Disturbing effects of ‘chroming’ revealed as expert says it can ‘dissolve the brain like melting plastic’
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: PM Universal Archive/Universal Images Group Via Getty Images/Bevan Goldswain/Getty Images
An expert has spoken out about the disturbing effects of 'chroming', revealing it can ‘dissolve the brain like melting plastic’.
'Chroming' is the name given to the practice being carried out by young people on social media of inhaling toxic fumes to get high from substances. This can include paint thinners, aerosol cans, glue and detergent.
Just this week, a mum shared an urgent warning after her son fell victim to a viral 'chroming' trend online.
Mum of four Nichola King, from Doncaster was distraught when she found her 12-year-old son Cesar on the floor with his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
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This led to him needing CPR from paramedics as a result of the potentially fatal social media trend.
Nichola, from Doncaster, had just finished breastfeeding when she heard a loud thud in her kitchen. After rushing to investigate, she was shocked beyond belief when she saw her son unresponsive on the floor.
Cesar was having a seizure and Nichola shouted for help from the rest of her children, who rushed to attempt CPR on the young boy.
Luckily, Cesar went on to make a full recovery, but his experience and injuries are understood to be a result of the damaging chroming trend which can ultimately result in slurred speech, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea and disorientation as well as potential heart attack or death as a result of suffocation.
Now, one health expert has spoken out about some of the disturbing effects.
Dr. Jeremy Hayllar, the Clinical Director of Brisbane's Biala Community Health Service, in Australia, likened the impact to 'dipping your brain in detergent'.
"All volatile substances are taken up very quickly in the brain and change the way that messages are sent around the brain," Dr. Hayllar told ABC News.
"That can lead to loss of consciousness, so this young lad collapsed, [and] vomiting is a kind of response to things going badly wrong and later on the effects can be progressive.
"Imagine something made of plastic; now let's say you heat it up and it kind of loses its shape and form. We could make the same analogy with the effects of solvent on the brain.
"It's not heat that's doing it, but it's being dissolved by soluble substances that get into fatty tissue and disrupt them. When people continue use day-to-day, they're really damaging their prospects, their brain development."
Dr. Hayllar explained that in the worst case scenario, death can also occur.
"It certainly sounds extreme, but I don't think it is uncommon... things can go wrong when you're not awake enough to protect your airway," he said.
"That could be an early death from overdose, from aspiration — or vomit — because someone loses consciousness; from hypoxia because often people consume the volatile substance from something they cover their face with, that means they're preventing oxygen or air from getting in safely.
"Some people become very unsteady, they fall over, they can injure themselves.
"The solvents can damage the heart, the conduction tissue of the heart, leading to arrhythmia and heart damage in that way … there is very wide range of effects and many of them can happen quite early."