[HARMRED] At-cost tourniquets

[Dan Bigg]

Excellent thoughts Monte!

One more I will add are the clean surfaces that truly constitute a hep 
preventative injection.  This is both a new surface to prepare your 
stuff on and a clean, new pad to stop bleeding after injection -- 
reduces bruising as well -- and it doesn't have alcohol which prolongs 
bleeding.  We call them safety squares and they were found by Lauretta 
Grau for a study we were doing with Yale a decade ago.  You can find 
them at the link below.  We have a DD workshop put 10-12 in a ziplock 
bag for us...

http://www.bandagesplus.com/prd/101/842/Zelletten-Swabs.html

Peace, Dan

On 8/2/11 1:44 AM, Monte Levine wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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/>
>     <http://thespaceattompkins.org <http://thespaceattompkins.org/>>
>     > 917.399.0299 <tel:917.399.0299>
>     > cell: 718.213.5206 <tel:718.213.5206>
>     >
>     >
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>     --
>     Dan Bigg, Director cra at attglobal.net <mailto:cra at attglobal.net>
>     Chicago Recovery Alliance www.anypositivechange.org
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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