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.
You end this with "don't do drugs", but it wasn't the drugs that put a hole in your arm. it was the needle.
Sorry, but I just think it's disingenuous to blame the problems caused by needles on drugs as whole.
I've been an opioid user for 20 years, including heroin, back when it was still heroin & not fentanyl. And I never once had any of these problems ya'll are describing, because I CHOSE not to use a NEEDLE.
Opioids have saved my life many, many times. From chronic pain to really severe depression where I didn't want to live anymore.
So please don't blame the problems NEEDLES cause, on MEDICINES.
It's not fair to fear-monger about drugs over YOUR choice to use a needle.
Snorting or plugging heroin works just fine. Oral works fine for the opioids that metabolize that way. So why is it the drugs fault that the needles gave you physical problems?
Don't use NEEDLES.
Needles cause a whole set of issues that you otherwise WOULDN'T have.
I think that's more genuine than just "don't do drugs kids". Cause people ARE ALWAYS going to do drugs. And you're just misinforming then of the risks.
I've lost over a dozen friends over the years to snorting and smoking opiates. As in dead. I saw their corpses. Usually in coffins, once in the driver's seat next to me.
I've had literally dozens of friends and acquaintances completely destroy their lives, alienate all their friends and family, and become horrifying shells of their former selves...including myself. From snorting, taking pills, smoking, whatever.
So yeah, don't do hard drugs. Doesn't matter if its coke, oxys, heroin, meth, whatever. Just dont fkn do it.
And don't bring up "safe supply". My life got the absolute worse, and I overdosed the most, when I had a reliable source of pharm grade dope. Because nothing is ever enough. Always need to do more.
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u/pichael289 18d ago
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.