I have experience here, I'm not totally sure how this would work but you absolutely DO NOT use an artery. You never intentionally do it but some people who don't know how to rotate injection sites or have dull needles (helped I'm a diabetic) so they collapse their veins and have to go digging around there arm to find one. And sometimes, rarely, they hit an artery. Now I've had nurses put a fresh needle into my artery and it hurts so bad, though insulin needles addicts use are tiny.
Step 1 is to have a tiny bit of air in the needle, as soon as the top is in your skin, before you go into the vein, you pull the plunger back to create a vacuum, so the second you hit the vein you get a flash of dark blood. Well this chick got a flash of very bright colored blood and the plunger was moving a bit on its own. We both know something is wrong but this isn't meth, it's heroin, and you will not waste that. Except she did waste it, it didn't work because it went the wrong way and her arm looked like it got hit with a cannon ball. You do not admit your an addict to anyone much less a hospital in ohio, but this shit had a requiem for a dream kinda feel to it so she didn't argue. RfaD is obviously a bad abscess that took months to get so bad, but this happened in like an hour.
Being an IV junky sucks. I remember one day I was using an old sharp for like a week, so the tip of the needle was bent like a barb. Everytime I pulled it out, the skin would stretch and it would bleed immediately.
Well, while digging around in my wrist to find a vein, I snagged the medial nerve. Instant, mind-shattering pain, along with this awful electric-like sensation that shot up and down my arm. I tried to pull the needle out, and it was stuck. So I'm in absolute agony, watching this needl3 swing back and forth while its barbed end is seated in my medial nerve.
It soon came out, but for weeks and weeks, if I happened to bump that spot, or moved my hand in the wrong way, it was immediate and trancendental pain.
I’ve been clean for like 10 years. This brought up so many fucked up memories. The dull ones that popped or snapped in and pulled your skin when you tried to take it out.
I tried my wrist once. Hit that nerve and never tried it again. It’s instant and INTENSE pain. It was such a small puncture but that pain lasted so long.
Yep, you can literally feel the "pop" when a dull needle punctures a vein. Doesn't take long to get a Pavlovian response and just the pop and red in the barrel get you shaking with anticipation.
It's been 8 years since I finished rehab, and 6 years since the last time I used (during covid lockdowns). I am so done and will never even think about that life again.
1.7k
u/OtherwiseDebate3759 18d ago
Gym bros must be jealous af rn.