[HARMRED] At-cost tourniquets

[Monte Levine]

Dan,

We have seen a huge influx of young folks here injecting tar heroin. All of
them have had HIV/AIDS education and are quite aware of trying to take care
of themselves as well as possible and as well as they know how to do so.

HIV prevention is not quite HCV prevention. When I was first diagnosed with
HCV my viral load was close to 75 million. It was so high that the
University of Washington wanted a sample of my biopsy. I use that as an
example of just how infectious HCV is and remind people to take extra
tourniquets and don't shoot alone. I find having the tournequets available
gives an opportunity for this little bit of HCV prevention.

I have always liked the idea of using bicycle inner tubes for tourniquets.
It's inventive and it does allow for bigger ones. (I have been lucky and
scored some 1" rubber elastic that was Can.$1.00 for 5 meters. I stocked
up.) Do you advise everyone to have their own? Seems like blood would not
really show up as it does on the commercial ones. It is rare, but I do know
of a case where sharing tourniquets was the only route of transmission as
this sero-discordant couple thought they were being very careful in their
injection practices, except they did share the same tourniquet.

What are other exchange folks doing to educate the young people we see who
have had HIV prevention, but still need that little bit extra for HCV
prevention?

Monte

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Dan Bigg <cra at attglobal.net> wrote:

> Andréa -
>
> Fortunately, there is a excellent source of free tourniquets in any
> bicycle repair shops in their popped innertubes!  We've been giving
> cloth bags to a couple shops here and exchanging the full bag whenever
> they called us.
>
> We and our participants then use scissors to cut the free resource to
> the desired length(s) and widths and there is no better tie...  Unlike
> the usual medical tie these can be adjusted in length to be easy to tie
> and release by oneself which we have found is  very helpful to safer
> injection.
>
> Too bad all materials can't be this easy to acquire.
>
> Peace, Dan
>
> On 8/1/11 2:52 PM, Andréa Stella wrote:
> > Does anyone have a good distributor for at-cost or incredibly cheap
> > ties (tourniquets)?  Total Access Group does supply them, but they
> > also have a flat shipping fee that boosts the price.  If anyone is
> > finding them for less than .13 a tie, please let me know.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andréa
> >
> > --
> > Andréa Stella
> > Executive Director
> > The Space at Tompkins
> > thespaceattompkins.org <http://thespaceattompkins.org>
> > 917.399.0299
> > cell: 718.213.5206
> >
> >
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>
> --
> Dan Bigg, Director                        cra at attglobal.net
> Chicago Recovery Alliance             www.anypositivechange.org
> 3110 W Taylor St                        voice 1-312-953-3797
> Chicago IL  60612                        fax 1-773-489-7448
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