“Your infection markers are through the roof ... Ultrasound found an aneurysm the size of a golf ball in your femoral artery. We’ll need to do surgery and I’ll be honest with you: it’s a high-risk procedure.” My mind flitted back to the evening I think it started when my hands were shaking so much from my medication regimen that I hit my artery. Of course, I was so impatient to get my fix in me that I didn’t bother with swabs. Bad mistake.

Kate is a proud Aboriginal woman who has a history of injecting heroin. She wants to share her unique experience of clearing hep C twice, nearly 2 decades apart. Her first treatment was in prison in the early 2000s, with Interferon. Soon after she got out of prison, she got hep C again and didn’t get treated until 2019. Getting treated a second time has been life changing for her and she now supports peers with hep C and drug use.

A number of things come up for users at this time of year: organising pharmacotherapy doses and inter-state transfers; wondering if your dealer is going to be working on Christmas Day; sorting out injecting equipment when NSP hours change over Christmas as staff have a well-earned break! ...But for many of us, there is no break from being a user. And the holiday period brings additional health issues for users, particularly overdose prevention and bloodborne virus awareness.

Peers On Wheels (POW) is a new pilot project NUAA has launched. The project delivers mobile peer-led testing and treatment services for hepatitis C (hep C). POW is friendly, confidential, quick and easy. POW is visiting a bunch of places in NSW over the coming months. To help spread the word to peers, we interviewed MJ, the project’s Coordinator. 

This article takes a look at the effectiveness of filtering pills or capsules. These photographs were made using MS Contin and Kapanol mixed in cold water but can equally relate to Oxycontin and other pharmaceutical drugs. A note here: hot water is dangerous because it can appear to dissolve particles but these will reform later when cooled down - in your veins.  

Ice, crystal meth, shabu … whatever you call it, these tips will help you remain safe when you use it.

Some people who inject drugs don’t have much trouble finding veins, and don’t need to use a tourniquet, while others have always used them as part of their injecting practice. Other people decide to add tournies to their injecting routine as they get older and their veins get harder to find over time. We thought it was timely to do a bit of a review so people could develop or update skills and techniques in using tournies to get the most out of them. 

What is an acidifier? And why add it to your mix?

Bridie and Pandora are two older women who share some of their changes — the things they have learnt — from the practical to the philosophical

The basics of keeping your veins healthy

“Gender had always felt like play for me, and using meth felt like my way to indulge in the drama of the performance. I got off on how binary my expressions were – in a way it was kind of like drag.”

“My gender was linked to the type of sex I was having. And the type of sex I was having always closely related to the types of drugs I was using.  When I started shooting opioids, it wasn’t long before needles became a central part of my sex life…”

User’s News invited people who use apps to party to come together to talk about their experiences and give us some advice.

‘'Because you can’t talk about it anywhere else, talking about injecting methadone with your peers is important.’'

‘One of the things I like about NUAA is that they give out wheel filters.’

‘When I inject into my veins, it’s my way or the highway.’

“While I’ve caused myself a few “headaches” by taking safe using seriously, it’s helped me steer clear of some nasty “migraines” like bloodborne viruses.