Harm Reduction Making bac water limited budget

[Foreigner]

I'm close to broke right now and in my city every pharmacy that lets you purchase bacteriostatic water OTC charges $100 for a case, you can't buy single vials. It's ridiculous, but welcome to Canada.

I have pure benzyl alcohol and I also have distilled water. Can I just do an approximation by drawing up some distilled water and adding 0.9% benzyl alcohol to preserve? I know distilled water is technically not "sterile" and I'm not doing it under a fume hood, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I cannot drop that much money on bac water.

This is needed for drug reconstitution within a multi-use vial, and the drug itself is for subq injection, not IV/IM. The vial itself would last for 1 week and is refrigerated. Once finished I would dispose of the vial. The vial itself is new, sterile and the rubber top is rubbed down with alcohol before each use.

Given this tech, am I covering my HR bases or is there something further I should do?

 

[Skorpio]

I'm close to broke right now and in my city every pharmacy that lets you purchase bacteriostatic water OTC charges $100 for a case, you can't buy single vials. It's ridiculous, but welcome to Canada.

I have pure benzyl alcohol and I also have distilled water. Can I just do an approximation by drawing up some distilled water and adding 0.9% benzyl alcohol to preserve? I know distilled water is technically not "sterile" and I'm not doing it under a fume hood, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I cannot drop that much money on bac water.

While you may not have a fume hood, I would do this all in a space with not a lot of airflow, and wash down working surfaces with alcohol (ideally 60-70%; ethanol or isopropanol work equally well).

The main risk starting with non-sterile water would be fungal and bacterial spores, which are tough to kill outside of autoclave temperatures.

If you had a pressure cooker you could sterilize the water in a jar, though transferring it while remaining aseptic will take some care.

This is needed for drug reconstitution within a multi-use vial, and the drug itself is for subq injection, not IV/IM. The vial itself would last for 1 week and is refrigerated. Once finished I would dispose of the vial. The vial itself is new, sterile and the rubber top is rubbed down with alcohol before each use.

This all seems good.

Given this tech, am I covering my HR bases or is there something further I should do?

I think you are doing a pretty good job covering your bases. What is the form factor of the distilled water you have (ie a plastic jug, ampoules, or whatever)? Also for the longer term, if you are planning on continuing this, I would definitely recommend either getting sterile water or sterilizing your own water just to remove that last bit of risk that the benzyl alcohol won’t cover.

 

[Foreigner]

While you may not have a fume hood, I would do this all in a space with not a lot of airflow, and wash down working surfaces with alcohol (ideally 60-70%; ethanol or isopropanol work equally well).

The main risk starting with non-sterile water would be fungal and bacterial spores, which are tough to kill outside of autoclave temperatures.

If you had a pressure cooker you could sterilize the water in a jar, though transferring it while remaining aseptic will take some care.


This all seems good.


I think you are doing a pretty good job covering your bases. What is the form factor of the distilled water you have (ie a plastic jug, ampoules, or whatever)? Also for the longer term, if you are planning on continuing this, I would definitely recommend either getting sterile water or sterilizing your own water just to remove that last bit of risk that the benzyl alcohol won’t cover.

Thank you!

I do have a pressure cooker actually. I used to use it for making mushroom cultures. I could pressure cook the water.

The source of distilled water is a plastic jug. So yeah prob getting some micro plastic in there.

 

[Skorpio]

Thank you!

Glad to help!

I do have a pressure cooker actually. I used to use it for making mushroom cultures. I could pressure cook the water.

The source of distilled water is a plastic jug. So yeah prob getting some micro plastic in there.

Ideally if you had a small jar or sturdy vial, I’d pressure cook the water in that.

As for microplastics, the jug is likely high density polyethylene and definitely going to be a source of them, but to what extent that is harmful, is unclear to me. It isn’t as likely to have endocrine disrupting plasticizers as things like polyethylene terepthalate do.

 

[Syntherize]

I'm close to broke right now and in my city every pharmacy that lets you purchase bacteriostatic water OTC charges $100 for a case, you can't buy single vials. It's ridiculous, but welcome to Canada.

I have pure benzyl alcohol and I also have distilled water. Can I just do an approximation by drawing up some distilled water and adding 0.9% benzyl alcohol to preserve? I know distilled water is technically not "sterile" and I'm not doing it under a fume hood, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I cannot drop that much money on bac water.

This is needed for drug reconstitution within a multi-use vial, and the drug itself is for subq injection, not IV/IM. The vial itself would last for 1 week and is refrigerated. Once finished I would dispose of the vial. The vial itself is new, sterile and the rubber top is rubbed down with alcohol before each use.

Given this tech, am I covering my HR bases or is there something further I should do?

Coming from someone who’s shot NYC tap water numerous times over the years without fail you’re over thinking your shit seriously.