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Heroin Interesting study on opiod injection and endocarditis risk

  • Thread starter Thread starter cj
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4DQSAR said:
Yep - you are not alone.

HR agencis have begun to use forms of 'deprogramming' in which a user will sit there and cook up a (fake) fix and stop just before actually injecting anything. Apparently it works quite well. Because as I'm sure you know, we know only a tiny proportion of people who are clients ever detox from opioids. But we hand out free foil, lighters and booklets on how to smoke (vape) heroin or as no user EVER termed it 'chasing the dragon'. NEVER heard that term used.

So tiny steps. Don't think 'I will stop' but maybe think 'I will at least give smoking H a try'. The reason being that when smoked by an expert, the bioavailability is well above 90% and I've known people who really have turned smoking H into an art form. I mean really impressive to watch.

Of course, you can't QUITE match IV for the rush which is why I mentioned Palfium (dextromoramide) being used to treat IV opioid users. Orally dextromoramide produces a rush everyone tells me is more or less identical to IV heroin. Of course, it IS supervised because a sure as eggs are eggs, if given a pill to take up, people will be compelled to at least trying to whack it up... which despite the claims of Janssen, actually makes the stuff x5 more potent i.e. x15 more potent than morphine. So Even just 2 pills consumed in that manner could result in an OD.

You have always struck me as a smart person and all I can do is to try to give you the best information I have. You know, don't use alone, have naloxone handy and if it all goes BADLY wrong - call 999 or whatever it is in your nation. Because having done it, paramadics would like to know how much of what someone has taken BUT they won't ask you if you took anything. They don't tell the police but if you are paranoid, stash whatever somewhere off your own property.

We aren't here to put you down - we are here to make sure you are here for a long, long time.
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Man, I have LONG left those levels of recklessness behind. I volunteer in harm reduction now and mentor people.
 
@4DQSAR

It's probably a more old-timey term, but I definitely have heard the odd person use 'chasing the dragon'. More commonly though is to hear smoking being referred to as simply 'chasing'. Or you might be asked if you're a 'chaser' when someone enquires about your ROA.
 
It's a term still used in SE Asia but you have to wonder if a person heard the line in a TV show or movie and decided it would make them appear more... time-served.
 
4DQSAR said:
It's a term still used in SE Asia but you have to wonder if a person heard the line in a TV show or movie and decided it would make them appear more... time-served.
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Nah I know users in my area who routinely say chasing to mean smoking.

PS it actually makes sense to me because strictly speaking, you are not smoking but vaporising; and when I've tried this method I DEFINITELY felt like I was 'chasing after' the trails of resin on the foil Xd
 
Oh yeah - it's a pretty accurate descrption. But 'having a toot' has significantly fewer syllables and isn't quite as obviously tied to one specific drug. Opacity can be a benefit.

The slang constantly changes and in no small part it's to defeat unindoctrinated people into what is going on. Given it's widepread use, if you say 'chasing the dragon' - even my nan would know it meant vaping H.
 
4DQSAR said:
Oh yeah - it's a pretty accurate descrption. But 'having a toot' has significantly fewer syllables and isn't quite as obviously tied to one specific drug. Opacity can be a benefit.

The slang constantly changes and in no small part it's to defeat unindoctrinated people into what is going on. Given it's widepread use, if you say 'chasing the dragon' - even my nan would know it meant vaping H.
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All I meant to say is that particular bit of (albeit shortened) slang isn't entirely obsolete everywhere. Because you stated that in your environment you had literally NEVER heard it, and that puzzled me somewhat.

PS I absolutely would never say 'I had a toot' because in BE that's old person polite slang for doing a fart Xd
 
Well - while farting may not be socially acceptable in many places, it's not a criminal act to the best of my knowledge. So opacity would be of value.

I'm honestly curious as to where such an old term is seemingly so common.

That said, I can imagine that if said in a Welsh accent 'chasing the dragon' would sound much better than any English accent or dialect you can poke a stick at.
 
4DQSAR said:
Well - while farting may not be socially acceptable in many places, it's not a criminal act to the best of my knowledge. So opacity would be of value.

