Cotton fever? Or...???? wtf!

[Tainted]

Fuck yes there is! My best friend spent close to a year in the hospital after a horrible endo infection. Ended up needing open heart surgery and having her spleen removed because the infection travelled so much. I mean that shit was everywhere. She even had to have antibiotic injections directly into her eyes. Most horrifying thing I've ever witnessed. They tried treating with it antibiotics for months but couldn't seem to knock that shit out until they did the 2 major operations. Given, this isn't something that happened overnight from one bad shot so much as a 2 year run of shooting speedballs all day every day. Who knows how many dirty shots she did.
I had a horrible mrsa infection back in '05-'07 that almost killed me and towards the tail end of my run before I finally went to the hospital  I started getting what I thought was cotton fever on a regular basis. Looking back, I'm sure it was the infection raging in my bloodstream that was causing it, but fuck that shit was miserable.

That's another thing I've always wondered about. In my ten years of IV drug use, I've only ever gotten an abcess one time, on my forearm, closest towards the crook. I kept shooting in what seemed like the same vein, just 5 inches further towards hand. But I got cotton fever every night for days. Ended up going to the hospital, they stuck it and tried to suck pus out but couldn't, so they just gave me script of anti biotics and it eventually healed into a big as scar.

When you've got an abcess, even one that's not terrible (mine was big but didn't hurt too bad and had very little pus in it I assume cause I dosed it with neosporin and kept heat on it 24/7) does it make you feel like you've got cotton fever? Or is it from using the same vein z just further up (so the drugs still have to pass the part of vein adjacent am abcess)

[Anti-hero]

Endo is no joke I got it
Two years agonspent three months
in the hospital
One in ICU
Should have been a wake up call
But I'm hard headed

Just by the grace of God I got a second chance
No more needles for me
I have pushed my luck way to fuckin much

I don't know up until last month I had a death wish
Something clicked after the last phenibut episode
And I snapped
Been trying to slowly detox off of maintenance
Quit smoking
Picked my guitar back up
Just trying to put
Them prices back together

So glad God blessed me
With HeAd
Not doing it for her
Just wanna be the man she fell in love with

I don't even know how I got the endo
Casuse we by fits by the case
I really think I got it from the dentist
Had work done right before that whole fiasco
Mom committed me
Got a pneumonia
Then the endo
One big cluster fuck that I was lucky to live through
Then like a dumb ass I still shot dope

Just woke up one day
M7/24 words got to me
And said to myself stop fucking playing
With your life

Now I will always get high
Just not going to be the point of my life anymore.

[Zoops]

As someone pointed out above, endocarditis can kill you by producing vegetations (bacterial colonies) that grow inside the heart, usually on the surface of heart valves, or somewhere else where there isn't really enough fluid pressure to stop them from adhering to that tissue. Pieces of this bacterial sludge can break off, producing an embolism (blockage of) in arteries of the heart, causing an MI ("myocardial infarction" - aka a "heart attack") or brain, causing a CVA ("cerebrovascular accident" - aka a "stroke"). This is known as a vegetative embolus, or plural, emboli.

And cotton fever doesn't have to necessarily kick in immediately - it can take hours, as DoD correctly said.

Also, if you're running a fever over 105F (40.5C), SEEK EMERGENCY MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY! This is a life-threatening fever. Like it can literally "cook" your brain. Really, over 103F is considered truly dangerous, especially for children. You can rapidly cool down the body by applying isopropyl alcohol, pref. 91 or 99% conc., all over the body, or even just on the forehead, and allowing it to evaporate. A fan would speed the cooling down a lot. BUT DO NOT SMOKE OR ALLOW ANYONE IN THE ROOM TO SMOKE WHILE DOING THIS! Isopropyl alcohol produces extremely flammable vapours that can be easily ignited by a stray spark from a cigarette. 

That would totally suck if you were running a very high fever, and tried to cool yourself down with rubbing alcohol, only to light yourself on fire and get burned horribly.

[candy]

NO!!!Please do not use rubbing alcohol to take down a fever.
While it evaporates and may cool the skin, it is not safe!!!
This can lead to alcohol poisoning in both adults and children and results in coma, neurological, and cardiac problems(which is the last thing you want when you have bacterial endocarditis).

