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What are the guidelines regarding heroin cotton use?

Submarine

Submarine

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 6, 2006
Messages
77
Location
United States
What I'm mostly wondering about is using cottons after the heroin is already gone, say 2 days after getting high when you re-use a cotton to make the withdrawal go away, what's the best technique for reusing them to get the most heroin back? Also, I think my cottons are too big, does that interfere with reusing them? Oh, and also I've heard that it's best to cook 2-3 shots with a particular cotton before reusing it, does that sound about right?
 
Saving cottons can be a junkys savior at times...This is what I used to do.

I would always use a new cotton with every shot, and I'd saturate the cotton with around 10-15% of whatever I cooked up. Save up your cottons, I'
d use 8-10 of them for each cotton shot (this would equal a normal shot most of the time).

When you store them for later use it's best to put them in a sealed, cool dry place (small zip lock bag inside a drawer)

To squeeze all the dope out of the cottons I'd take 4 or 5 of them and place them on a large spoon, I'd add 10-15 units of water per cotton (you want to use the least amount of water possible, but you want it to be throughly soaked in water) and heat the cottons with a lighter just like you were cooking a shot.

Once you hear a slight sizzle you want to take each cotton individually and place it into a new syringe (with the tip cut off/removed) and squeeze the warm liquid from the cotton into a new spoon/cooker. To remove the cotton from the syringe barrel I would use something long and skinny like a paper clip. (You can re use this rig for each cotton, but use a new one when you finally do IV the solution)

Do this with as many cottons as you think you need for a shot. Once you have the desired amount, filter all the liquid you gathered up and enjoy not being sick for a few more hours !

I think I remembered all the steps, but it's been a while since I've used heroin. Let me know if any of it doesn't make sense.
 
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I forgot to add that I used black tar, but this should work with all types of IV heroin.

If you're using tar, you will see the cottons go from brown/black back to a near white color after you wash them. If they are still dark after you wash them then there is still dope left in them.
 
Reusing cottons is never smart or safe. Aside from the typical requirements of filtering, "Cotton Fever" is not a fun experience. That said, as the second poster noted, they have been his savior and many an addict will say the same thing.
 
This is possibly the worst advice i've heard... reusing cotton flters is such a bad fucking idea. Youve obviously never had 'cotton fever'
 
Not safe at all even if it is a common practice. Any harm reduction advice would be to discard your cottons. They are single use only items!!!! Damp cottons are like a petri dish for all sorts of nasty bacterias. Also they can transmit blood-bourne disease if being shared if you reuse needles AT ALL.
 
SomeKindaLove said:
Damp cottons are like a petri dish for all sorts of nasty bacterias.
Click to expand...


exactly, its very very risky, dont do it, its not worth it
there are more things that could grow in that cotton that could kill you than you can imagine
 
I'm not an H user so forgive me for my ignorance on this topic, but isn't rudimentary filtration the only reason that cottons are used?

If so, why doesn't everyone use micron filters instead?
 
Yeah, it is pretty nasty to reuse cottons.
Plus, cotton fever is worse than withdrawal, so I would not suggest going that route.
 
I've reused cottons many times, never got sick or cotton fever.

However

I've also never been helped by doing so. Good quality DC brown scramble, saved cottons, always dark brown. After re-using the cotton go almost back to white, usually a light tan. Very dark solution in the water/syringe after sucking it all up to shoot, looks like a thick, good shot. Every time I've tried this happens, everything is done right, looks fine. Shot, no effect. Not even a taste, or slight lift in WDs.

In my experience re-using cottons is just as excersize in futility. It kills 20-30 minutes of sick time, and puts you at risk for a number of infections and injecting cotton fibres/cotton fever. It's a bad idea, and unless you purposely leave more dope solution on them than you would if you tried to collect each shot entirely, you're wasting your effort.