I'm honestly curious as to where such an old term is seemingly so common.

That said, I can imagine that if said in a Welsh accent 'chasing the dragon' would sound much better than any English accent or dialect you can poke a stick at.
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Like I said, I only ever heard the phrase 'chasing the DRAGON' once or twice unironically from actual users, and they were middle aged or over. But it is still fairly common to come across 'chase' being used synonymousjy for 'smoke'.
The implication even with just 'chase' is that it's referring to heroin.
 
Well, I leant somehing new - so thanks for that.

Chasing alone I have encountered.

Any more choice terms that are obscure out of your neck of the woods?

For a while people would toot their gear and with fake shock in their voice, remark 'My goodness Holmes I'm begnning to think this isn't a bassoon!'
 
I appear to be in the minority here ;-)

I'm sort of glad to hear H users in the US smoke the stuff. Of course we all get the images of needles or at least crushed pills being snorted. Both dangerous in their own ways.
 
4DQSAR said:
I appear to be in the minority here ;-)

I'm sort of glad to hear H users in the US smoke the stuff. Of course we all get the images of needles or at least crushed pills being snorted. Both dangerous in their own ways.
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Yeah, it's mostly a term from Western US users I believe.

We have (or had, before fentanyl took over) this weird dichotomy where the Western side of the US would mostly get black tar heroin coming in from Mexico & stuff.

While the Eastern side of the US would get powdered heroin. And the midwestern states often would get the East coast powder/rocks (or at least the people I hung out with in the midwest did).

But I have definitely heard "chasing the dragon" many times here in the US.
 
Let me tell you guys, I had a former girlfriend die from endocarditis as well as a best friend. Both of them died horrible deaths. It's a death I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Victor died shitting blood and throwing up blood while being rushed to the ER. My former girlfriend Gianna died on the side of the road from her heart giving out. Please - use clean needles and wash your hands every time you use anything IV. It really is a fate worse than death to find out you have a heart murmur and then to find out the cause of that murmur is an infection. Terrible situation - needing a new heart valve and then having to recover from such a deadly infection. They also can't go in and do anything to save the heart valve or replace it until the infection is completely cleared up, or else the new valve could get infected. If the new valve gets infected, most of the time, you're dead. I was SO lucky and blessed to dodge this bullet.
 
to_oblivion said:
Let me tell you guys, I had a former girlfriend die from endocarditis as well as a best friend. Both of them died horrible deaths. It's a death I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Victor died shitting blood and throwing up blood while being rushed to the ER. My former girlfriend Gianna died on the side of the road from her heart giving out. Please - use clean needles and wash your hands every time you use anything IV. It really is a fate worse than death to find out you have a heart murmur and then to find out the cause of that murmur is an infection. Terrible situation - needing a new heart valve and then having to recover from such a deadly infection. They also can't go in and do anything to save the heart valve or replace it until the infection is completely cleared up, or else the new valve could get infected. If the new valve gets infected, most of the time, you're dead. I was SO lucky and blessed to dodge this bullet.
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I feel for your loss.
Thankfully my best friend had a less traumatic death. Was still not exactly good. His endocarditis went undiagnosed for a long while because it had no clear symptoms. He just felt generally run-down and low energy. Went to a doc finally and couldn't describe his symptoms more accurately than 'I feel sick' and the bastard unprofessional response was 'you're a junkie, of course you do' , no further investigation.

By the time it got bad enough to land him in hospital he was needing an emergency operation to replace a heart valve. He nearly didn't make it, had complications and stayed in ICU for weeks. Two years later.... the infection recurred. (Despite very conscientious hygiene. Bacterial colonies can remain and not be completely eliminated by antibiotics in some cases.) He did not survive the second procedure and died on the table.
Anyone with using friends or family members, PLEASE inform them of the risk of using unsterile equipment and / or sharing.
 
Yeah - on Saturday someone I knew died in hospital. I have detailed it elsewhere.

But double pneumonia, covid, enlarged heart, liver damage, shadows on lungs (plural) and seizures.

When I arrived here I knew three time-served junkies and now two are dead. Ironically the first to go had got clean.