Best thing to do when you have a temperature is to take Tylenol or Motrin. Motrin is safe in babies over six months.
A tepid bath is great as well. Water should be warm to the touch, not freezing cold.

YES!! Do seek medical attention if your temperature is 105F and above.

If your fever and symptoms do not go away after a few hours or a few days, get yourself checked out.
Would be nice if we could get filters at a much cheaper cost and without having to wait a week or more from an online vendor.
Get them if you can.
 

[Z]

We should really stop calling it a cotton fever,  and instead refer to what it really is.  A bacterial infection.  Like everyone else said, it comes from dirty injection practices, or contaminated surfaces / substances.  Calling it cotton fever makes it seem less serious and dangerous then it really is. 

I don't know up until last month I had a death wish
Something clicked after the last phenibut episode
And I snapped
Been trying to slowly detox off of maintenance
Quit smoking
Picked my guitar back up
Just trying to put
Them prices back together

So glad God blessed me
With HeAd
Not doing it for her
Just wanna be the man she fell in love with

That's awesome man.  I'm really happy for you, and hope that everything works out well for you both.  I'll send you both some good wishes and good vibes from here.

i just had 2 consecutive dirty shots - i mistakenly used a bottle containing old Methadone and another time was because i forgot to swab.

i was careless on both counts.

The worst abscess I have ever had came from using an older bottle of methadone without realizing.  It had been sitting out for several months apparently, but I didn't really think about it or care at that point in time.  It was just found drugs and a chance to get high.  I missed the shot of course.  I can't even imagine how bad the fever would have hit if I hadn't, and I'm not sure which would have been the worst situation looking back on it now.


The abscess lasted for two weeks before it started going down, and at it's largest was truly the size of a baseball.  I wish that I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.  There is still a scar on my arm from this now, 4 years or so later.  It took 3 courses of antibiotics to finally start to make an impact, and I was taking massive doses of ibuprofen just to keep the swelling and the fever under control.  It was pretty nasty, and I don't want to think about what would have happened if it went untreated.
           
Methadone can be some dirty stuff, and injecting it is a dangerous game that you need to be very careful with.  I don't know if the benefit is worth the risk at that point in all honesty.

[Tainted]

We should really stop calling it a cotton fever,  and instead refer to what it really is.  A bacterial infection.  Like everyone else said, it comes from dirty injection practices, or contaminated surfaces / substances.  Calling it cotton fever makes it seem less serious and dangerous then it really is. 

But bacterial infection doesn't quite cover it either. I've heard the term simple sepsi used, and I could see that being the case in most if not all cases. I either posted or was gonna post in this thread about how w friends of mine got a fungal infection from a dirty shot, cotton fever nearly killed him, and the blood infection nearly killed him

[Dog Food]

Yep, calling it cotton fever just leaves all the dumb people who honestly believe and will argue about it that its a piece of cotton in your vein.(even after googling it and proving that it is bacteria that causes it.)  Fuckin same dumb people who think they can do dope then subutex right after...  yeah id give a free subutex to anyone that spreads that shit.

[Esoteric Anhydride]

Isopropyl metabolism produces acetone - while there are naturally small amounts of acetone in your system at any given time, having significant amounts of acetone in your system is toxic, so you risk poisoning yourself by rubbing your entire body down with rubbing alcohol - so don't do that. If you have a fever that high, you're probably gonna be sweating like a mofucker, and that moisture and a fan will contribute greatly to cooling you off; no need for alcohol (not to mention the risk of fire or explosion from the fumes).

I had a friend who was a member here who swore by an aspirin under the tongue - I haven't had a chance to try that, but it seems sorta logical. Either that or just swallow it. Drink lots of water and turn fans on, or maybe a sponge bath with water if you're not sweating much. Rubbing alcohol is just dumb tho, don't do that..

[Zoops]

Yeah, I guess using iPrOH to reduce a fever isn't the greatest idea.  In pharmacy school, I had a teacher who actually said something about how this was a good way to bring down the body temp of an infant.

That being said, I've ingested a few ml of rubbing alcohol on many occasions. I've used it as a solvent for etizolam and 2C-E and have diluted the small volume of solution with water, and drank it. Nothing untoward happened. Keep in mind this is no more than about 3ml of the stuff.