Cryotherapy

[James Stewart]

Anybody know if you can get a DIY version of the liquid nitrogen bottle dermatologists use on patients ..?

[alan_m]

To do what? I've used (electronic) freezer spray on a cotton bud to freeze skin tags (which then fall off 1 to 2 weeks later). Note the spray was NOT used directly on the skin but first applied to a cotton bud which in turn was placed over the skin tag. Also to super freeze the cotton bud the trick is to gently press the spray button so it dribbles the content of the can on to the bud rather than spraying it with the aerosol contents.

[harry]

Stainless steel thermos flask?

[Chris Hogg]

Take your pick:

is currently unobtainable. On the tin it says it contains flammable gas under pressure, so perhaps a little GAZ gas lamp or blowtorch canister could be used, preferably unlit, although if lit it might achieve the same result, just rather more painfully :-).

This looks similar

Sprays of dimethyl ether or tetrafluoroethane are used in the medical profession. The latter is also used as a refrigerant, and said to have a negligible effect on the ozone layer. It's probably what's in the pipe freezer above. A dimethyl ether - propane mixture is sometimes used for freezing warts etc, so probably what's in the Doctor's Touch stuff.

[James Stewart]

smashin' got all that...thanks....

[Clive Arthur]

Others have suggested freezer spray which is fine, but just as a point of information, you can't have liquid nitrogen unless it's kept cold, usually in a Dewar flask. It's always a gas at room temperature, whatever the pressure.

Cheers

[tabbypurr]

If it's for warts or verrucas, a drop of bleach each day is more effective, safer & painless.

NT

[Bill]

In message <Owl4E.352360$ [e-mail], James Stewart [e-mail] writes

I keep getting my hand frozen to the bottles of air duster that the pound shops sell. Is that relevant?

[alan_m]

A drop in pressure (from a pressurised can to atmosphere) will cause the gas to become colder. A change in temperature of 25+C wouldn't be unexpected.

The freezer sprays also work by rapid evaporation of the contents once released from the can. If you just hit the button on the freezer spray directed at the skin it will cover a large area. For DIY medical purposes possibly the method I suggested in another post is better. Slightly depress the button on the can so it dribbles out the cooled (liquid) contents. Drip this on to a cotton bud which becomes saturated and then evaporation further turns it into a super cooled blob which can be applied to the skin (in my case skin tags). Repeat a couple of times.

[Brian Gaff]

Erm why?

Is this not what killed a person in a bar a couple of years ago when it was put in somebody's drink? Its only liquid if its cold, obviously. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I remember a doctor getting rid of a wart on my mother by asking her to pull it up, and he tied a bit of catgut around it tightly, in three days it fell off. Brian

[Bob Eager]

I've had that done with skin tags.

[alan_m]

I think you may be reffering to:-

[Max Demian]

When I read the subject line I thought you were referring to DIY cryonics..

[Bob Eager]

I remember, about two decades ago, the procedure at the medical centre at my place of work (a university). My GP was there.

If you wanted a skin tag removed, they would give you an empty Dewar and send you to the Chemistry building (about 5 minutes' walk away). You'd bring it back with the liquid nitrogen, and they'd apply the treatment.

[Chris J Dixon]

Nearly 60 years ago I was sent to a children's clinic to have a verruca treated. The doctor fitted a sparklets bulb to a device which released the pressure and quite rapidly produced a little cylindrical frozen block about the size of a pencil-end rubber.

This was then applied to my foot.

Chris

[Andrew Gabriel]

Judging from the streets around me, I suspect a nitrous oxide bulb would be much easier to obtain nowadays. Apparently, now they are all illegal black market, they're much cheaper than they were when they were sold in legal high shops.

[newshound]

That takes me back to the days I took a (glass) dewar into the SEM building for a pint of liquid nitrogen, then smuggled it home in my briefcase to freeze the lead water supply to my Victorian house, in order to replace the totally knackered stop tap (there was no sign of one in the road).

[Jim K..]

Wart freeze spray?