if you inject yourself with a needle full of air, will you kill yourself?

Question

We have a bet going, I say Yes, Chris says No. Who is right, dont worry nobody is going to inject themselves. Need a educated answer please!

Answer 1

One syringe full will probably not kill you if you are healthy. I will hurt so bad you would want to die though. The bubbles pushed into the vein will pass through the right side of the heart, then into part of the lung. Here the air bubble will plug small arteries due to the surface tension and only part of the lung will function. You will get short of breath and begin to get chest pain. You will get a horrible air hunger, your heart will race and begin to sweat and begin to turn blue. If you are going to die, you will turn purple and the pain will get worse. The pressure on the right side of the lung that is plugged-up will get higher and fluid will begin being pushed into the air passages making the situation worse. All the oxygen you can get is not enough. Then the brain which is starving for oxygen begins to get confused, dizzy and just quits breathing while the heart keeping racing until it too is out of oxygen.
Probably not a good idea.
Old Doc

Answer 2

unless you have an atrial septal defect or some other abnormal hole in your heart, any air injected intravenously will just travel to the lungs where it quickly gets exhaled out in the alveoli. so intravenous air is not going to kill you, unless you inject more than 20 ml volume. with that much volume, the air could potentially become lodged underneath the heart valves and prevent the tricuspid valve from closing and opening properly. that could be fatal.

if you do have an abnormal communication between the left and right side of you heart however, it's possible that the air could travel into your arterial circulation, in which case it's quite possible that you'll die from impaired blood flow to any of your vital organs. in particular, the things that might kill you right away are heart attack or stroke.

Answer 3

To answer your question: Directly NO but indirectly POSSIBLY YES. A small syringe filled with air most likely won't cause death, however, there is no absolute guarantee, there is still a possibility that it may lead to serious injuries than may ultimately cause death.
By your statement "a needle full of air" I believe means a syringe with needle.There are different factors that has to be considered such as the size of the syringe to determine the amount of air and another important factor is the body position and the into where it is injected. Air injected into arteries is more serious matter (than injecting it into veins) as it may directly cause stoppage of blood flow to an area fed by the artery.
Amounts of air administered by a single small syringe are not likely to suddenly stop the heart, nor cause instant death. Single air bubbles in a vein do not stop the heart, due to being too small. However, such bubbles may occasionally reach the arterial system through a patent foramen ovale, and cause random ischemic damage, depending on their route of arterial travel.
Although very small volumes of air can lead to severe sequelae, it is generally accepted that more than 50 mL of air can cause hypotension and dysrhythmias and more than 300 mL of air can be lethal.
Small amounts of air do not produce symptoms because the air is broken up and absorbed from the circulation. Although classical teaching states that more than 5 mL/kg of intravenous air is required for significant injury (including shock and cardiac arrest), patient complications secondary to as little as 20 mL of air have been reported. Further, as little as 0.5 mL of air in the left anterior descending coronary artery has been shown to lead to ventricular fibrillation.

Answer 4

OK here is the deal, I am a diabetic and have used needles for a long time the answer is YES, why because if an air pocket gets into the blood Stream it will follow up to the brain causing a stroke, or into the heart valves causing a heart attack, now either one of these can cause death, but not necessarily, the air will only do harm if said needle goes into the blood stream it will cause no harm into the tissue of the body maybe discomfort
LNSu

Answer 5

I have seen a fair amount of air run through IV lines ( by accident) in no case have I observed any effect on the patient. Their is a possibility of a pulmonary embolism is the air bubble was large enough but I suspect it would need 20 to 40 cc of air to even come close to being dangerous. The only place I have seen it be fatal was on bad movies.

Answer 6

It will cause a condition known as AIR EMBOLISM. It is also similar to Caisson's disease (a.k.a. the bend, or decompression syndrome) in which a diver surfaces quickly which causes the nitrogen to turn into gas. The air that we breathe is 78% nitrogen. When these air bubbles pass through your blood vessels, it will cause a temporary loss of blood supply and will induce cell death of that particular organ. No blood = necrosis (cell death). If it goes to your heart, it can cause a heart attack, to your brain, a stroke. What's the implication to your body? DON'T DO IT, cause the potential for a serious injury is extremenly high.

Answer 7

The people above me give pretty good answers, so I wont go into all the details.

One of them said that he has seen IV lines with air in them go into patients without effect: well, when I was a baby I had half an IV line's worth of air (or so) go into a vein in my foot (the only place they could get an IV in after 18 tries...!). My mum stopped it before it all went in, but I still have a scared vein on my foot where it went in, its right on the surface of the skin, not pretty. So, yes, tube fulls of air in IV lines going into you can have an effect, if not killing you (which they can).

Ashley

Answer 8

Syringe Air Bubble Death

Answer 9

injecting your self with air could possible cause a air pocket in the blood vessel and cause a clot that can go to your heart and stop the rhythm of your heart and kill you

Answer 10

depends on injection point and quantity. a small amount injected into muscle tissue is unlikely to be a major problem. Injecting air directly into a vein is likely to create a embolism that can cause heart attack or stroke. Not a good idea.