount of helium from a balloon as described by dinsdale is not too harmful unless you experience side-effects - in which case, don't do it again!

[georgit79]

Who cares- it's fun!

[cheyenne]

it good be dodgy if your voice stayed like that forever.but looking on the bright side job opportunitys in the cartoon industry would be anormous?

[Lal]

Yes totally you could drop dead at any second while it passes through your larynx.

[IndieSinger]

I did it once and the wind changed, so I stuck like it. Just call me Alvin the Chipmunk.