Water from the gutter is better than the puddle

[~lostgurl~]

this is an interesting article on cotton fever or risks involved using cotton to filter

http://www.heroinhelper.com/user/hea...on_fever.shtml

Cotton Fever

Cotton fever is a risk that IV drug users face, but which they worry about far too much. I say this because although it is painful, it is not terribly dangerous--there are better things to worry about. The reason for all the interest seems to be that no one can get a straight answer about what it is.

Different Definitions

Just about every information source provides a slightly different cause for this ailment. The Whitehouse Drug Policy's Street Drug Glossary, for example, defines cotton fever as, "Critically high temperature associated with accidentally injecting cotton fibers into the blood stream." Other proposed causes include "dirt in Mexican heroin" and fiberglass in cigarette filters. The connection between almost all the explanations is that cotton fever is caused by some kind of particulate matter that is injected into the blood stream. This is not really true.

Symptoms

There are a lot of different unintended things that happen to IV drugs users: hitting arteries and nerves, abscesses, blood clots. Cotton fever has specific symptoms that differentiate it from other ailments: fever, chills, and shortness of breath. In Europe, cotton fever is commonly called "the shakes"--a reference to another common symptom of cotton fever. Those with this ailment often experience violent shaking or shivering.
These symptoms normally occur immediately following an injection, but there are reports of lags up to an hour in length.

Course

Under most circumstances, cotton fever is relatively benign. It is possible for it to turn into something more serious such as pneumonia; the user should watch for this, and seek medical attention if the fever does not go away. Normally however, the symptoms disappear after a couple of hours or less.

The Cause of Cotton Fever

Cotton plants are heavily colonized by a strain of bacteria known as E. Agglomerans. This bacterium causes mischief in the pulmonary system of the body which results in the symptoms of cotton fever. This was first noted in the early 1940s with farm workers who breathed in large quantities of unprocessed cotton.
Most injection drug users utilize small pieces of cotton to filter particulate matter from their drug solution before they inject. It is possible for this to introduce small amounts of E. Agglomerans into the solution. When it is administered intravenously, this small quantity of bacteria can be enough to cause cotton fever.
It is commonly believed that it is something about the solid state of the material (cotton or other) that causes the effects of the fever. This is not so; it is the bacteria found in the cotton. It is certainly true, however, that injecting a cotton fiber which will be broken down in the blood stream is a good way to deliver large amounts of the bacteria into the blood stream.

Avoiding Cotton Fever

It is impossible to completely avoid cotton fever except by not using cotton to filter drug solutions. This should not be used as an excuse to avoid filtering your solution--or for using a poor substitute. In most cases, cotton is the best thing to use for this purpose. Cotton fever is a fairly minor ailment, whereas the particulate matter filtered by the cotton can be deadly.
To minimize the risk of cotton fever, boil the cotton before it is used for filtration. This should kill the bacteria that cause this ailment. But this is no guarantee. Bacteria can be hard to kill.
In addition to boiling your cotton, make sure that you do not re-use your cotton. There are many reasons to avoid this practice, and only one is to avoid cotton fever. Old cottons break down, making it more likely that a fiber will be drawn into your syringe.
The main thing to remember about cotton fever is that under most circumstances, it is not very harmful. So take what precautions you can, and learn to live with the remaining risk.

Dealing with Cotton Fever

If the fever persists, it should be treated with antibiotics. But this is rarely necessary. In most instances it is best to simply let the fever run its course. You can almost assure that cotton fever will have a minor effect on your body by keeping yourself in shape. Make sure that you eat regularly, get a little exercise, and take vitamins. This will also help you fight off any other ailments resulting from your drug use.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	damn good post, good info
	useful info.
	A useful, informative post that gives good advice and separates fact from fiction.
	great information, clears up a myth/confusion

[old hippie 56]

Swim had a instance of cotton fever back when he was chasing that damn old needle. Thought it was the flu at first, few advil and some much needed rest done the trick. Went to using q-tips instead of filters from cigarettes.
Like Laura76 says, it ain't all that bad. For the newbies to IV use, just keep everything really clean.

[asplinteredfawn]

SWIM lives in Detroit.

He was spending 210-300$ a day on smack. He was also living on the streets for a substantial amount of time. His best source for injection water was fresh fallen snow, off the ledges or tops of cars. Any comments?

I mean SWIMs done some gross down and out stuff. Lucky, hes been off the H train about a year now.

Some people just don't get that we aren't all from bourgeoisie/middle class families, and cannot always afford to spend the extra 1.75$ for water 2.63$ for some BDs or a fresh pack of filters.

They don't even have needle exchanges around here, nor do pharmacy's sell sterile water, and some give you a hard time about buying new works!

Obviously, with SWIMs years under the belt, he has his sources and acquaintances; who are repeat vendors/pharmacists; these ones are the people who know who and what you are and what you will do with what you buy. They want you to be safe, while others force SWIM to stoop pretty low.

Injecting using soda pop, filtering with lint, playing " find a complete rig " out of 17 or so random plungers, spikes, caps, and barrels with all of the measurements having been rubbed off long ago.

Any true junkist, has been in these situations. If you haven't, it's all a matter of time, or you're just lucky, and wealthy from birth.

You can always change the size of your syringe; but never your place in society.

[infekt]

Originally Posted by asplinteredfawn

SWIM lives in Detroit.

He was spending 210-300$ a day on smack. He was also living on the streets for a substantial amount of time. His best source for injection water was fresh fallen snow, off the ledges or tops of cars. Any comments?

