Thanks for the lovely sentiment, but liability in the US is so absurd that the statement is completely standard. Working in a hospital, I have relatives and friends of patients asking me all kinds of questions about their own medical conditions. I tell them all the same thing. Until you enter a doctor-patient relationship, there is no way that any health care provider will offer any advice.

Gotta love self-righteous Canadians.

Spend next 6 months working your butt off to get insurance.

Get insurance then get HIV test.

If you pass, cancel your insurance.

If you fail, hope they cover pre-existing conditions. If they don't cover pre-existing conditions, get someone to fake an HIV test result for like 2 months before saying you are clean.

Use insurance to go to doctor, take meds, open a bunch of Burger Kings.

Yeah, I don't know where he lives either. Must be like Somalia or South Dakota or something. So sickening.

lol the title made me laugh

lol at self righteous canadians coming from an american

a) I'm not American, super try though.

b)

Man maybe you should consider not living in a crack den.

i tried injecting crack once. gave me kidney stones.

LOL at the "revolting comment"
So you guys want the ER triage nurse to tell him what to do (thereby illegally practicing medicine) and not make up a chart or anything?
The lawyers would be salivating for that one when he comes up HIV or hepatitis positive anytime in his entire life. That's probably worth at least a million in the lawsuit lottery.
Take your time machine back to the fifties.

We get calls every night from people and would love to tell them what to do, would save us from having to see them, but the legal nightmare prevents it. It may not even be covered insurance-wise since there is no doctor-patient relationship established. I could rant about defensive medicine and ridiculous medicolegal concerns for hours but I'll shut up now.

must be danish then

It can have negative side effects including nausia, for pretty much the entire time you are on them. Also they are pretty powerful drugs, and there is a non-zero risk of more serious side effects including liver damage.

Most post exposure treatment will include liver tests before and afterwards to check for this though.

Given what other people have said re actual risk of infection from this particular exposure, I think you'd have consider not going for treatment.

Anyways, what kind of place are you living that used to have crack addicts?? I'm pretty sure you could never say that about any place I've lived...

I think you're trying to make a comment about the U.S. government and said country instead. However, all of that is moot because the hospital is likely run by a private corporation, not the government and certainly not by the country.

As for the OP, I'd definitely angle for some new carpeting.

I thought he meant the needle had lsd on it and that was the trip he was reporting. so disappointed.

as an aside, has anyone heard about terrorists planting ebola contaminated needles in abandon apartments' carpets?

Do you see why this not only does not refute my point, but actually supports it?

Rent a metal detector to check for more needles. The fact that you are scared in your own home really sucks. Get the detector, and kick your shoes off.

The percentages doc gave you were for needle sticks that happened fairly soon after the syringe leaves the other persons body

From Web MD.

HAV can live outside the body for months, depending on the environmental conditions.


HBV can survive outside the body at least 7 days and still be capable of transmitting infection.

Recent studies have shown that HCV can survive outside the body and still transmit infection for 16 hours, but not longer than 4 days.

It looks like you are only at risk for Hepatitis A since the apartment has almost certainly been vacant for several days while they inspected it for damage from the last tenants.

HAV generally goes away on its own so you really don't have to worry about getting infected from needles in your apartment it just is painful.

also WebMD

Hepatitis A is a liver infection caused by a virus. It goes away on its own in almost all cases. Hepatitis A does not lead to long-term liver problems.

Nope. I don't understand how a country is capable of treating it's citizenry in any particular manner. Are you trying to say the citizenry has a right to free professional medical care?

The OP had the option of seeing a doctor about his problem so if you're thinking he was denied medical care, he wasn't.

This is actually a really good idea! Are they sensitive enough to pickup a needle though?

OP,

Sorry for the situation. You didn't make it exactly super-clear, but when you start your new job, do you get health coverage? Hopefully. Either way, it seems like the time factor with the needle is going to protect you pretty well. GL with everything.

Jesus christ, stop being such a hysterical wimp. I would've just thrown away the damn needle and never thought about it again. Try to gather some sobriety.

On a side note, the health care system in the US is extremely disturbing.

Theres a more common, home adapted tool recently developed for this very purpose. I believe it was originally created in the 1980s, some speculate as early as the 1950s. It's called a vacuum.