Harm Reduction Micron Filtering Mega Thread and FAQ

[Captain.Heroin]

0.2um is needed to remove talc | importance of pre-filtering with a cotton

Hey captian thanks for this guide.. I like visuals.. this really helps me understand the hole process..

No problem! I figured a visual aid would be useful.

If I come across pills that I will *need* to pre-filter, I will get a series of steps and correlating pictures to go along with that too.

As for what I had to do this time, the only difference is the last step is upside down, you can kind of imagine it.

If I am going to do this again (probably won't for a while) I could get pictures of it too, at least of the last step (for if you have a lot of insoluble inactives but don't want to pre-filter with cotton).

Glad to hear it was helpful!

Would 0.5um micron filters be adequate for filtering the oxycontin 40mg pills I have lying around? While I have been able to prepare a couple pills and get a clear solution I remember that this size may not prevent some bacterial contamination. While I know any micron filter is better than just plain old cotton swabs but I would like to know if the talc is still getting through? Those damn talc particles are stupidly small and almost impossible to get rid of without a micron it seems.

You will need a 0.22 um micron filter to get out the talc. I linked a thread in the first post which goes over that. But it's OK to ask here too!

You will get out something with a 0.5um micron filter (I have heard of a 0.45um size, not a 0.5um size), but not the talc. Talc will dissolve into water clear, so you can't see whether or not it's out.

Also, I almost shit myself when I thought you were preparing a 50ml IV solution with those suboxone tablets. Any pill that isn't as water soluable as suboxone though, like oxycontin, needs to be pulverized before preparation, and I have made it a habit to sanitize all the surfaces that come in contact with the agent.

Indeed, with a pill like OC, you will most likely not want to backload them intact, but to pre-crush them. Suboxone dissolves into water really easy actually.

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I wanted to speak on the importance of pre-filtering with a cotton for a second.

I have used 16 pills (not Suboxone, something else) with a micron filter before. However, since I used roughly half the water (to double the concentration), it was rather difficult to do this filtration.

What I had to do was invert everything so that the plunger is facing the ground, the vial of solution is upside down dangling off of the needle in the air. This way, the crud was on the side of the plunger and not being pushed through the micron filter before all the liquid (containing the active ingredient).

It was really frustrating because I didn't know I'd have to do this at first, and probably could have saved myself a lot of hastle/time by pre-filtering (or just doing the filtration step upside down), but now I know.

 

[Cloud_9]

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I wanted to speak on the importance of pre-filtering with a cotton for a second.

I have always been freaked out by the possibility of getting cotton fever and breaking into a histamine reaction for hours and not to mention ruining the high you thought you were going to get. Wouldn't filtering with cotton add to this possibility, or would filtering it with the micron filter take any of the possible contaminants that would cause it out of the equation?

As for the filters I have been using for the past couple of injections, they came from a hospital equipment closet and they read as follows:

"BD Blunt Fill Needle - Filter"
"18G 1.1/2 (1.2mmx40mm) (5um)"

Where the u is the Greek mu symbol.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I have always been freaked out by the possibility of getting cotton fever and breaking into a histamine reaction for hours and not to mention ruining the high you thought you were going to get. Wouldn't filtering with cotton add to this possibility, or would filtering it with the micron filter take any of the possible contaminants that would cause it out of the equation?

As for the filters I have been using for the past couple of injections, they came from a hospital equipment closet and they read as follows:

"BD Blunt Fill Needle - Filter"
"18G 1.1/2 (1.2mmx40mm) (5um)"

Where the u is the Greek mu symbol.

There's other medias you can use to filter out the larger, insoluble material in pills before micron filtering, or you can simply invert the last step so that the larger, insoluble fillers don't go through the filter until the end. Either way works IMO.

5um means 5 microns, it would say 0.5 if it was half a micron.

I also believe filtering with a micron filter would remove any contaminants that a cotton might present but I'm not 100% sure. I've never had cotton fever before, so I don't really know.

 

[Cloud_9]

5um means 5 microns, it would say 0.5 if it was half a micron.

I guess I just never really looked at one of these properly, but how precise is 5um versus something like a compacted cotton ball in the syringe protrusion where a luer lock could attach too. I only use 3ml luer locks just due to a huge supply that I have had on hand in the past. If you understand what Im talking about, could that be more effective than 5um filters? I did notice that the times I have used oxycodone IV that I was left with an absolutely clear solutions without any excess particulates, but could the talc dissolve into the water or somehow else be in a preparation at that filtering level?

