Azrayne
Irenicus did nothing wrong
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That's a funny question. The short answer is I never had it administered by someone else, but I accidentally administered it to myself one time.
The long answer is: Over all the time I was at my worst I never had to get it from an EMT - I was always very careful measuring my doses using decent scales and I always carefully titrated the dose from new batches of H, so the worst that happened was having a friend slap me awake once or twice because I took some sleeping pills the night before while waiting to get on and they must have still been lingering in my system. (it was always 12+ hours later and as a rule I was very careful about reducing my dose if I'd had benzos or booze lately, but sometimes shit just metabolizes weirdly I guess).
Anyway I eventually got sick of the whole lifestyle, as happens, and when my doctor suggested suboxone it didn't sound like as bad an idea as it had when it had first been suggested earlier. I stuck with the program perfectly for 3 months (well I started going out drinking and partying and taking other drugs at gigs again, but I didn't take any opiates or inject anything, which I guess counts as an overall win). The timing worked out too, because the major oxy hookup got shut down 2 weeks later and all my friends who were still getting high were stuck scrambling in a sellers market of small timers people selling their own scripts for absurd prices (the heroin scene in my city is pitiful, and I only used H when friends brought some over from the East Coast).
I knew that people injected suboxone - which, I dunno if you're aware, but contains buprenorphine, a kinda semi-opiate which gives a kind of background buzz but doesn't get you seriously high (while also blocking other opiates from working, preventing spur of the moment relapse situations), and naloxone, the theory being that people won't inject it because the naloxone will put them in withdrawal from the bupe. Common junky wisdom is that this theory is false, that because the buprenorphine is more potent than the naloxone, the naloxone doesn't block it like it would less potent opioids.
In the vast majority of cases this seems to be true, because I know a lot of people who've injected suboxone and had absolutely no problems. I've seen it done. It still doesn't get themhighas far as I can tell, but I guess it makes them feel good in a kind of weird placebo way - the whole ritual of prepping and shooting and all that.
One day about 3 months into the whole suboxone thing, I was bored and, purely for the experience of the thing, I decided to try injecting my dose to see if it felt any different. So I took the plastic strip, let it dissolve in water, ran it through a micron filter (injecting pharmaceuticals without proper filtration is gross and dangerous, always cringe when I see people shoot pharms filtered through cotton in documentaries), landed a vein (a much easier task after 3 months off other opioids), pressed down the plunger aaaaand.... FUCK. I knew something was wrong instantly, my stomach plunged and I simultaneously broke out in a chill and started pouring sweat. I sprinted to the bathroom just in time to spend the next 20 or 30 minutes pouring sloppy liquid out both ends while sweating through my shirt with my heart slamming in my chest. I had been pretty sick before, but never this sick.
Eventually there was nothing left to come out of my poophole and so I sprinted back to my room, necked 5 valium and started preparing an intramuscular shot of phenergan (an antihistamine and potent anti-nausea med), stopping off to run out and throw up on the front lawn (wasting the valium). I finally got the injection ready and administered it, then ran back to the bathroom to vomit a couple more times until it kicked in 10 minutes later or so. I was still sweating and shivering like crazy, heart pounding away like I was running a marathon, all my joints feeling like they'd started splintering and stabbing into my flesh, but I'd stopped expelling liquids from my mouth/ass, so I grabbed another 5 valium and washed them down with a glass of water. Then I took off my sweat drenched shirt and slightly vomit covered boxers, curled up under a hot shower and rode it out. Somewhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours after the initial injection, I stopped feeling like some kind of demonic plaything. About 10 minutes after that, I actually began to feel pretty groovy. Maybe the bupe was stronger once the naloxone wore off? But more likely it was just the valium and the warm shower and the sheer relief of the naloxone leaving my system.
