URGENT: Bad IM Shot!! 3-MeO-PCP. Can hardly walk 4 days later! But thigh looks fine!?
URGENT!!!!!!!!!!
I'm writing this for my best friend, she panicked and bad with writing English. We are sooooooo grateful for a community like this to help us. but this could still be very bad. She needs help BAD. I wasn't present for ALL of this stuff, but got all the details from her and others.
**TL;DR**
Friend tried 3-MeO-PCP IM using thigh (vastus lateralis) almost 4 1/2 days ago. No major visual/superficial issues obviously visible, just some red dots and stuff from various IM pokes recently (not really hot I don't think either, but obviously tender/painful to her when touched). At this point, though VERY slight improvement might have occurred since 4 days ago (Sat morn when she woke up), she can still hardly bear weight on the leg without support, or limping. We have researched, but there are several complicating factors. This is super urgent, since of the possibilities we've been reading about are pretty scary - but so is going to the American hospital with no insurance if this forum can make it uneccesary. Please help her, thank you so much. I have lurked a long time but finally a nearly-sister friend needs help. I promise to give back any knowledge, I believe in karma and doing the right thing. Everyone loves there legs, and not seeing their friend's get surgeried off. Thanks for your answers!
**THE STORY**
She IMed 3-MeO-PCP (we THINK it was 3-meo, but more on that below) into left thigh for about the 2nd time that night. One recent IM shot these past few days burned her thigh muscle inside like hell at least acutely - might've accidentally been MDAI or ethylphenidate or a combo in barrel, and not the ket analogue - but she's not sure that that mishap Friday night or a prior night, so could be inconsequential. Anyway, so she says she up with extreme soreness/pain in thing. It is 4 days later about exactly now, and she STILL can't bear much weight on the leg. I or she will update later if it's different. As of this afternoon, it felt a lot better apparently, and she looked much better (but I think both are from her refilling her Suboxone after being out of it since Friday night - and so she was in withdrawals the past 2 days starting right when the thigh/IM issue started... But now all w/d are gone and the thigh pain continues, just not QUITE as bad... ).
**WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE**
So she doesn't remember how it felt immedietly, or much from the first day or so of soreness, because of the intoxication and the opiate withdrawals, respectively/consecutively. But now there's just SOME redness MAYBE. There are a few red dots from where the needles went in (or maybe they're just pimples?) but she's been IMing a lot I get the sense, especially in both thighs (and deltoids). It could just be IM thigh track marks, and even so, it'd go unnoticed by almost anyone but people with super-DEA-vision goggles on. So I assume the no visual symptoms / hotness / etc. might be a good sign?
*OUR HYPOTHESIS BASED ON RESEARCH**
(GOOGLE + MEDICAL SITES + HARM-REDUCTION SITES + TFSE + TFSE ELSEWHERE)
I'm a good researcher, but she isn't... And a these are just educated guesses/diagnoses (even though we spent several hours trying to get a handle on this and to explain it best we could to you before risking so much at the hospital, so take a grain of salt). Also please no one say: "risking so much at hospital? you are risking losing your leg!" that'd make her cry haha.
Hypothesis #1: Tissue Irritation, caused by her repeated use of the same site/region over several weeks near-daily. She was switching around sites and stuff, but using a lot in general overall, so it added up. ALSO her needles are old and blunted from 28 gauge, 1cc, 1” syringes (and very often nothing's sterile sadly that she's using, from solution to drug to paraphenalia), so maybe tiny itsy bitsy fragments of the needle broke off. Which leads into the next idea...I think?
Hypothesis #2: Sterile Abscess?
Hypothesis #3: Maybe she missed the shot and the solution went somewhere other than the muscle (not sure where though, I don't know the scales or too much detail with these anatomical diagrams, even got good old Gray's out, but still... Though she did outline (using a pen) the proper region/square for the vatus lateralis on both her legs, but she's very very slender - no meat on her & tiny muscles. (Has had semi eating issues recently, even lost 20lbs in less than 2 weeks at beginning of this month, but she's pulling back up now it seems(?), and still barely in her healthy BMI range..BARELY). Point being, smaller muscles, smaller targets for IM shots to hit.
**SOME OF HER IDEAS**
(Take with my grain of salt and a few extras too, please... Though maybe I just like to tease her too much heh)
1. Hit lymphatic system
2. Hit nerve
Generically mentioned ideas we found online too for people in similar situations (couldn't find any that were the same as this, even with Ketamine or Steroids):
1. Abscess
2. Ulcer
3. Some infection
4. Something really bad...
5. Something hopefully not really bad...
Help her! Should she go to the hospital and eat at LEAST bills and possible legal/school/life/forever issues (immigration shit...)?? Anything that can help her, she reads fine, she has this link. Thank you so much, and spread love to all, friends.