What Are the Consequences of Inhalants?

Inhalants are a group of toxic substances containing chemical vapors which, when inhaled, produce mild-altering effects. Most inhalants are common household and workplace products such as cleaning fluids, spray paints and glues, items not specifically designed to induce intoxication. Like other forms of substance abuse, the use of inhalants often results in many serious consequences.

Intoxication

• Much like the abuse of alcohol, abusing inhalants often results in intoxication. This includes lack of coordination, dizziness, slurred speech and euphoria. Many inhalant abusers experience short-term consequences such as a lingering headache, confusion, loss of control, hallucinations, a lightheaded feeling, nausea and vomiting.

Myelin Damage

• Myelin is the fatty tissue that surrounds and protects some nerve fibers in the body, and assists these fibers with quick and efficient message relay. Long-term abuse of inhalants can lead to the damage and breaking down of myelin. This damage of the myelin can result in muscle tremors and spasms as well as permanent difficulty with a person's everyday functions, such as talking, walking and bending.

Hypoxia

• When you abuse inhalants, they deprive the body of oxygen by displacing air in the lungs. This can lead to hypoxia, a condition that is extremely damaging to cells in the body -- especially the cells in the brain. The severity of the condition depends on what area of the brain sustains the most damage. For example, if hypoxia damages the hippocampus, the area that controls memory, you may lose the ability to follow simple conversations or learn new things. This cellular damage may also cause personality changes, learning disabilities and memory impairment.

Organ Damage

• Repeated exposure to toxic chemicals in inhalants can damage the lungs, liver and heart. Inhalants may also damage kidneys and result in kidney stones. In some cases, this damage may be partly reversible after the abuse of the inhalants ceases. However, in most cases the damage is irreversible.

Death

• Inhalant abuse can also result in death. Sudden sniffing death is a syndrome in which a person dies after one session of inhalant use due to the sudden and unexpected disturbance of the heart's rhythm. Other ways a person can die from inhalant abuse include suffocation, choking, asphyxiation, comas, seizures or convulsions resulting in death and fatal injuries due to intoxication.