I proceeded to spend the next hour cleaning the bathroom, the toilet (I've done a lot of throwing up in my life due to aforementioned sensitivity to the side effects of opiates, but I've never seen that much vomit in one place before, combined with how much diarrhea had spewed out my butt for that first half hour or so, the place stank), my room, some of the intervening spaces and then, finally myself. Then I went onto the internet and told everyone who'd ever said that the naloxone is overpowered by the bupe to go fuck themselves. That said, I had no-one but myself to blame, shooting a full dose of a drug I'd never injected before instead of slowly ramping up the dose, but I still make a point of mentioning that the "bupe overpowers naloxone" appears to depend on metabolism and isn't universal whenever the subject is raised. I did try it with lower doses later on (for science!), and while I didn't get as dramatically sick, I always experienced some period of withdrawal more or less directly correlating in severity to how much I injected.
Realistically, I think my body just has the same weird sensitivity to naloxone that it does to the histaminergic side effects of opiates. I've noticed even when taking suboxone properly I sometimes feel a tiny bit sick for the first hour or so (and I've heard the same from other people - only anecdotal accounts, but still), and for the first year or two I always pooped directly after dosing, which suggests that there's a kind of very mild withdrawal going on, otherwise I'd think the easiest time to poop should have been before dosing, when my buprenorphine blood levels are at their lowest. I don't know, everyone is different and all that (same way 10% of the population get no effect from codeine), but I do know that precipitated withdrawal is possibly the most hellish single experience I've undergone, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
So those "local druggies" might be pissed because their buzz got cut off early, but they might also be pissed because the naloxone dose wasn't titrated properly and the person was thrown right into the middle of hellish withdrawals. Granted, that's no reason to be rude to someone just doing their job and trying to help, but it kinda puts it in perspective (assuming it wasn't intentional, I know some EMT's and doctors who are kind and compassionate towards addicts, but I know a lot more who treat addicts like the scum of the earth and would probably think that a little precipitated withdrawal would do them some good - never mind the most likely result is the addict them going out, shooting more H to try overpower the naloxone and get well, then ODing again when it wears off, either taxing the medical system further or dying before they have a chance to overcome their addiction).
The long answer is: Over all the time I was at my worst I never had to get it from an EMT - I was always very careful measuring my doses using decent scales and I always carefully titrated the dose from new batches of H, so the worst that happened was having a friend slap me awake once or twice because I took some sleeping pills the night before while waiting to get on and they must have still been lingering in my system. (it was always 12+ hours later and as a rule I was very careful about reducing my dose if I'd had benzos or booze lately, but sometimes shit just metabolizes weirdly I guess).
Anyway I eventually got sick of the whole lifestyle, as happens, and when my doctor suggested suboxone it didn't sound like as bad an idea as it had when it had first been suggested earlier. I stuck with the program perfectly for 3 months (well I started going out drinking and partying and taking other drugs at gigs again, but I didn't take any opiates or inject anything, which I guess counts as an overall win). The timing worked out too, because the major oxy hookup got shut down 2 weeks later and all my friends who were still getting high were stuck scrambling in a sellers market of small timers people selling their own scripts for absurd prices (the heroin scene in my city is pitiful, and I only used H when friends brought some over from the East Coast).
I knew that people injected suboxone - which, I dunno if you're aware, but contains buprenorphine, a kinda semi-opiate which gives a kind of background buzz but doesn't get you seriously high (while also blocking other opiates from working, preventing spur of the moment relapse situations), and naloxone, the theory being that people won't inject it because the naloxone will put them in withdrawal from the bupe. Common junky wisdom is that this theory is false, that because the buprenorphine is more potent than the naloxone, the naloxone doesn't block it like it would less potent opioids.
In the vast majority of cases this seems to be true, because I know a lot of people who've injected suboxone and had absolutely no problems. I've seen it done. It still doesn't get themhighas far as I can tell, but I guess it makes them feel good in a kind of weird placebo way - the whole ritual of prepping and shooting and all that.
