Heroin Cotton Shots

[Anon610]

So I've been saving my cotton from when I do my heroin shots and I'm trying to quit. My mom is inquiring about Suboxone and Methadone maintenance tomorrow morning but I'm sick now.
So I gather up about 9 cotton balls I had over the course of the week. Took 20 untis of water and covered the ball. Then I sucked it up, and put that solution on another old cutton ball. I repeated this process a few times.

After shooting up I got a pretty nice buzz, and a nice rush. I'm sure there has to be traces of bacteria left in this, but does it pose a thread?
Should I be doing this? I mean I rarely do it, only when I'm desperate and majority of the time I can afford my dope. But I did it as a last resort. I'm aware of cotton fever, but how often does someone actually get it? And is it something I should be concerned about.

Any major health issues I should be worried about? I used a new rig and everything.
Please and thank.

PS; sorry if I seem like a fiend. Todays been horrible and not having it made me very depressed. I did this today because I'm sick and have the worst suicidal thoughts. The ativan is slightly helping.

 

[missmeyet?]

First of all..be careful with mixing the heroin and ativan...especially if you have a fairly low tolerance. Obviously you didn't get a whole lot of heroin from a "cotton shot" but just be careful.

Secondly, people who are desperate frequently do cotton shots but yes there is an inherent risk in doing so. There is definitely lots of bacteria in the cotton as they have been siting around and were once wet. How much bacteria depends on a lot of things like how you have been storing them and how old they are.

Cotton fever ties into this and there are several different things that different people consider "cotton fever". In general it often refers to a short lived illness you get shortly after a shot. Symptoms include fever, chills,headache, nausea, shortness of breath and just general feeling like crap. It usually begins within 15 to 20 mins of the shot but can start up to a couple of hours later. It is usually self limiting.

Cotton fever technically is caused by a bacteria that is present in the cotton called E. Agglomerans. But people also refer to other infections as cotton fever that frequently happen with shots. Any type of bacteria that gets injected can cause symptoms as well as other materials that shouldn't. Be introduced into the veins (such as pieces of cotton fibers and other "junk".

If you were to get symptoms like these and they don't go away within 24 hours you need to be seen because it could be the beginning of sepsis which is very serious.

How to avoid it, number 1, don't use used cottons. Make sure everything is very clean. Use a wheel filter instead of cotton.

Good luck on getting help and I hope all goes well

 

[Tryptamite]

People do cotton shots although really you shouldn't. Store them in foil in the fridge or freezer if you want to save them up. People here in EU frequently boil their cottons before they shoot them to help extract the goodies. It is normal practice here to boil your H as we get brown freebase that needs acid and heat to convert it to a water soluble heroin salt. I wonder does heating old cottons help destroy bacteria that may have been harbouring in the fiber??

 

[Nine0Nine]

I used to do it all the time.

It's very risky though, at best you get (slightly) not as sick as you were before. At worst (dirty hit) you will feel like death for hours and hours.

 

[rukia]

You can get cotton fever from doing that and it is something you really don't want to experience. Be very careful.

 

[alt 14]

Yeah I've heard of the people doing this, but like if you think about it.. Even if you leave behind 10% of your shot because of not stirring it enough or whatever, that's 10 shots you need for a single extra one. Well actually 11 because you could then expect 10% of the water to be left behind in this shot as well.

And there is no fucking way it's 10%. Maybe like 1 or 2 units out of 40 get left behind? So what.. 3 or 5 percent? So like potentially 30+ shots just to get enough filters for the one buzz..

Not to mention that many cotton pieces would be a bitch to get wet entirely with 100 units of water, at least in my head..

Yeah, boiling them could kill some bacteria, but from what I understands, it could easily degrade some of the fibers of your cotton filters enough to allow these now microscopic pieces of cotton in your rig and eventually into your arm. Now a micron filter is looking pretty damn appealing with this so called cotton shot, and I assume if you filtered it this way, anything that small to pass through probably ain't that big of a deal to put in your arm.

Also if you do indeed store the cottons in the freezer, bacterial growth should be minimal.

This seems like as "useless" a way to catch a buzz as poppy seed tea.. Idk maybe I just don't get why take the risk.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

Unfortunately, rinsing cottons or "pounding" cottons, whatever you want to call it, is very popular. You can definitely get a decent hit from doing that, especially if you have a bunch of cottons, but you can also end up with a nassstyy case of cotton fever that will make you regret your entire existence..

If you have to rinse your cottons (It's better though to rinse immediately during the first shot the cotton is used for though, then throw them out as there will be nothing left anyway), make sure you store them in a cool dry place. The bacteria that causes dirty hits lives in warm/wet environments.

Also, make sure you only pound any cotton/set of cottons once. You won't have anything left in them anyway after the first rinse, so all you'll be doing is risking cotton fever further because the more you pound them out, the more the cotton degrades and it's easier to get a dirty hit.