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I guess I just never really looked at one of these properly, but how precise is 5um versus something like a compacted cotton ball in the syringe protrusion where a luer lock could attach too. I only use 3ml luer locks just due to a huge supply that I have had on hand in the past. If you understand what Im talking about, could that be more effective than 5um filters? I did notice that the times I have used oxycodone IV that I was left with an absolutely clear solutions without any excess particulates, but could the talc dissolve into the water or somehow else be in a preparation at that filtering level?

Yes, the talc will dissolve into the water, and the talc particles are small enough that you need a 0.2 um filter to get it all out. I am not sure if some talc particles are much larger so that a 5um would get some of it out or whatever.

I wish I knew more about this, I just happen not to.

I don't know if compacted cotton is any better than 5um to be honest. I know 0.2 um beats a cotton by far though.

 

[Flexistentialist]

There are a number of scientific papers on this issue. Here's one and another, there are many more.

Also, your comment regarding suboxone, ("that it has nearly no harmful anything in it") is not correct. The corn flour used in subutex / suboxone is highly irritating to veins causing cellulitis and it appears to also lead to endocarditis moreso than other injected drugs. There's plenty of published papers looking at this issue also, here and here.

 

[skillz~4~thrillz]

great job,Oh Captain,My Captain.
pm when is a best time to talk to you about a couple of things.
Hope you are well................
............peace n love
skillz...............................

 

[Captain.Heroin]

There are a number of scientific papers on this issue. Here's one and another, there are many more.

Also, your comment regarding suboxone, ("that it has nearly no harmful anything in it") is not correct. The corn flour used in subutex / suboxone is highly irritating to veins causing cellulitis and it appears to also lead to endocarditis moreso than other injected drugs. There's plenty of published papers looking at this issue also, here and here.

Corn starch ranges from 0.1 microns to 0.8 microns in size. Would it be safe to assume a 0.2um micron filter removes most corn starch?

Can you explain how this leads to infective endocarditis? Wouldn't this require bacteria of some sort? Aren't most bacteria filtered out with a micron filter?

Wouldn't this be dependent on how much the individual is injecting?

 

[gibby_420]

I guess I just never really looked at one of these properly, but how precise is 5um versus something like a compacted cotton ball in the syringe protrusion where a luer lock could attach too. I only use 3ml luer locks just due to a huge supply that I have had on hand in the past. If you understand what Im talking about, could that be more effective than 5um filters? I did notice that the times I have used oxycodone IV that I was left with an absolutely clear solutions without any excess particulates, but could the talc dissolve into the water or somehow else be in a preparation at that filtering level?

A compacted cotton ball does not even begin to compare to a 5um Wheel Filter. Cotton has a filtering capabilty of approximately 50um when tightly rolled.

Check out this website, it has alot of info about different types of filtering materials specificly dealing with filtering drugs.

http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/drug...llicit_dr/filtering_licit_and_illicit_dr.html

 

[Dr_F]

Thank you SO much for this detailed Using a Micron for Dummies Guide! Not the least bit sarcastic with the "for dummies" comment, the pictures and step by step guide are fantastic- I've read about micron filtering numberous times, but NEVER had the step-by-step understanding of it that I do now.

And thank you for linking this in your reply to my "the least harmful way to IV midazolam in pill form" thread. This most certainly beats removing the Dormicum coating with an alcohol swap and using a cotton ball!

 

[robbhimself4]

Thanks Captain.Heroin!!
I ordered my supplies earlier today and am anxiously awaiting there arrival. I have been IV'ing my suboxone for over a month now and was starting to get worried about doing it with a cotton ball filter... This method should ease my worries for the most part!
Thanks again man!!

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Thanks Captain.Heroin!!
I ordered my supplies earlier today and am anxiously awaiting there arrival. I have been IV'ing my suboxone for over a month now and was starting to get worried about doing it with a cotton ball filter... This method should ease my worries for the most part!
Thanks again man!!

No problem! Glad to hear it's helping people out.

