14 DAY TRIAL // In late September, the news broke that two cases of addiction to a flesh-eating drug dubbed Krokodil had been reported in the state of Arizona in the US. Still, Daily Mail has learned that the use of this drug is more widespread than assumed.
Thus, the publication has talked to two sisters from Joliet, Illinois, i.e. Amber and Angie Neitzel, who both say that they have been using said drug for about a year and a half.
If this is indeed the case, this means that not only is this drug available in other parts of the country besides Arizona, but that Krokodil entered the US sooner than initially estimated.
The two sisters interviewed by Daily Mail say that, when they first started using Krokodil, they had no idea what they were doing. On the contrary, they believed that they were using run-off-the-mill heroin.
By the looks of it, they eventually switched from heroin to Krokodil both because it was considerably cheaper, and because the high that they experienced from it was more intense than the one induced by heroin consumption.
In just a few weeks, the sisters noticed that lesions were beginning to form on their limbs. Fast forwards several months, and Angie's health condition deteriorated to such an extent that she had to be rushed to a local hospital.
“We thought it was just normal heroin, in fact it was actually better because it was cheap and it gave a really intense high, much, much stronger than normal dope. But it didn't take long before we both started to get these horrible deep sores on our bodies, particularly our arms and legs.”
“You can get marks and bleeding from shooting up heroin, but nothing like this. They are deep holes and the skin is just rotting away. It's hard to describe how revolting they are,” Amber said.
Dr. Abhin Singla, who treated Angie and who is now looking after both sisters, has confirmed that Amber and Angie regularly use the Russian flesh-eating drug.
“The moment I saw Angie I knew what she had been taking. It was Krokodil without a shadow of a doubt. All the symptoms matched up 100 per cent,” the doctor told the publication.
“The sores are very different to anything else, they go right down to the bone. It is extremely graphic and worse than anything I've seen before,” he added.
By the looks of it, the publicity that the sisters' story received convinced several other people to contact their doctors and schedule an appointment.
“We have had a number of people who have come in over the last few days who fear they may have taken the drug, so the exposure is doing some real good. I expect to see a lot more in the coming months because I believe this will spread,” Dr. Abhin Singla explained.
Presently, authorities are still trying to figure out when and how this drug entered the US.