Femoral injecting gone bad

[Chipper]

:( My friend recently called for an ambulance - he has been injecting various forms of Methadone into his femoral for many years. I once even reported that it was going well for him but no longer ...

Because he didn't rotate injection sites, his femoral vein started to bulge out of his "port" (about 1 cm wide and even deeper injection site) and has become ulcerous.

He has further gone on to develop Deep Vein Thrombosis and his upper thigh is very swollen, hot and very hard. He will never walk properly and always with a "pressure sock/bandage".

To make matters really bad, he now has Golden Staph; if it finds it's way into his bones then he is never going to leave. Amputation is also very possible but it's the Staph that's the worry.

Femoral injectors, please take heed and be careful!

[erica]

Yikes...I'm sorry to hear that Chipper. The only thing that can be said is I hope this encourages him to start taking care of himself better.

I hope this discourages anyone who is considering using their femoral vein to inject! So dangerous, but just like everything else, the majority think "eh, it won't happen to me". That sucks about the staph too...I had MRSA about a year and a half ago (non-iv related), and it was a very scary, tedious ordeal. I hope this guy turns out alright...thanks for sharing.

[mac]

Sorry to hear about your friend, Chipper. I really hope that he doesn't end up losing his leg. I couldn't imagine going through something like that. Thanks for posting this thread, though, as perhaps people will consider the consequences of unsafe injection practices. If you don't IV cleanly and safely, it will catch up with you eventually.

@erica: I had MRSA about two years ago as well, except my case was IV related. I missed a shot of OC and, sure enough, I ended up with a nasty abscess. It is a very painful, scary ordeal to go through. It's pretty disgusting, too. It's definitely a good reason to prepare and inject our drugs cleanly, and it's far from the worse thing that could happen to you as a result of not doing so.

[30_Units]

Stories like this make me glad I'm trying to not inject stuff anymore.

I hope your buddy, GODDAMN STICKING Y KEY, sorry, I hope your buddy just gets a scare enough to start taking care of himself and the staph -shudders- had it, mine wasn't bad, easily treated with some ointments and I believe oral anti-bs, but maybe not, awhile ago.

Sorry, if you couldn't tell, i'm high. this post looks silly to me-i'm not trying to be.

[underide]

:( My friend recently called for an ambulance - he has been injecting various forms of Methadone into his femoral for many years. I once even reported that it was going well for him but no longer ...

Because he didn't rotate injection sites, his femoral vein started to bulge out of his "port" (about 1 cm wide and even deeper injection site) and has become ulcerous.

He has further gone on to develop Deep Vein Thrombosis and his upper thigh is very swollen, hot and very hard. He will never walk properly and always with a "pressure sock/bandage".

To make matters really bad, he now has Golden Staph; if it finds it's way into his bones then he is never going to leave. Amputation is also very possible but it's the Staph that's the worry.

Femoral injectors, please take heed and be careful!

If i'm not mistaken they call that 'bulge' a "fistula"
At first, when you start injecting into the femoral, you're basically going in blind every time with only arterial pulse and the distance away from it to guide you.

Over time you can develop a semi-permanent or even permanent little bump at the site where the injection was successful time and time again
It makes injecting a lot easier and faster, since it acts like a sort of a 'marker' for where you have to go in.

Even though i don't use the femoral too often anymore, i still have a slight protrusion on my right groin injection spot
It brings (or distorts?) the vein closer to the surface, the more you hit the same spot it seems, meaning that now it's become a very easy spot to hit without miss every time.

I think this might be exactly what your friend has, only obviously MUCH less pronounced, without the infection and not as life-threatening,

I can see how it can be tempting to keep using it if all or most of your surface veins are blown

All the methadone injecting probably didn't help matters in your mate's case - infection there can cripple you permenantly
Very sorry to read about your friend.
I really hope he recovers

[Chipper]

Thanks for your input, folks. I will try to keep you posted on this matter - we're all hoping he gets out alive.

There but for the grace of god etc.

[limitless_euphoria]

OMFG, we can only hope for a Christmas miracle. I wish your friend the best.

[at&t]

> I once even reported that it was going well for him but no longer ...

Yeah. I remember that very clearly........
We had someone asking whether femoral methadone is "really that bad? really that certain to lead to missing limbs?"


and we had the post replying: "Well... I know this one guy who......"





No worries, chipper, Sorry.... just sort of giving you a hard time, you know... :)
Hope that (well, your friend being stuck in the hospital aside,) you are having a great christmas over there!

(ps. and, as much as it is wasted breath, I ALSO hope that our femoral methadone injecting friends here will consider other better ROAs for their daily doses...)

Oh well.. cheers folks... ... Really hope that your buddy will be ok, Chipper (!!!)...
later, at&t

[RaZeR]

Fuck I'm really sorry to hear that I had a post not to long ago about femoral injecting concernes I had since that's my main route. The gist of it was practically everyone I know who does it has come to grevious bodily harm....but that's about all I got left.

I have backed off on it quite a bit, (I noticed one o the neck ones seems to have bounced back) but yeah I still use it. What a freaking nightmare. I guess I'd just muscle but I like coke....Shit I've made it this far...:rolleyes:

[More Feen]

All things being equal, I will jab my jugular vein before I even thought about trying to poke my femoral vein.