If you want to leave dope for an emergency, put a tiny bit aside from each bag. But, this never works either because this gets used before you amass enough to keep you from being sick anyway. I quit this kind of stuff early on in using. I used it all when I had it, and was sick as shit when I didn't. Being an addict you're going to be high sometimes, just well a little of the time and sick most of the time. After you accept that the highs are a little better and the lows are a little harder, but it is what it is. Used cottons of all things aren't going to help.
 
dokomo said:
I'm not an H user so forgive me for my ignorance on this topic, but isn't rudimentary filtration the only reason that cottons are used?

If so, why doesn't everyone use micron filters instead?
Click to expand...

We try to encourage micron filter use, but not everyone has very easy access to them. Most of them time they have to be ordered off of the internet, and some of us don't have access to a credit card to do it.
 
sixpartseven said:
We try to encourage micron filter use, but not everyone has very easy access to them. Most of them time they have to be ordered off of the internet, and some of us don't have access to a credit card to do it.
Click to expand...

Gotcha.
 
microtel said:
Because micron filters are damn hard to find (at least where I am).
The medical suppliers here in **** claim they never stock them
and don't know where to get them, sux
Click to expand...

Well I mean I've seen alot of links around here before to places that sell them online. I understand what 6/7 said above, but I mean almost every bank and grocery store sells prepaid visa cards now, plus you can use a debit card off of a checking account too so I guess I just dont understand why a person wouldn't insist on having them when they are injecting foreign material into their bloodstream.
 
Dokomo: Yes, as the Mod correctly noted, BL encourages the use of Micron or Wheel Filters but for soem they are difficult to locate. Best for heroin is a 4.5 but everyone has a say in that so...

On filtering, actually cotton is not a terrible filter, with a rate topping 30%, but Microns have it beat more than 90% retention, the only prtoblem of course being single use of the Micron and the cost. They also take getting the hang of as well, pushing only, using more liquid, and so on but by all means, if anyone is considering any form of injection, they should get a Micron or Wheel wherever possible.
 
I used to save my cottens and it always helped me out, but you take that chance of getting cotten fever, and that fuckin sucks...I have even gotten it just from a regular shot, I don't think it's worse than withdrawels but everyone is different..
 
yeah i asked a pharmacist about micron filters and he just looked at me like "what the fuck"
 
after going through a whole scrip of dillaudids. (oxymorphons) 1804mg pills, and 10 8mg pills. the LAST ONE. the last pill I had.. I used a cotton that had been in the spoon overnite. I got Cotton Fever and shook like a dog shitting bones for about an hour. I had such a fever. Like 102.5 degress. It sucked ass. I was sick from the time it set in.. till about 10am the next day. Approx 12 hours. it took about an hour and a half after I did the shot for it to set it.
 
My advise is don't do this. Seriously ts not worth it, every junky will always think "okay I won't get high but atleast it will help, right?" wrong. It almost never does.

But a junky is a junky is a junky and in the interest of harm reduction here are some tips.

1. Boil the shit out of the solution, it won't kill any of the good stuff, I always heat my stuff to kill of the bacteria.
2. Take a prophylaxis dose of Tylenol or ibprofen 5 minutes before the shot, so if you do get cotton fever atleast you won't feel it except for sweating.
3. Only if yu have it, try and take an oral antibiotic if you have some laying around the house about 30 minutes before for prophylaxis purposes. When you have invasive surgery and there is a chance of infection, they almst always give you a dose of iv antibiotics before hand.

Atleast you can be as prepared and Safe as possible.
 
Earlier in my use, I found saving my cottons to be exxtremely helpful, at one point I was actually high from what was leftover in just one cotton.

But this past run (only about 4 monthes) my tolerance has gotten to the point where whatevers left in the cotton doesn't do shit. Doesn't mean I don't try every single fucking time I'm dopesick, which lately is much more often than the times I'm high.
 
You definitely don't want to re-use cottons, we've gone over this before.

If anyone needs micron filters PM me. I'll send you some links.

I'm going to move this to the archive, as this has been answered and is a rather old topic.
 
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