Shooting drugs is always dangerous, no matter what. One area you definitely don’t want to inject drugs is the penis. Here’s what happened recently with one man’s drug use terrifying mishap.
A 35-year-old man arrived at the BronxCare Hospital in New York in excruciating pain after injecting cocaine into the dorsal vein of his penis. It is the vein that runs the entire length of the shaft.
Reportedly, he had been using the vein since most of his other injection sites were damaged due to an extensive history of intravenous drug use. He admitted to having injected cocaine into the same site at least twice in the last two weeks without issue.
Upon examination, doctors found that his penis was inflamed, ulcerous, and was excreting a “foul-smelling serious discharge”. He was also diagnosed with necrosis, or rotting tissue, in the area.
The medical staff put him on an IV of antibiotics and his condition slowly improved. He refused to have surgery to cut away dying tissue from his penis, but consented to wound care.
He spent five days on antibiotics and was given a 10-day course of pills for follow-up.
It may come as no surprise that the man never returned to the hospital for follow-up treatment, so it is unclear as to whether he made a full recovery.
“His clinical condition improved, but he refused to go for drug rehabilitation treatment and was later lost to follow-up,” his medical records state.
Cocaine is a particularly dangerous drug to inject.
“Any route of administration can potentially lead to absorption of toxic amounts of cocaine causing heart attacks, strokes, or seizures, all of which can result in sudden death,” experts warn.
It is also possible that cocaine may be cut with levamisole, a parasitic worming treatment for animals that causes skin to rot. The New York medics were unable to test for levamisole in their patient due to a lack of follow up.
