Is it safe to cut IV drugs with water?

Question

I am asking about Dilaudid that was cut with water. Thanks!

Answer 1

I am not a doctor. It is my understanding that most I.V. solutions can only be diluted with normal saline. You really shouldn't be messing with an I.V. though.

Answer 2

Assuming the original drug was nontoxic(and not essential for the body in the current state you were in), both of with which be true for Dilaudid, diluting it cannot make it be worse than the diluted form.

That said, there's a completely different issue which arises with intravenous injections.  The body's fluids need to have a very precise concentration of disolved solutes (300mili molars), and as such  there are a lot of mechanisms to maintain that balance.  The physiology is a bit complicated to explain, but if that the concentration changes, you can have serious health complications.

When people are given intravenous injections in hospitals, physicians are always careful to make the solution have an equal molarity to the blood streams natural concentration (which is essentially what a saline solutions purpose is).  Depending on how the iv drug started off, you may have messed up that concentration by diluting it.  If you're only planning to put a tiny ammount in, it's not a big deal, but if the if you are going to inject a moderate ammount, and the pre diluted drug was already set the body's molarity, then a bit of salt needs to be added into the solution (although I have no idea how you'd go about finding out what that value is).

Hope that helps!