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Harm Reduction ⫸CASE STUDIES - It could happen to YOU!⫷

When i was shooting this homemade methadone bullshit, i had the misfortune of hitting an artery in my right wrist, being right handed it sucked. I knew what i had done before i even had the belt completely off, so i was already in the car going to the hospital, they initially told me they were gonna have to amputate up to my elbow. I convinced them to try the fasciotomys, so they gave me 5 on my hand which were enormous and could not be sewn shut because they needed to relieve pressure. They gave me 5 massive cuts, you could see past the bones, artery, muscle everything, at one place where two of them almost connected you could pretty much see right through my hand. It worked, though i could not really use my hand for about 6 months, and to this day do not have the greatest feeling in it, and if it gets cold i cant feel or move it.
 
If this belongs somewhere else please move it but I wanted to share the story of my friend Jimmy. This seemed the most appropriate place to do so.

I believe it was Jimmy's aunt who wrote this piece.

Jimmy was one of the most selfless, loving, caring persons anyone could have met. He never met a stranger. It didn’t matter if you were a long-time friend who just needed to talk to someone, or some stranger that needed help pushing their car four blocks, Jimmy was there for you. He lived, laughed, and loved to the fullest every day. He was an amazing son; husband, brother, grandson, nephew, and dear friend to countless people, both near and far. If there was ever one person you knew you could always count on, it was Jimmy. But Jimmy had a secret battle, a demon as we came to call it, that he kept from family and friends so as to protect them from harm. Drug addiction; Heroine to be exact. Here is his story. (I am writing his story to the best of my knowledge. If I have something wrong, or forgot something, family especially, please let me know! I am hoping this is as accurate as possible!)

In August of 2011, at the age of 26, Jimmy was admitted to the emergency room in **** Virginia after having all the signs of heart failure; shortness of breath, coughing/wheezing, swelling of the feet, ankles, and legs, confusion, increased heart rate. After being admitted and describing what was going on, doctors performed an echocardiogram that revealed that all four of his heart valves were damaged, two of them severely. He needed heart surgery, and fast. By that afternoon, Jimmy had been life-flighted to *** Medical Center, and was in surgery to save his life. He needed two of his heart valves to be replaced with mechanical, steel valves, the other two valves repaired, part of his heart grafted and repaired, and his aorta grafted. We were told to prepare for the worst because of how much damage was done. But miraculously he survived his surgery and was sent to the Critical Care Hospital for recovery, later to be moved to the ***Heart Center at *** and then after several weeks of recovery, was sent back home. But what caused him to be in such bad condition? And to not even know about it until this?

For months prior to this, Jimmy had felt constantly sick. He would get better for a little while, but then a few short weeks later would be sick again. Doctors kept telling him it was bronchitis, then pneumonia. What it really was, was much worse. Jimmy had endocarditis. Endocarditis is inflammation of the inside lining of the heart chambers and heart valves (endocardium). Endocarditis can involve the heart muscle, heart valves, or lining of the heart. It begins when different germs enter the bloodstream and then travel to the heart. Bacterial infection is the most common cause of endocarditis. Germs are most likely to enter the bloodstream during injection drug use, from the use of unclean (unsterile) needles. And that is exactly what had happened. It was his own dirty needle. He didn't share needles.

After being discharged from the hospital, Jimmy was sent home with several medications, one of which was Coumadin. Coumadin (warfarin) is an anticoagulant (blood thinner). Coumadin reduces the formation of blood clots by blocking the formation of certain clotting factors. Coumadin (warfarin) is the active ingredient in rat poison. That being said, Coumadin is dosed, for humans, in a manner which prevents blood clotting (especially for those at risk), and does not act as a poison at the therapeutic dosage level. (However, when rats ingest the high concentrations of warfarin in rat poison, they bleed to death, internally.) He also had to go to weekly appointments to make sure his blood was at the therapeutic level for him. (2.5). At one point, he was re-admitted to the hospital for his blood levels being too high, but after a few days of observation, and an adjustment to the amount of Coumadin he needed to take, he was discharged. But little did friends and family know, Jimmy was hiding a secret, and was still fighting a personal battle.

Jimmy seemed to be on the road to recovery. Or so everyone thought. For several months everything seemed to be going well. He reconnected with friends, spent time with family, did art projects for his home, and so much more. But unbeknownst to everyone, he was still sick. On December 23, 2011, Jimmy was admitted into the hospital for the last time. After using heroine that had been cut with rat poison, Jimmy’s blood levels were way above his therapeutic, thus causing him to have several mini-strokes. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma so as to figure out what had happened. No one knew he had been using again, so the question to be answered was how had his blood levels become so high? Did he accidentally take his Coumadin too many times? Did he do that on purpose? How did this happen. No one knew until Jimmy woke up.

