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Heroin old shot stupidity

N

noapap

Greenlighter
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
3
I wish I had learned about this site sooner, but here's my question. All I had left was a 2-3 day old shot that I should've sniffed, but being sick and stupid... I decided to cook it, re-filter, and do a portion. Right after this, my heart started pounding and I realized I should've stayed sick. I feel a little better after an hour, but I'm still sore and feel like my circulation sucks. Does anyone have any similar experience? I'm going to try to see a doctor on Monday, if not sooner, but I will update this thread with the results.

Edit: I did search before posting, but all I could find was "DONT DO IT". I wish I had searched before this experience, but I wish there was more information about what really happens as a result online (as neither thread actually had experiences in them).
 
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If you feel like you are having heart problems you need to go to a hospital straight away. There is absolutely nothing we can do to help you.

I'm going to close this as only a doctor can help you. Not people over the internet.

PM me if you have any questions.
 
Re-opening for a discussion for anyone that has used old shots before. This is not a discussion about rushing to the doctor or the OP's current medical condition.

So if anyone has used an old heroin shot before please share your stories.
 
Nice username OP!

Just be very honest with your doctor. You likely introduced some bacteria into your blood stream, so it's probably not going to effect the injection site as much as its effecting the rest of your body. Did you take your temperature? I would monitor that and go to the ER if you feel worse or if your temperature rises.

You may have gotten an unusual rush from this since heroin degrades to morphine when left in solution for an extended period of time, so that may explain something.
 
Thanks! And thanks for the suggestions, my temperature and heart have remained stable, but I will be seeing a Doctor once I sort out a ride.
Either way, the thread is about similar experiences in general and not my current condition:P
I can't help but feel that making similar experiences known will better help someone who ends up in my position.
 
I think that the mod Znegative may have personal experience with this, so I will PM him to let him know about this thread.
 
I know this isn't about your situation and ofc we are not a medical site and there is no substitute for seeing a doctor, but I thought it would be useful to give a few indications that would mean you or anyone else in this position should get medical help ASAP..

Using an old shot obviously has a high risk of introducing bacteria into your bloodstream. When this occurs a few things can happen - the infection can be dealt with quickly with minimal symptoms, or you can get a transient bacteraemia (bacteria in your blood) giving you cotton fever-esque symptoms - elevated temperature, chills, shivers, headache, nausea, feeling generally poorly - as your body fights off the infection, which should die down itself, or septicaemia which is a full blown blood infection and needs prompt antibiotic treatment and possibly other supportive measures too. If symptoms are worsening, or going on for >4 hours, or if you feel really unwell/are concerned you need to seek medical attention immediately.

Septicaemia has similar symptoms to cotton fever, but worse/longer duration, and with the added risk of septic shock. There are other symptoms you can get too depending on the bug but in general go by fever, shivers, headache and feeling poorly.

If you start going into medical shock (circulatory failure caused by the infection) then you also need help ASAP - so if you feel very light headed or dizzy, or if your hands and feet get very cold and pale, or if you generally are pale/clammy then get yourself to the ER.

In the meantime, keep well hydrated and ideally have someone with you. Good luck!
 
I dont really get waht happened.. you did the shot and your heart started pounding. Is that it? I mean did you get high? Did you miss your shot? Did you get cotton fever?

Maybe you had a little panic attack because you knew you were probably pushing an old moldy shot full of bacteria into your blodo stream lol.

You say your circulation sucks.. can you describe with more detail what you mean? It is circulation around the limb you injected into, or your whole body?

Personally injecting a few day old dope shot, I feel that all you were at risk for is cotton fever i.e. introduction of bacteria to the blood stream.
 
could also be "cotton fever", which is really just the nickname for shooting up a shot that has bacteria in it, which usually makes you have symptoms similar to food poisoning for 24 hours.
 
Man, there are so many reasons not to shoot old shots. I don't think I've ever shot something that has been sitting in a syringe for more than 1 day, usually I would shoot it up within 5 minutes of preparation.
 
Tommyboy said:
I think that the mod Znegative may have personal experience with this, so I will PM him to let him know about this thread.
Click to expand...

Yes I do Tommyboy, and thanks for bringing it to my attention. i was all evening so I apologize for not responding sooner.