I wanted to throw this in the first post but I am lazy so I'm just going to put it out there now:

please pre-filter. It may not go as planned if you don't. If you do exactly like I did, like 1-2 pills in a lot of solution for 1-3 weeks (depending on how much you go through) then it'll be easy backloading them. However today I tried backloading 7x 8mg Suboxone with 27ml (only could fit 25cc in it) and it was *horrible* trying to get all of it through the micron. Whatever was getting caught in the micron had to keep getting pulled back out of it, and then re-filtered. Thankfully it is all done, it was my last micron and if I needed a new one to finish I was screwed!

That's a trick so just incase if it gets stuck and you're applying *all* the force you can w/o trying to fuck up the bottle below, just take it out, try pulling *backwards* and get whatever is stuck in the micron out.

Prefiltering should help this problem I experienced out a lot however I am lazy (ran out quicker than expected) and I was ready to do a shot when I was preparing it. So I was trying to do a double potency batch quicker and it wasn't as easy.

For some reason without pre-filtering with cotton, 2.074...mg/mL was a bit much (especially for 25cc of it).

I had to filter it into two different containers so that the solution (since it's going to last longer) can hopefully stay sterile (as it won't have as much exposure to needle tips, etc while the other one gets finished off just as quickly as the older ones would have been).

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Thank you SO much for this detailed Using a Micron for Dummies Guide! Not the least bit sarcastic with the "for dummies" comment, the pictures and step by step guide are fantastic- I've read about micron filtering numberous times, but NEVER had the step-by-step understanding of it that I do now.

And thank you for linking this in your reply to my "the least harmful way to IV midazolam in pill form" thread. This most certainly beats removing the Dormicum coating with an alcohol swap and using a cotton ball!

You *still* want to do the pre-filtration with a cotton for the Dormicum still though. This is because Dormicum, dose per 1cc, is *a lot* cloudier than Suboxone.

I'll PM you this just in case you don't get to it.

If you don't prefilter dormicum and try to make a nicely saturated solution, it might be difficult. You will probably want to prefilter first.

 

[askaboutme]

Methadone pills often contain talc that, when injected, produces a swarm of tiny solid particles in the blood, causing numerous minor blood clots. These particles cannot be filtered out before injection, and will accumulate in the body over time, especially in the lungs and eyes, producing various complications such as pulmonary hypertension, an irreversible and progressive disease.

Wikipedia

is methadone different than all other pills where the talc can't be filtered out?

 

[Cloud_9]

Wikipedia

is methadone different than all other pills where the talc can't be filtered out?

I wouldn't IV your methadone pills man. I've tried that before and honestly nothing is going to have it come on faster and more effectively than plugging it. Just my thoughts being on methadone forever and plugging it everyday; its not worth the trouble to fix it up for safe IV use and then be bummed when you don't get an instant warm blanket overcome you!

 

[askaboutme]

i don't IV anything and i don't take methadone, lol i was just curious when reading about methadone.

 

[DexterMeth]

I really enjoyed reading over this, thank you for putting the time into this CH. And thanks for that follow-up link oxymorphone. I've rarely ever injected pills in the first place, mostly because of the talc/lung build-up. I've known about micron filtering for years but never tried it. After reading this I would choose to essentially IV only pills for now on. I understand that that is far from ideal, but yea, I can see this being far safer, effective and healthier than risking IV'ing any nasty shit off the street. Thanks CH!

 

[Cloud_9]

i don't IV anything and i don't take methadone, lol i was just curious when reading about methadone.

Great, two birds killed with a single stone! Yeah, the times I've prepped the methadone tablets I have taken the time to prepare it for injection to the highest degree possible I use a 0.45um and hopefully that pulls out the talc and other stuff to the point where instead of a white pasty goo I get a clear non-occluded 3ml solution with 40mg of methadone suspended into it! Way too much work though, and the pasty goo blows through filters fast as fuck anyways!

Sexy words that turn into bitter orange wax in my ears [/COLOR]

Oh CH, I swoon madly in your presence! If the vapors don't get to me your dashingly handsome internet chivalry will!

 

[gibby_420]

A 0.2um filter is required to remove Talc from the solution.

 

[Cloud_9]

A 0.2um filter is required to remove Talc from the solution.

Oh well, I've shoved worse things through the pipes in my body! 8) Last time looked clear to me... could just have filtered just enough to make it not visible.