Injecting OxyContin and Pain
Sometimes instead of crushing or swallowing OxyContin tablets, addicts will choose to inject. Injecting Oxy is more hazardous for various reasons and even hard core narcotics users tend to be wary of injecting OxyContin.
To use ivOxyContin means that pills have to be crushed, completely and very finely, and mixed with water to make an injectable solution. The only safe water to inject into the body is water guaranteed to be 100% sterile and contaminant free. Outside of laboratory conditions, there is a high risk that water,syringes, filters used for iv injecting are infected and contaminated.
It is hard to crush OxyContin tablets, and addicts use a cotton filter to ensure that large chunks are not accidently injected, leading to ulceration, necrosis, pulmonary granulomas, blockage and collapse of blood vessels, and possible death. Oxycodone that lodges in muscle tissue is known to cause ulceration.
Purdue Pharma has written a 32 page warning/advice concerning the risks of using OxyContin as a drug – referring to the hazards of misuse by injection on page 11 of 32.
The 160ml dose has since been recalled from the market due to its high level of toxicity.
Between 60 and 90% of oxyContin is absorbed when taken orally, so injecting has no advantage as regards maximizing the dose. Addicts inject OxyContin for the anticipated “rush” but the amount of Oxy available from a syringe, and its filtering mean that generally the dose of oxycodone obtained is low compared to simply using the pills crushed or as manufactured.
There are various “fillers’ in OxyContin tablets, such as triacetin, talc, stearyl alcohol, lactose, that should not be injected direct into the blood. Blockages of blood vessels can lead to gangrene of extremities, swelling and acute pain. Intravenous drug injection can damage both the liver and the kidneys in their attempts to cleanse and detoxify the blood.
Most injecting OxyContin users heat the crushed Oxy in a spoon to separate off the talc, and other “inert” fillers of OxyContin that otherwise, if injected, can be lethal.
Oxycodone, the active ingredient of OxyContin is very close chemically to heroin and has much the same effects and withdrawal symptoms. Both are opioid narcotics and highly addictive. Sometimes heroin users will try injecting Oxy if they cannot get heroin, as a substitute.
OxyCodone has become known and used as “Hillbilly Heroin“, a term that was originally used for hydromorphone – another narcotic pain reliever intended to be used only for intense, acute pain, and marketed as Dilaudid (Hydromorphone Hydrochloride). Usually available in 8mg tablets – hydromorphone is up to eight times stronger than an equivalent amount of mophine.
A 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in America reported 1212 individuals aged 12 and older were using Dilaudid for recreational purposes.
Although not receiving the same wide publicity or as popular as oxycodone medications, hydromorphone (Dilaudid) abuse would appear to be increasing in the USA.
In Canada hydromorphone is known as HydromorphContin, as sold by Purdue Pharma of Pickering, Ontario, in the form of a controlled release capsule, and is a Schedule 1 narcotic.
There is current research into hydromorphone patches, for management of opioid withdrawal, instead of the methadone program for opiate addicts.Unlike OxyContin, hydromorphone is used as a sublingual drug to enter the bloodstream via the mouth and is also made in an injectable form for severe pain relief.
Behind the widespread use and diversion of painkilling opioids today, is a lack of approved alternatives for the management and control of chronic pain, including ideopathic pain that persists with no apparent cause. Medical histories show that acute pain usually resolves alongside the healing of injury, but that chronic pain can become a challenge to both locate and treat.
It has been found that those people who suffer most from chronic and diffuse pain symptoms are either of a neurotic disposition (hypochondriac) or suffer from conversion syndrome, in which mental pain is acted out as bodily symptoms eg a man becomes paralysed, who does not want to go out to work.
When opioid addicts have a preference for injecting over other routes of administration, there is a component of control, mastery and self harming behavior involved.
There is a vast area of connection as between the experience of mental and emotional distress and its physical effects on the body. Stress and tension can exacerbate the experience of pain.
Comprehensive alcohol and drug addiction recovery programs are designed to treat the whole person, and focus upon the resolution of emotional stress and the development of adequate life skills as being the key to long term drug addiction recovery.
The complete resolution of emotional tension and related addiction, in the context of a nurturing and supportive environment, will also produce a high level of relaxation, optimism, feelings of well being and a high level of physical pain relief.
People who have been prescribed and become addicted to Oxy for pain relief, might fear giving up their narcotic’s addiction, because they fear being overwhelmed by their pain.
Oxy addicts can be re-assured that comprehensive addiction recovery programs include an introduction to natural pain management techniques, when experiencing the fully supported drug free detox, and courses that help injecting OxyContin users to overcome the experience of pain in their life.
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