After a couple of days of being in and out of this medically induced coma to help prevent hemorrhaging in his brain, and the potential for further strokes, and the doctors running many tests, we came to find out that there was more going on than anyone knew or could have guessed. Not only had he had several mini-strokes that had lead him to lose part, if not most of his eye sight, but he also had MRSA. After looking further, we came to find out that Jimmy also had an aneurysm that was located right where his aorta had been grafted just a few months before. The MRSA was past the stage of responding to antibiotics, and surgery was not an option for Jimmy to fix the aneurysm. Jimmy was dying, and there was nothing that could be done to save him this time. There was a time or two we thought Jimmy may come home, so for a few days this fact was kept from him. Finally the doctors, after being a hundred percent sure there was nothing further they could do, they told Jimmy the truth. He was dying, that he had just a few days, maybe a week or two more, and they could not help him this time.

After being told this, Jimmy admitted to using again, that he had tried to keep this from friends and family so as not to hurt them further than he already had. He asked for forgiveness from family and friends, which was of course given. After being moved out of the Critical Care Hospital to the *** Heart Center, and was later moved to palliative care so he could rest comfortably until he decided it was time for him to leave and move on. Family and friends poured in from near and far to say their farewells. On December 30, 2011, at approximately 9:45 p.m. Jimmy passed away surrounded by the family that he loved dearly. He was free from the pain and suffering that had come with the demon called addiction. He now rests eternally free from harm, and is watching over friends and family, both near and far.

Before Jimmy passed away, he had one burning ambition. That was to spread his story as far as he could so as to teach someone else the horrible effects of drug addiction. He had hoped that one day his story would be heard by someone, who would learn from his secret battle, and that it would hopefully one day help them with theirs. He had hopes of speaking to teenagers, and young adults in school, of speaking in churches to younger and older adults alike, to tell everyone he could of his battle, and how it ended up affecting not only him, but his family as well. Unfortunately he never got the chance to do this. So I am here, and I am sharing his story. I hope that one day someone, young, or old, will hear his story, and that his story will touch someone enough to help them change. My hopes are to try and save another family from the pain and anguish that mine has had to go through. I am hoping to save another mother, wife, sister, family member, and dear friend from the loss of a love one.

Jimmy was one of the best men I knew. He was the best brother, husband, son, grandson, nephew, and friend that anyone could ask for. Please, let’s spread his story as far as possible so we can hopefully one day prevent another family from having to go through this too!
 
I always get a lot of anxiety reading this kind of stuff, I do know the reality of what could happen with each shot I take but seeing pictures and reading stories... All of it kinda just freaks me out, I can't even imagine life after having something like that happening :(, I feel so sorry for those poor people who fucked up, maybe even just once and that mistake took either one of their body parts or their life.
 
^^

Yeah this shit is no joke. The consequences are very real and very serious. Life altering.
 
Just wanted to write about the fentynal (sp sorry) patch being used for injection. Two days ago a friend of mine died by injecting fentynal. He was a heroin user and was fairly tolerant to heroin. He died instantly from an OD while his baby was there. He was found 8 hrs later when some one heard the baby continuous crying. Please be careful. Its no joke. That's the third OD we have had in our small small town due to injecting fentynal.:

Be safe
 
ehhh thats scary as shit I got a start of a horrible abscess from shooting morphine that doesnt gel untill 5mins of being in water :!
and if you do it right you can beat the gel but for some reason i should have used micron filter and used a normal Q-tip cotton and
i must of sucked up part of the coding or something and its like in my vein not on top or around it either cause i didnt in fact miss
 
Fatal Case of a 27-Year-Old Male After Taking Iboga in Withdrawal Treatment: GC-MS/MS Determination of Ibogaine and Ibogamine in Iboga Roots and Postmortem Biological Material
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12250/abstract
We report the case of a man who died twelve hours after ingesting powdered iboga root, commonly taken for its stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. Ibogaine and ibogamine were quantified in the powder ingested and the victim's body fluids by GC-MS/MS after liquid–liquid extraction (Toxi-tubes A®). The concentrations of ibogaine measured in the blood samples taken at the scene and in the peripheral blood, urine, and gastric fluid samples taken during the autopsy were 0.65, 1.27, 1.7, and 53.5 μg/mL, while the iboga content in the powder was 7.2%. Moreover, systematic toxicological analyses of biological samples showed the presence of diazepam and methadone in therapeutic concentrations. Death was attributed to the ingestion of a substantial quantity of iboga in the context of simultaneous methadone and diazepam consumption.