BTW not wishing to bore anyone. I used to know someone who had develped endocarditis and survived due to a timely heart-vale replacement. If you were sat in a room with them, you could hear them tick. They got back on it and died. I just realized in 30 years, I must have known sixty or seventy people who died due to misuse of pins.
 
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4DQSAR said:
Yeah - on Saturday someone I knew died in hospital. I have detailed it elsewhere.

But double pneumonia, covid, enlarged heart, liver damage, shadows on lungs (plural) and seizures.

When I arrived here I knew three time-served junkies and now two are dead. Ironically the first to go had got clean.

BTW not wishing to bore anyone. I used to know someone who had develped endocarditis and survived due to a timely heart-vale replacement. If you were sat in a room with them, you could hear them tick. They got back on it and died. I just realized in 30 years, I must have known sixty or seventy people who died due to misuse of pins.
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This is why pushing harm reduction principles is SO important.


And it's why I get pissed off as fuck at clueless politicians who oppose these measures because it's 'only enabling their addiction' or whatever stupid trope. Oftentimes the only way you can sell it to politicians as well as the general public is by pointing out that diseases can easily spread from homeless and / or drug-using populations to 'respectable' regular citizens. And only THEN does prevention suddenly matter. It's like our lives aren't human lives to them.
 
TheUltimateFixx said:
I feel for your loss.
Thankfully my best friend had a less traumatic death. Was still not exactly good. His endocarditis went undiagnosed for a long while because it had no clear symptoms. He just felt generally run-down and low energy. Went to a doc finally and couldn't describe his symptoms more accurately than 'I feel sick' and the bastard unprofessional response was 'you're a junkie, of course you do' , no further investigation.

By the time it got bad enough to land him in hospital he was needing an emergency operation to replace a heart valve. He nearly didn't make it, had complications and stayed in ICU for weeks. Two years later.... the infection recurred. (Despite very conscientious hygiene. Bacterial colonies can remain and not be completely eliminated by antibiotics in some cases.) He did not survive the second procedure and died on the table.
Anyone with using friends or family members, PLEASE inform them of the risk of using unsterile equipment and / or sharing.
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Thank you for your condolences, I feel for your loss as well. It's amazing how many people have no idea about unsterile equipment and contract infections such as this.
 
TheUltimateFixx said:
This is why pushing harm reduction principles is SO important.
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That's why I helped out Lifeline Publications and latterly Linnell Publications for 25+ years so far.

I don't know where you are but almost every local HR agency is short of staff.

I know 'yellow boxes' were still not widely available when I began so step one was to open one and check what was inside. No pins! So that had to be sorted out. But it's incredible that nobody had actually ever checked until I did. So for a while my job was to open each box, chuck in a couple of pins and seal each on back up. It took YEARS for the makers to include them. Now I THINK the concern was that users might just take the pins to use for gear... but what WAS the logic? Hope to find a used pin which could potentially carry a blood bourne disease? I don't know, but it was a shock, I can tell you.
 
4DQSAR said:
That's why I helped out Lifeline Publications and latterly Linnell Publications for 25+ years so far.

I don't know where you are but almost every local HR agency is short of staff.

I know 'yellow boxes' were still not widely available when I began so step one was to open one and check what was inside. No pins! So that had to be sorted out. But it's incredible that nobody had actually ever checked until I did. So for a while my job was to open each box, chuck in a couple of pins and seal each on back up. It took YEARS for the makers to include them. Now I THINK the concern was that users might just take the pins to use for gear... but what WAS the logic? Hope to find a used pin which could potentially carry a blood bourne disease? I don't know, but it was a shock, I can tell you.
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I used to help out at the 'drug and alcohol services' in a town 34 miles away. (My university town.)

Also walked round the local homeless population with a rucksack full of supplies, just asking people what they needed. Needles? What gauge? Extra alcowipes? etc
And then hand it out to them. I have not been doing it for awhile because I just wasn't mentally up to it, the majority of the crowd I knew dispersed to other towns in the area, and the support place doesn't seem to exist anymore.
 
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