One day about 3 months into the whole suboxone thing, I was bored and, purely for the experience of the thing, I decided to try injecting my dose to see if it felt any different. So I took the plastic strip, let it dissolve in water, ran it through a micron filter (injecting pharmaceuticals without proper filtration is gross and dangerous, always cringe when I see people shoot pharms filtered through cotton in documentaries), landed a vein (a much easier task after 3 months off other opioids), pressed down the plunger aaaaand.... FUCK. I knew something was wrong instantly, my stomach plunged and I simultaneously broke out in a chill and started pouring sweat. I sprinted to the bathroom just in time to spend the next 20 or 30 minutes pouring sloppy liquid out both ends while sweating through my shirt with my heart slamming in my chest. I had been pretty sick before, but never this sick.
Eventually there was nothing left to come out of my poophole and so I sprinted back to my room, necked 5 valium and started preparing an intramuscular shot of phenergan (an antihistamine and potent anti-nausea med), stopping off to run out and throw up on the front lawn (wasting the valium). I finally got the injection ready and administered it, then ran back to the bathroom to vomit a couple more times until it kicked in 10 minutes later or so. I was still sweating and shivering like crazy, heart pounding away like I was running a marathon, all my joints feeling like they'd started splintering and stabbing into my flesh, but I'd stopped expelling liquids from my mouth/ass, so I grabbed another 5 valium and washed them down with a glass of water. Then I took off my sweat drenched shirt and slightly vomit covered boxers, curled up under a hot shower and rode it out. Somewhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours after the initial injection, I stopped feeling like some kind of demonic plaything. About 10 minutes after that, I actually began to feel pretty groovy. Maybe the bupe was stronger once the naloxone wore off? But more likely it was just the valium and the warm shower and the sheer relief of the naloxone leaving my system.
I proceeded to spend the next hour cleaning the bathroom, the toilet (I've done a lot of throwing up in my life due to aforementioned sensitivity to the side effects of opiates, but I've never seen that much vomit in one place before, combined with how much diarrhea had spewed out my butt for that first half hour or so, the place stank), my room, some of the intervening spaces and then, finally myself. Then I went onto the internet and told everyone who'd ever said that the naloxone is overpowered by the bupe to go fuck themselves. That said, I had no-one but myself to blame, shooting a full dose of a drug I'd never injected before instead of slowly ramping up the dose, but I still make a point of mentioning that the "bupe overpowers naloxone" appears to depend on metabolism and isn't universal whenever the subject is raised. I did try it with lower doses later on (for science!), and while I didn't get as dramatically sick, I always experienced some period of withdrawal more or less directly correlating in severity to how much I injected.
Realistically, I think my body just has the same weird sensitivity to naloxone that it does to the histaminergic side effects of opiates. I've noticed even when taking suboxone properly I sometimes feel a tiny bit sick for the first hour or so (and I've heard the same from other people - only anecdotal accounts, but still), and for the first year or two I always pooped directly after dosing, which suggests that there's a kind of very mild withdrawal going on, otherwise I'd think the easiest time to poop should have been before dosing, when my buprenorphine blood levels are at their lowest. I don't know, everyone is different and all that (same way 10% of the population get no effect from codeine), but I do know that precipitated withdrawal is possibly the most hellish single experience I've undergone, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
So those "local druggies" might be pissed because their buzz got cut off early, but they might also be pissed because the naloxone dose wasn't titrated properly and the person was thrown right into the middle of hellish withdrawals. Granted, that's no reason to be rude to someone just doing their job and trying to help, but it kinda puts it in perspective (assuming it wasn't intentional, I know some EMT's and doctors who are kind and compassionate towards addicts, but I know a lot more who treat addicts like the scum of the earth and would probably think that a little precipitated withdrawal would do them some good - never mind the most likely result is the addict them going out, shooting more H to try overpower the naloxone and get well, then ODing again when it wears off, either taxing the medical system further or dying before they have a chance to overcome their addiction).