Someone consumed a whole bunch of ibogaine, and aspirated their vomit. End result: death. Supervision should be mandatory during all intensive psychedelic sessions....
 
Fatal Case of a 27-Year-Old Male After Taking Iboga in Withdrawal Treatment: GC-MS/MS Determination of Ibogaine and Ibogamine in Iboga Roots and Postmortem Biological Material
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12250/abstract


Someone consumed a whole bunch of ibogaine, and aspirated their vomit. End result: death. Supervision should be mandatory during all intensive psychedelic sessions....

It sounds like he had recently taken diazepam and methadone as well? Don't these places usually require some washout period before the iboga goes down?
 
I don't think those were neccesarily responsible for his death, the doses were comparatively small.
 
I dont mean to discredit this article but damn these people are idiots... if u actually read all of these case studies u will see most injected into an ARTERY... OR they MISSED!! i inject subutex regularly and apart from when i started IVing and wasnt very good at it i have had no complications... ive became very good at IV i dont inject if i feel it missing after a unit and i only inject into veins, and i try to rotate as much as possible although it is hard because my veins suck (this is not from me, i always have had bad veins nobody has ever been able to stick me on a first try even hospital personnel). Even when i first started doing it tho and missed here and there i never had any abcesses just a bump that took a while to clear.... my point is if u know what ur doing and are clean about it this shouldnt happen, at all...
 
I dont mean to discredit this article but damn these people are idiots... if u actually read all of these case studies u will see most injected into an ARTERY... OR they MISSED!! i inject subutex regularly and apart from when i started IVing and wasnt very good at it i have had no complications... ive became very good at IV i dont inject if i feel it missing after a unit and i only inject into veins, and i try to rotate as much as possible although it is hard because my veins suck (this is not from me, i always have had bad veins nobody has ever been able to stick me on a first try even hospital personnel). Even when i first started doing it tho and missed here and there i never had any abcesses just a bump that took a while to clear.... my point is if u know what ur doing and are clean about it this shouldnt happen, at all...
That's the thing 99 percent if the time everything will work out just fine. It's that 1 percent that is such a bitch. That's why we call it harm reduction instead of harm elimination.
 
I wanna take this ocasion to remind everyone how complete shit Ritalin is for recreation. I've gotten IR pills and it sucks. It's NOT an anphetamine, it's a synthetic lab made thing that's like coke with worst side effects and a 10 min duration if snorted that makes you euphoric and afterwards let's you really down and depressed wanting to do more. I heard of people IV'ing it every 10 mins over and over again because of this. In the end when you stop you're left with depression and tired, not able to fall asleep for a good while.
I did take 40mg orally right before playing soccer once and it worked seems physical energy it does give at least. Tried ER once and noticed nothing.

EDIT: Also you need more dramatic endings to the cases lol. There was this stupid Brazillian kid who injected coke into his dick to see if he would get a better boner, they had to amputate it. NOPLS.JPG True story...
Methylphenidate has a duration of 30mins-4 hours intranasally depending on tolerance and dose. 30minutes is almost unheard of in anyone who hasn't been abusing MPH for a long time. It usually lasts for most ppl via IN(intranasal) around 1 n 1/2 to 2 hours. Orally 2-4 hours. It's not an amphetamine because it isn't a phenethylamine for one distinction but has most of PEA's structure apart of it. What MPH is, is a benzylpiperidine sometimes ppl inaccurately call it a phenylpiperidine but forget there is a methyl attached to a methyl on the benzene thus it's not a phenyl but a benzyl group that is attached to the piperidine group. Also I don't know if you are implying amphteamine is natural or not but I must state it to be clear that amphetamine is in no way naturally produced on this planet and the only natural amphetamines are ephedrines including, ephed, norephed and psueodephed(i think these epheds are all isomers but I dont remember) and cathinone. Side-effect wise and abuse potential are all subjective. Methylphenidate to me is the most euphoric, abusable and yet functional stim with little repercussions from abuse of it(yes even brain-wise but not body-wise).
 
