This Guy’s Throat Got Frostbite After Doing Whippets

Frostbite usually strikes the extremities. It doesn’t usually take over a person’s mouth and throat, unless that person, for some dumb reason, specifically targets that part of their body.

Well, doctors at the University of Virginia recently detailed the case of a 23-year-old man who developed full-on internal frostbite after huffing nitrous oxide straight from a handheld canister.

The case, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, explains that the man presented at the hospital after experiencing two days of throat pain, hoarseness, and difficulty swallowing. A peek inside revealed pale white lesions along his soft palate and uvula.

It’s the kind of stuff that makes doctors put away their encyclopedic knowledge of illnesses and instead fold their arms and ask, “What the hell did you do?” Fortunately, the guy was honest. He told them he’d just taken a massive hit from a whippet cartridge.

Man Suffers Mouth Frostbite From Whippets

For those who were never directionless teenagers constantly up to no good, whippets are those small silver canisters of nitrous oxide normally used to whip cream. They’re recreationally used to whip your brain.

The gas delivers a short-lived, euphoric high, and you get whipped cream out of it, so it’s easy to see why it’s so perennially popular.

It’s a cheap drug thrill that will never go away, but of course, it is quite dangerous. The gas is firing out at freezing temperatures, sometimes down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. It should be of no surprise to anyone that pointing a freeze gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger comes with some nasty side effects, like literally freezing your flesh.

This guy, quite fortunate, did not need surgery. Just some painkillers in a steroid paste. That could’ve been a lot worse.

Whippets became a semi-viral TikTok trend as people started snatching up canisters of Galaxy Gas to get high. Galaxy Gas is an Atlanta-based culinary company that makes whipped cream chargers.

Anyone of any age can buy some because it is ostensibly just a can of whipped cream. It’s become so associated with a quick high that the company’s name has become genericized, forever associated with an inexpensive, easily accessible way to get high, in the same way that all tissues are Kleenex and all cotton swabs are Q-tips.