As long as pressure, osmotic balance, pH, etc are in balance then it's not going to cause cellular trauma per se.
Regardless of the fluid medium, a bigger problem is absence of oxygen is going to start the process of autolysis after cell death. Neurons are particularly vulnerable, which how people can become brain dead within 5-10 minutes under normal circumstances.
The even bigger problem is cellular damage from the freezing process. Proponents of this sort of thing would say the "cryoprotectant" chemicals vitrify, so the massive small scale trauma from ice crystal formation is prevented. I'm not sure anything has ever been reanimated after this process, nor do I foresee a technology capable of allowing it.
Finally, and maybe the biggest problem, it is hard to see technological cure for advanced ALS. It is a structure problem with demyelination causing the symptoms. Even if you could correct the underlying source of myelin cell death/inflammation, it's very difficult to imagine a restoration process that results in viable life.
Anyway, probably more than you wanted to hear. This is just kind of sad, and reminds me this is a young forum on the whole that probably isn't too in tune with their own mortality (this is not directed at anyone, so I'd prefer nobody respond personally to it). He is dead, he lived well, there will be nobody else quite like him.
Some people are working on organ preservation by vitrification and restoration. Not there yet, but promising work. There is no reason to think that this is impossible:
As to technologies capable of restoring the cryopreserved, there are any number of works that propose very detailed descriptions of how it can be done with molecular nanotechnology.
Upon a quick read, none those are not particularly cause for optimism. By far the most important one is the organ vitrification (for the impact it could have on viable transplants) and it wasn't very promising at all.
The ALS article was very far removed from an in vivo therapy and the premise was hypothetical. Looking at a collection of the links on the reanimation link, it might as well be molecular nanotechnology. None of them were anything more than science fiction.
As to the other response (zanny) ... that's your prerogative to believe those, but I believe they are impossible or outside of the intellectual capability of humankind (leaning towards the former). In my opinion it's as feasible as though you'd suggested FTL travel with wormholes.
Regardless, I wouldn't cryopreserve myself even if I could. I've made efforts to live a good life and accept my mortality.
What you do need to consider is that, most likely, by the time anyone can conceivably revive those cryopreserved, the technology of the era is likely to be capable of genetic engineering and cloning to the degree where they might feasibly be able to just generate a new body for a patient to transplant the brain to. Or just do a detailed imaging of the brain, and transplant the memories. Or replace any parts of the brain damaged by the freezing procedure in the same way.
I don't think anyone getting cryopreserved today expects to be woken up for at least a century. And a hundred years ago the idea of commercial airline flight was still a pipe dream, and anything resembling computers of any scale was complete science fiction.
Regardless of the fluid medium, a bigger problem is absence of oxygen is going to start the process of autolysis after cell death. Neurons are particularly vulnerable, which how people can become brain dead within 5-10 minutes under normal circumstances.
The even bigger problem is cellular damage from the freezing process. Proponents of this sort of thing would say the "cryoprotectant" chemicals vitrify, so the massive small scale trauma from ice crystal formation is prevented. I'm not sure anything has ever been reanimated after this process, nor do I foresee a technology capable of allowing it.
Finally, and maybe the biggest problem, it is hard to see technological cure for advanced ALS. It is a structure problem with demyelination causing the symptoms. Even if you could correct the underlying source of myelin cell death/inflammation, it's very difficult to imagine a restoration process that results in viable life.
Anyway, probably more than you wanted to hear. This is just kind of sad, and reminds me this is a young forum on the whole that probably isn't too in tune with their own mortality (this is not directed at anyone, so I'd prefer nobody respond personally to it). He is dead, he lived well, there will be nobody else quite like him.
edit: fyi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute (though again, this differs because the cryopreserving fluid is selected because of its properties when freezing)