I know Nick explained the British/Aussie obsession with using the Fem. V., but criminy, it just seems counter to common sense.

Hope all goes well,

M F

[Chipper]

The femoral must be the 2nd to last stop on the "dope train" -- the fantastic ride that goes nowhere but which we all seem to love so much.

My friend's condition has not changed. But will it stop him ? Me thinks not.

[Syd.]

Fuck I'm really sorry to hear that I had a post not to long ago about femoral injecting concernes I had since that's my main route. The gist of it was practically everyone I know who does it has come to grevious bodily harm....but that's about all I got left.

I have backed off on it quite a bit, (I noticed one o the neck ones seems to have bounced back) but yeah I still use it. What a freaking nightmare. I guess I'd just muscle but I like coke....Shit I've made it this far...:rolleyes:

I hear you. I used to hit my femoral occasionally... still, shit always scared me... I just IM now, but I don't have a coke thing... So, I'm really not one to give great HR advice, but... please be careful.

Chipper, I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. I hope he is able to recover well.

[Chipper]

<snip>I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. I hope he is able to recover well.

Thank you, Syd. We're not very close at all but he's part of our "tribe" and also part of our world. I have a lot of sympathy for the guy and visiting him was quite confronting. Just a reminder: the price of chasing the Opi high can be very, very high. As if regular injecting isn't dangerous enough!

The thought of being crippled from this totally avoidable behaviour has made me question my own practices.

Would-be injectors, please think long and hard about the path you may choose -- It's not worth losing a limb or life over a buzz, no matter how good it feels.

Sorry to be a killjoy but I'm trying to keep this in perspective.

Anyway, here's wishing you ladies and gentlemen a safe and healthy New Year.

[underide]

All things being equal, I will jab my jugular vein before I even thought about trying to poke my femoral vein.

I know Nick explained the British/Aussie obsession with using the Fem. V., but criminy, it just seems counter to common sense.


I'm not trying to prove/disprove your personal logic or opinion on this
But hitting your jugular is what pretty much any nurse over at our needle exchanges over here will tell you is the very last stop on the IV train... as they seem to agree that while "femoral is BAD-NEWS"...Jugular is that one step FURTHER on the scale"
(if there ever was a 'scale' :rolleyes:)

I certainly acknowledge that femoral injecting is far from safe practice.
Not that any IV practice outside of hospital setting is known to be 'safe' - but yeah, I agree, you can always reduce the risks, if even just somewhat

And like has been mentioned before -any IV use can be BAD NEWS - period, especially with those users who can only use their one dominant hand, therefore only using one particular arm, for example (whether it's the right one or left one), instead of rotating limbs/spots to hit, meaning they don't usually rotate the spots as much (neither did i at the very start, but I did become ambidextrous with my use fairly quick...the fatter 2 or 3ml barrels are easier to use in that sense since you have a better grip on the barrel and it's easier to keep them steady and in place)

Oh and speaking of "logic" and "common sense", I think it might have been Nick or someone else here who said that - "logic and common sense have little to do with anything once you're up to your neck in a serious IV habit" (or something in that nature)

[limitless_euphoria]

Femoral injection is right up there with jugular injection! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

And you said your friend is IV-ing METHADONE? A liquid form I do hope? That's one of the few things I don't think I've ever heard of people booting up. I guess anything's possible, but damn, kinda like that dude who posted the pictures of the dude who IV-ed crack, is it REALLY that worth fucking yourself for life!!!

[Chipper]

<snip>And you said your friend is IV-ing METHADONE? A liquid form I do hope? That's one of the few things I don't think I've ever heard of people booting up. I guess anything's possible, but damn, kinda like that dude who posted the pictures of the dude who IV-ed crack, is it REALLY that worth fucking yourself for life!!!

Yes, liquid. The dosage is/was alarmingly high > we estimate at least 350 mgs a day (200 oral) and some days up to 700 (if what he says is true [I believe him] and obtained from a number of sources)

This guy is running from life; too many personal problems that he can't deal with (marriage breakdown, ugly divorce, custody issues, no job, isolation, impulse buying, no real friends, lives in a mess, offensive driver ... the list goes on and on).

The Methadone (his DOC) is purely his escape but he took it too far and under-estimated his capacity to maintain good health.

[30_Units]

What a scary habit, 'recreationally' (not that there's anything recreational about that monster) as well. I can't imagine the day-to-day hell that must be keeping up with that-with no job, to boot.

Hope your friend comes to his senses before suicide seems like the next best escape.

[Tony]

This guy is running from life; too many personal problems that he can't deal with (marriage breakdown, ugly divorce, custody issues, no job, isolation, impulse buying, no real friends, lives in a mess, offensive driver ... the list goes on and on).

The Methadone (his DOC) is purely his escape but he took it too far and under-estimated his capacity to maintain good health.


Chipper,

Your description of this poor fellow is heart wrenching. One can almost feel the emotional pain he is
going through. I remember once when I had many of these same things going on on my life at the
same time. It damned near killed me.


He is lucky to have you on his life.

I for one will pray for him...


Kind regards,