From babyhood through to your death, your body is a breeding ground for over 200 species of bacteria. A large percentage of bacteria, enjoy free accommodation on that two square metres of covering you’ve got – your skin. They usually aren’t bad guys, unless they find a way to get into your bloodstream.
Bacteria love needles!
Enter the needle! With anywhere between hundreds to thousands of bacteria on each square cm of skin, you simply can’t stop them getting in each time you inject. But your body has natural defences to kill them in the blood stream, and it usually can cope with a small number of bacteria. Let's meet one of the most common ones that cause problems for injecting drug users...
Staphylococcus epidermidis
Steve (not his real name) is a Staphylococcus epidermidis. Steve is into the asexual lifestyle, enjoys life on the skin, but keen to thumb a lift on your fit, then relocate to your heart valves and wreak havoc.
How to use swabs properly
Every time you swab, it kills most of the bacteria off. So the few that make it in on your fit hopefully will get killed off by your immune system. It is the actual drying of the alcohol that kills bacteria, and why smart users only wipe the swab once, and in one direction only.
Lucky for some bacteria, some users keep scrubbing away, or moving the swab in circles. This only moves the bacteria around on your skin and leaves more of them to get inside you. Even worse is if you don’t swab at all – then it’s party time for bacteria.
Cousins of those bacteria on the skin like to hang out in water. The only way to guarantee your water is clean is using the ampoules that come from your needle & syringe outlet, or boiling tap water for five minutes. Tap water will have some bacteria in it, but it is still actually better than bottled water from your supermarket.
Bacteria are everywhere
They are on your fingers, tourniquet and drug preparation area. Warm soapy water is great for getting rid of most bacteria. It doesn’t kill them, but counteracts the oily surfaces that allow bacteria to stick around. Let's meet another type of bacterium that lives on your skin.
Corynebacterium and micrococcus
Corrie (not her real name)is a corynebacterium. Corrie likes skin-to-skin contact, but really gets off on causing skin infections or heart valve damage via needles.
Mick (not his real name) is a micrococcus. He is another skin-dweller, pretty much harmless unless his landlord’s immune system is in really bad shape ie. HIV or AIDS
Bacteria in your mix
There is often an army of bacteria in your drug too, because it isn’t manufactured in sterile conditions.The best way to stop them getting into you is to use a 0.2 micron wheel filter, which is fine enough to strain them out. But remember not to reuse it – bacteria can start growing in the filter within a few hours, and you can’t kill them by freezing either - they just go to sleep.
Think about alternatives to injecting
Your best defence is simply to find safer ways to get your drug into you. Injecting is the riskiest way because it bypasses your body’s best defence — your skin. Have a try at snorting, smoking, swallowing or shafting, whichever technique works for your drug!
Not all bacteria are evil
Bacteria are seriously bad critters when it comes to injecting, but they do some pretty useful stuff too. They help to break down milk into cheese or yoghurt, so bacteria shit can not only taste good, but be good for you. Other types live in our intestines and help break food down for us, although this also leads to some nasty farts as well.
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Reproduced with permission of Black Poppy, a UK-based drug user organisation. Check out their website at www.blackpoppy.org.uk for heaps of useful information.