Here's what happened to me. I was pretty strung out on stims this last summer, and i mannaged to cop some amphetamines and some cocaine. I was fiending so bad, that I didn't bother to go out and get a new syringe, so i used one that was a few days old.

I washed the syringe out with water and a little soap, but I didnt bother with bleach or anything, as I wanted to get my shot in. Well, I ended up doing about 20-30 shots (for all those that IV stims, especially coke, you know how it is..), but with the same, OLD syringe.

The next day I started getting these shooting pains down the left side of my body. They weren't unbarable, but they were not pleasant. The next day I woke up and I couldnt get out of bed. Half my body was paralyzed from excruciating pain. After 20 minutes, i managed to roll myself over and get up, but then throughout the day I would be struck by moments where i wouldnt be able to move parts of my body, and I began to spike a fever. I didn't want to go to the hospital, but my mother forced me to see the doctor, as I had a fever. The doctor sent me to the ICU room, where after several tests (including a spinal tap), they found out that I had a MRSA bacterium infection..

I spent five weeks sitting in a hospital, the first of which I was in excruciating pain. The next few weeks I was stuck to a bed being fed IV anti-biotics.

Luckily the infection did not spread to my heart, but it could have had I waited any longer. Do not use old shots, do not use old syringes.
 
Old syringes can end up making you sick. During the height of my dope addiction I would stupidly reuse syringes countless times, upwards to a month. What I found out later down the road was that eventually the syringe would become contaminated with bacteria even if you washed it out and cleaned it. I would shoot a bag of dope and an hour later I would ben sweating pools, my heart would be racing, and my lymph nodes would be swollen. I couldn't figure out why. Eventually that syringe became to dull so I got a new one. Suddenly all those symptoms went away but a month later they would resurface. One day I sat down with an old syringe and a new one. I injected with the new one and was fine. No fever. No racing heart. No nothing. I did a shot with the old one and low and behold I got sick.

Old syringes shouldn't be used because they can become contaminated with bacteria. Dull needle points are the least of you worries. I was lucky I never got a blood infection. I'm sure if I continued with my stupidity I would.
 
I noticed I wasn't 100% sick once I stopped freaking out over it, but my body could've just been too busy fighting infection to focus on WD's... but in the future I'd rather be sick than go through all that stressing and feeling like crap. Anyway, anytime I do a dirty hit it seems my heart just starts racing double-time-or-harder immediately, as to circulation... my hands just felt cold and sluggish as hell earlier. It didn't feel like cotton fever, no head-pounding-from-hell and puking/etc that I associate with that, but my body and back are still sore. Everything seems fine -superficially- (but this is NOT an experience I would repeat, and I urge anyone else contemplating old shots to flush them or at least sniff them instead).

Things could've been much worse (and still could be), but I'll let you guys know how it turns out for posterity's sake. As soon as a clinic is open, my wife even has a ride lined up for me (was too late today but I really really want to get checked out ASAP now after reading some of the responses in this thread), hopefully I'll have a Doctor's opinion on all this to update this thread with soon enough.

OT: Thank you Guido and Znegative, I've been trying to learn all I can about harm reduction today, and reusing points a million times (and only washing with water) is a sin I'm guilty of, but I didn't realize what I was risking... That blows my mind though, I'm sorry you had to go through that Z. Apparently there's a needle exchange delivery service here that I'll be making use of on Monday, but I'll be THOROUGHLY cleaning my almost-new ones tonight.

Back on-topic: Good information so far guys, thanks for the contributions to the thread. Anyone else have any experiences to share? :)
 
Isn't cotton fever from bacteria? before i was on suboxone there were a few times where i was really sick and i would do shots from the same old cottons over and over, needless to say, even though i cooked it, i would start shaking uncontrollably and be freezing cold and have the worst headache ever, and then eventually I would fall asleep and it would go away. The best part is that i kept doing it again and again, that's why you don't do drugs kids!
 
Honestly you're probably just having an anxiety attack. Worring about it, and now having a thread, and worrying more isn't going to do you well. I'm willing to bet if you forget about the thread and just chill out for a little you'll be fine.

It's obviously possible that it's other things, but I'm just saying what I think would be the most likely, and I've had this happen to me before after a long story involving dropping a cap behind some drywall, and I was freaking out, but it passed. I didn't feel better until I did a real shot however. Get a new spike, and some new drugs instead of resorting to day old shots or caps behind drywall, if you can help it of course :)
 
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