Health - SWIM's stupid, scary experience. any suggestions?

[norami]

so i guess i better start at the beginning for this one.

my friend albert was riding his bike home last night, like any other night, and one of his biggest biking fears came true. while he was riding on the right side of the right lane, an idiot driver carelessly threw open their driver side door of their parked car. albert plowed into it going maybe 15-20 mph; a good clip to be hitting a stationary door. he didnt go flying, or even fall off the bike, he just sort of bounced back a bit and stood there. he couldnt breathe for a minute, for he had hit his throat, and he mustve hit his chin as well, because it was bleeding profusely. we'll skip over the collecting of insurance info, cleaning himself up at his apt, and deciding he needed stitches and get to the hospital. although they only took his temp and blood pressure in the first 3 hrs he was there, they then gave him a muscle shot of morphine, (which didn't give albert quite the effect he had hoped for, probably due to his opiate tolerance, as he has been known to inject H a few times a week), and then they later gave him a shot of dilaudid. this gave much more of the effect he was hoping for. as the plunger was pushed, he felt that wonderful opiate warmth spread outward from his brain stem all the way down to his toes. he lay back comfortably, enjoying the opiate high, and the temporary relief of the shooting pains he was experiencing while swallowing. a few hours later, the pain had returned, and the friendly nurse gave him another shot, and again he laid back and enjoyed the blissful warmth of the drug. about an hour before he left, he was give a 5/500 hydrocodone, and a perscription for 11 (?) more.
he left the hospital with a very sore throat, 5 stitches in his chin, and feeling pretty tired. he had slept little during his 11 hr stay, which stretched from 11pm the night before till about noon today. he returned home and got some sleep, but was woken up after only a few hours by a friend who had purchased a quantity of cocaine, and who was requesting the use of albert's digital scale. albert told him to come on over, knowing this individual to be fairly generous to those that helped him out, and was hoping to get a bit a cheap coke. the friend came over, weighed what he had to, and gave albert half a gram of coke for much less than it usually costs.
now here is where albert's stupidity came in. unable to sit there with half a gram of blow in front of him, he decided to cut a good line's worth into a spoon and mainline it. he thought vaguely about the amount of drugs in his system possibly making this a bad idea, but then dismissed the thought with the excuse that people do speedballs all the time, and the last dose of dilaudid had been taken over 9 hours ago. he injected, getting the intense, ear-ringing rush that comes with a shot of good coke,and sat back. after a few minutes though, he felt very, very hot in the face, and went to check himself in the bathroom mirror. he was suprised to see his face was fiery red, and then even more suprised to see red hives all over his chest, stomache, and especially his arms. he began to panic but quickly calmed himself, knowing it would do no good. the last thing he wanted to do was go back to the hospital and have to admit that he had shot a fat line of coke mere hours after returning home, but didnt know what else to do, so he wet a washcloth with cold water and rubbed the broken out areas down. he did this a few times, all the while drinking water. it certainly cooled him down, and eventually saw the hives starting to shrink and eventually disappear.

albert has some questions about the incident, such as;what do you think the coke reacted with that caused the hives; could it have simply been the cut of this particular coke that caused them, or was it probably a reaction with a med; and how long should he wait before taking another hit? he also knows that the majority of those on this forum are educated in the use of drugs and probably have many theories, ideas, criticisms, and suggestions, and would like to hear them all.

once again, albert knows this was a very dumb move, and feels a bit ashamed of his actions, since he usually likes to consider himself a "responsible drug user".

sorry about the length of this post, i thought it best to tell albert's story in full so as make the circumstances understandable and to not to miss any details that may be important. thanks in advance for any suggestions. i assure you in advance that albert will greatly appreciate them.

[BoxStar]

Having that kind of reaction is somewhat common among IV users of street drugs but pharmaceuticals can also cause it for the same reason and by the same mechanism.

It’s an allergic reaction to some (in the case of street drugs, unknown) allergen; some people are or become allergic to cocaine but most reactions are caused by cuts although a dirty spoon or filter can introduce unknown allergens into the final solution. There is no way to tell what the cocaine has been mixed with. In the case of pharmaceuticals the solution containing the drug also has some other 10 substances that can possible cause a reaction apart from its active drug.

As intravenous injections bypass every natural filtering mechanism and deliver anything in the solution to the bloodstream allergic responses are much more common than with other methods of administration, SWIM has experienced many along the years with virtually every substance that can be injected. These reactions are caused by a massive but short burst of histamine release which usually takes 3 to 10 minutes to cause the symptoms described and usually are self-terminating but if the symptoms become worse (massive skin hives with skin edema) it would indicate massive sustained histamine release and it requires medical intervention as soon as possible.

Oral antihistamines are usually worthless once symptoms appear as they can take 30-45 minutes to have full effects and by that time the reaction is already over but they can be very useful in case the reaction doesn’t self-terminate.
Since SWIY had such reaction is probably better not to slam more; SWIY could try snorting a small amount and see what happens; SWIM has found that many times a street substance that induced an histamine release after slamming did not cause any reaction when snorted, smoked or taken orally.

It’s worth mentioning that recurrent exposure to the allergen can induce one of two opposite immunological processes; sensitization to the allergen resulting in more powerful reactions which is very dangerous or desensitization resulting in weaker reactions or even no reaction at all, it’s possible and common to experience no change at all.

[epote]

yeah SWIY had an allergic reaction to something in the cocaine...

could be because your body was prepared to fight infections due to your injuries (it typically happens to have an increased immune system activity after injuries the white cell counts sky rocket).

so increased immune system activity + crap from the cocaine = allergic reaction