The above post is a good reason why you shouldn't inject into arteries. You shouldn't try to use hand veins as well.
People are so desperate. They think they'll can snort, shoot anything. It makes sense research harm reduction. You can use drugs but you have to have knowledge.
 
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I just wanted to add my experience.

About 8 months ago I was on a bender with those fake CDN 80s that contained fentynal. I was IVing most of them. One night I had gotten pretty drunk and rigged up 2 pills in a 3cc shot and missed. I left the inflamed mess to get worse for 3 weeks since I was working 200km from the nearest town/hospital. Long story short I got a huge abcess. It had to be cut open and drained. I now have a 3.5 inch scar down my forearm.
Other then the stupidity of touching those fake 80s, you should be careful with IV. Doctors were in shock and said I was very close to losing my arm.
 
Ive read hundreds of different threads and posts on the B.L website for years, and although this specific thread is almost five years old, its the first time I stumbled upon it. Its also the reason i decided to create an account and post my first message. Ive used every opiate i could find in one form or another for several years. Ive drawn countless lines in the sand and crossed ALMOST every one of them. If this thread was ever a contributing factor for even one kid or young adult from picking up a needle, then the original post along with the site has done a PHENOMENAL thing for that person. I can say, with confidence, that it probably has. Great job on contributing to some serious harm reduction!!
 
Heres my experience:

When I was 16, I started shooting opioid pills by reusing syringes that I had from the Enbrel I took subcutaneously every week. The majority of the pills I had were percocet. I also used to lick my needles, as well as reusing them constantly. This and my reduced immune system from the enbrel, and probably the acetominophin, caused me to develop an abscess in my left arm. I ended up being admitted to the hospital by my rheumatologist, where they couldn't figure out what type of bacteria was causing it. It took them multiple days until the tests came back and they saw it was Streptoccocus constellatus (usually found in the mouth). Anyway, I had 2 surgeries and spent 11 days in the hospital as well as going through withdrawal.

Lesson: don't shoot any pills containing Tylenol. (even if it's a pretty obvious one)
 
I'll add a cautionary tale.

I knew a guy from work. Incredibly sweet guy. Had a past of drug use (heroin), and had been.in jail. He had been with the wrong people...they did something horrible...he was there...he went to jail. Knowing him, I could TOTALLY see him being led astray...he was very insecure, and I could picture him getting into wrong place/wrong time scenarios due to his personality.

He was out and got a job. He was cleaned up. He was on the right track.

So I knew him from work. We were friendly. One day...he finds his girlfriend dead.

She had tried to smoke a fentanyl patch. Well, she didn't succeed. The way she was found was awful. She had been sitting on the side edge of the bed, not far from the wall. She died slumped over, her head kind of held in place by the wall, face looking somewhat down. All of the fluids pooled in her face. I'm told she looked simply awful.

That was a horrible thing to find (let me just say, withdrawal isn't as frightening as overdosing, please, people, don't take/justify foolish risks...), and not long after, after also losing his job (because my former boss is a piece of crap, imo), he started back with heroin; then, he shot himself in the head.

I had nightmare after nightmare. In my dreams, I would look for him, search, call out...and couldn't find him. Other dreams were far more morbid and disturbing.

So, now they're both gone.

Please, people ....don't put yourself in such risky situations. As the thread title states, IT *COULD* HAPPEN TO YOU.

How many broken hearts from losing those two? How many?

I didn't know her. I knew him, though. And I miss him.

RIP sweetheart. I haven't cried over you in a while...but I am right now.

Peace.
 
Graphic
This is what a small abscess looks like on the inside after the skin is opened up to relieve pressure. Hope you feel sick from seeing it and think before you act!
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AcidRAEn-

Thank you for sharing that with us.

You, and Jimmy, and all of his loved ones can now rest assured that his story WILL touch someone, somewhere, someday...and save their life.

Bluelight sees so many new members daily, many of whom admit to lurking for a long time previous to joining; and there are tons of others reading, lurking who haven't yet joined/will never join.

This beautifully written account of your Beautiful Souled loved one WILL save lives by inspiring them to STOP. And countless others will at least educate themselves more thoroughly and as a result, they'll acquire better harm reduction knowledge to apply...and many will then, in turn, share that knowledge with others, for harm reduction and by encouraging them to quit.

The amount of traffic on here virtually guarantees this.

Agsin, thank you for letting us get to know a little bit about your Loved One Jimmy. I'm sure he's smiling down on you, so grateful that you shared him and his experience even though it must be painful...to save others from that pain.


Peace :)
 
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