Needle sharing incident

[ReadyMade]

Got pretty desperate yesterday, and shared a needle with a friend. he says he had bleached it out before he gave it to me, but i know that does not always work. Anyway, at this point, whats the best thing that i can do? i am going to get tested at some point, but would taking antibiotics daily for the next week or so help to stop any virus's such as hepatitis or HIV if it were present? Im probably overreacting, but i like to play it safe.

[irish]

Antibiotics will do nothing for viral illnesses. There are prophylactic drug regimens you can go on,but it will be expensive. Maybe go to the er and tell them you stepped on a needle in the park or something like that, they should hook you up. Oh, and that was a dumb thing to do by the way.

[edhorfin]

Got pretty desperate yesterday, and shared a needle with a friend. he says he had bleached it out before he gave it to me, but i know that does not always work. Anyway, at this point, whats the best thing that i can do? i am going to get tested at some point, but would taking antibiotics daily for the next week or so help to stop any virus's such as hepatitis or HIV if it were present? Im probably overreacting, but i like to play it safe.

Antibiotics dont affect viruses, only bacteria. There really isn't anything you can do to prevent an infection from HIV or HCV (hepatitis C) at this point, I don't think. Maybe one of our resident medical folks can chime in here, but I think its damage done, sorry. Has your friend ever been tested for either? If it is HCV, dont despair, a pretty good % of the people exposed never become chronically infected.

You SHOULD get checked for both HIV and HCV though. Give it a little time, not sure how long either take to show up if there, it takes some time for antibodies to develop, which is what the initial HCV test looks for. If you have the antibodies, you've been exposed to the virus. Maybe look somewhere else on the interweb.

Don't freak out. I shared needles a LOT before anyone knew shit. (1970's and 80's)My first HIV test scared the SHIT out of me...Thank god it was negative. Wasn't so lucky with the Hep, though. Paying the price for that now...

Don't share anymore. Get tested. Get your friend tested. Bleach doesnt do shit to HCV virus...

Good luck
Ed

[underide]

Im probably overreacting, but i like to play it safe.

Not by the looks of it, my friend.
Unfortunately antibiotics won't do shit for either hepC or HIV if it did get into the works that you used. Bleach won't do much either for the HIV virus.
Fortunately for you, the HIV/HepC rates have been significantly lower in most western countries than they were 10 years ago, and i would hope that if you've known your friend for a while that he is clean of the virus.
But still, sharing is a dumb move in any case. I can't be the one to judge since i did something even dumber some years ago. A LOT dumber - i got really desperate once and picked up a barrel in a squat that i had no clue of who has used it before me, absolutely NONE. Once i sobered up i started shitting it, but luckily for me i didn't catch anything that time.

The best thing you can do is do a blood test - a lot of the places (e.g. needle exchanges) even do it for free (at least where i live)
I don't want to scare you, but in the worst case scenario it would probably be a lot better to find the virus as early as possible, so you can get treatment right away. Lets hope it won't come to that!
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

[ReadyMade]

Thanks guys, that was my only time actually sharing a needle with somebody. I got tested for everything a few months ago just as precaution when I went to a court ordered rehab. I hadnt been on the needle too long before that, so im sure if i did have something, it wouldnt have showed up on the test.. but seriously, i will be one unlucky bastard if i get HIV or hep the first time sharing a rig, and a partially cleaned rig at that.
And i really do like to play it safe. Although, when you're in the depths of a coke binge, coming down hard, its pretty hard to say no to a rig full of coke.

[HistoryofMadness]

well maybe you'll get lucky. every junky should get a hep c test at least once a year, preferably once every 6 months. i've had 2 friends very close to me die from hep c unnecessarily; simply because they weren't willing to get tested and treated until it was too late.

both of them went horribly.

i have many friends who have found it early, been treated, and are fine with it out of their system now.

just do the right thing next time. and remember bleach kills everything but hep c so even if its bleached you aren't safe.