Sounds like cotton fever to me. Do you use clean works? How do you filter your injections?
Contrary to popular belief, cotton fever occurs not when you shoot a piece of cotton but a piece of bacteria. How long do these episodes last?
the way you described feeling cold and shivering is EXACTLY what happens to me when I get cotton fever, usually from using dirty water or tap water. When i shiver its uncontrollable and sometimes gets to the point where my jaw aches from clenching my teeth. the first time it happened i was terrified and thought i had gotten a bad bag. It usually lasts for a couple hours, I get a fever and every once in a while get nausea and/or vomiting as well. I usually try to sleep it off. And when it happens, it usually sets in 30 minutes to an hour after I hit. I generally try to eat a bunch of ibuprofen when I feel it coming on and that seems to help the fever a bit. You need to be careful as if it lasts it could be a sign of endocarditis. My boyfriend gave himself endocarditis directly following an open heart surgery.
The best way to avoid this is by using all clean sterile works and micron filtering your doses.
By the way I am in no way a medical professional, just am pretty sure this is what is happening. I hope you can resolve your situation!
Before I started using .2um micron filters I was using q tips to filter and boiled the liquid briefly afterwards. I never experienced anything like what you described. Brief boiling should kill a lot of bacteria (~15min though to kill all of them), but some other pathogens would be left alive (virii, prions, spores, toxines). I still use tap water, but filter it thoroughly to at least remove all living organisms from the liquid and some other pathogens.
The most important question is how much hygienic safety measures you take.
- Do you disinfect your skin properly?
- Do you use fresh needles after every injection and if not, how do you sterilize them pre-/post-injection?
- How do you prepare your shots? What type of water and filter do you use and do you boil the liquid?
- Do you do it directly pre-injection or do you store it for a couple of hours or even longer than that?
Since you've always experienced it I don't see how you could judge for when exactly you are 'supposed to' experience withdrawals? Our genetic makeup can vary considerably and to be honest, it sounds to me like you are just quickly metabolized (then both excreted and further metabolized) the (opiodergic!) heroin metabolites and are experiencing withdrawals. You should also be aware that Heroin has an extremely short half life of a few minutes, so the effects won't plateau anymore at T+1h since you absorb the whole dose into your bloodstream immediately. The more frequently you are using opioidergic drugs, the sharper the dropoff will be. This doesn't happen with the intranasal route, since you will swallow a lot and therefore experience a much longer comedown.
Take me for example, I'm only using opiate orally or rectally and only rarely so. Usually I experience lingering effects for a long time after the plateau and never a strong rebound that makes me feel ill after single use. The more frequently I use, the shorter the after effects and the stronger the rebound until it turns into seriously agonizing withdrawals. Since you experience this after episodes of heavy use, I see no reason to believe it's anything, but a comedown, unless you are really careless about hygienic safety measures.
