Alison has worked within Harm Reduction for  25 years and leads  a drop-in wound clinic service for people who inject drugs.  Her PhD explored causes, risk factors and methods of reducing harm for young people with chronic leg ulceration who inject drugs (PWID).

Presentation at The Society of Tissue Viability 2025 Conference

Injecting injuries and leg ulceration in people who inject drugs

Objectives

This session is aimed at anyone who works with or is interested in people who inject drugs.

• Participants will:
• Be introduced to the context of drug use, including emerging drug trends
• Gain a broad understanding of the presentation of injecting injuries
• Understand nuances related to venous disease caused by injecting
• Consider ways to reduce harm

Abstract

People who inject drugs (PWID) are known to often have significant childhood or adult  trauma and experience stigma as a result of their addiction. Routes into drug use may be misunderstood and behaviours misinterpreted.

This presentation aims to discuss some of the background and context to injecting drug use and impact on the skin. Harm from the injecting process can present in different ways and this presentation will provide an overview of the common injecting injuries including early venous disease and known risk factors.

Emerging drug trends, changing injecting habits including rising cocaine use will also be discussed.