WHAT ARE THE RISK FACTORS FOR ABSCESS DEVELOPMENT AMONG INJECTING DRUG USERS?
Risk Factors
In India, the drugs used by IDUs differ from one region to another. It is observed that in the Northeastern states, IDUs inject heroin (pure form) and at times when heroin is not available, they resort to injecting Dextropropoxyphene capsules.
In other parts of India, brown sugar (an impure form of heroin) mixed with water or a cocktail of various pharmaceutical drugs is injected. This cocktail contains buprenorphine either alone (which is an uncommon practice) or often mixed with benzodiazepines (e.g. Diazepam), pheniramine maleate (Avil) or promethazine (Phenergan). In some other places, pentazocine (Fortwin) alone or in combination with other sedatives/hypnotics is injected. It may be noticed that many of these drugs such as heroin, brown sugar or dextropropoxyphene capsules are not prepared in injectable form.
Injections are prepared in much more sterile conditions as compared to tablets/capsules. At the street level, these drugs are often mixed with adulterants, which can cause further irritation to the skin when injected. The capsules/tablets contain a number of inactive ingredients (such as starch, lactose, magnesium stearate) along with the active chemical, which is required to bind and dissolve the tablet/capsule. These adulterants/inactive ingredients can enter the vein during injecting and can cause abscesses.
No comments:
Post a Comment