I mean SWIMs done some gross down and out stuff. Lucky, hes been off the H train about a year now.

Some people just don't get that we aren't all from bourgeoisie/middle class families, and cannot always afford to spend the extra 1.75$ for water 2.63$ for some BDs or a fresh pack of filters.

They don't even have needle exchanges around here, nor do pharmacy's sell sterile water, and some give you a hard time about buying new works!

Obviously, with SWIMs years under the belt, he has his sources and acquaintances; who are repeat vendors/pharmacists; these ones are the people who know who and what you are and what you will do with what you buy. They want you to be safe, while others force SWIM to stoop pretty low.

Injecting using soda pop, filtering with lint, playing " find a complete rig " out of 17 or so random plungers, spikes, caps, and barrels with all of the measurements having been rubbed off long ago.

Any true junkist, has been in these situations. If you haven't, it's all a matter of time, or you're just lucky, and wealthy from birth.

You can always change the size of your syringe; but never your place in society.

exactly!

It kind of reminds me how sometimes someone on this site wants to know how to potentiate certain drugs. And there is always some useless reply "buy more or use more of that drug".

asplinteredfawn swim feels you completely. swim was also a junk addict (and also from detroit). IF people knew this lifestyle then such replies "buy new or clean etc" and the like would be viewed as a waste of time.

[Aminator]

" These symptoms normally occur immediately following an injection..."

Which shows that 'the shakes' are NOT caused by those bacteria, hence have nothing to do with cotton fever (which DOES exist and could theoretically be transferred this way).

No way are the bacteria going to multiply thousandfold within seconds. Any bacteria-caused infect needs time to show symptoms, especially if a small number enters the body.
Plus, Cotton for hygiene products is processed sterile. Ciggie filters are not even cotton, IIRC they are cellulose acetate, a (half)synthetic fiber spun from solution.

'The shakes' are caused by the particulate matter itself. The only cases I witnessed myself occurred when either no filter was used, or twice with water that had collected dust in shallow containers over 1-2 days (one case when trying to evaporate most of the liquid from methadone solution to allow for a smaller rig, then not foiltering - before they added the syrup that is, good old times).

[Aminator]

OK a tip if clean water is nowhere to find, for whatever reason (when this method was chosen, it was usually in a train toilet, where the water tanks are either empty of water or full of bacteria or both, with a warning label "DO NOT DRINK"):

Everybody has clean (even sterile) water on the person where ever he/she goes, they just don't consider it. It's only a zipper away. It will contain salt, urea and traced of the last shot, but it's usable. Using 'middle-stream' i.e. flushing through first, and not taking the last drop, this is even injected as a therapy, though it's more common to drink it.

And yes this has been tested, though only on things that dissolve without boiling (the white stuff).

Reputation Comments on this post:

really interesting, useful tip

[Handle]

Just a quick warning, NEVER EVER EVER inject anything EVER into any part of your groin. Some veins down there drain into the fossa ovalis, and if you clog up that with shit fillers or get a germ, you can lose both your legs and your fucking genitals to gangrene. Never do it.

Horrible to say, but it is even more dangerous than neck shots [which also with unskilled shots are at great risk of clipping against the carotid if you're not careful, and that can cause blood pressure spikes and cardiac arrest]

Anyway, about sharpening/reusing fits. The New SOuth Wales prison system is starting to get wise to this, they don't wanna spend half their budget on hep C treatment for everyone, so they give sort of "don't ask/don't tell" type vibes to everyone, with advice about how the industrial disinfectant they use in the prisons can be used to sterilise fits, and how matchbooks can be used to sharpen tips [because in AUs, most needles are fixed tip, not the Trainspotting type]

they have a sort of sliding scale
1. Don't use drugs
2. If you do, don't IV
3. If you do, don't re-use
4. If you do, don't share
5. If you do, clean it, sharpen, disinfect 3 times with bleach/antiseptic

They are very sincere in their wish and advice to people not to do, well, especially nothing from 3 onwards because it is so horrific, but they know it's happening, they are too coy about actually handing out spikes in a prison, so they try to keep damage to a minimum. I don't envy them in their job of managing this issue.

Handle added 13 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

asplinteredfawn:
"Any true junkist, has been in these situations. If you haven't, it's all a matter of time, or you're just lucky, and wealthy from birth.

You can always change the size of your syringe; but never your place in society"

Sad but true, and I say that as one of the ones who had it easy, I never had to go through that rough stuff like the really poor ones. Yes, class divides continue on the wrong side of the tracks as well.

There's a reference to that in Basketball Diaries, he talks about the "Weekenders" who always have Mommy's place in vermont to skip off to when things get rough.
It's just not the same. And it's not a comp to be the hardest core, what I'm saying is, those people [and I'm one of them] all have some sort of safety net, backround that will catch them and look after them, but the ones who really have it rough must face life alone, and it can be a pretty cold, hard world for them.

I'm talking about disease, hunger, homelessness. The ones who have it easy can dust themselves off and still get up in the world later on, but what of the street type with a hoarse voice and scarry trackmarks and none of the good school manners that help hide an old habit. They talk about rehabilitation, but the ones who really had it rough face lifelong exclusion, they push back every attempt at living straight, push such people right back into the street very quickly.
And they get way longer sentecnes, much more often, and often the first time round. Courts are not so much overtly harder on them in what they say, but just totally indifferent in handing out years in jail "like candy" as Henry Hill would say, because they see someone with no back up and just don't care about them. I have seen it all happen.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent post, the info and the thoughts on how drug addiction is so much harder for the poor.