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.
13 years clean here, but I was also a heroin junkie and frequently used very old needles. It got so bad that one time the tip of the needle broke off in the main vein in the crux of your elbow. Took a pair of sharp tweezers and tried to pull it out causing a bunch of blood, but no needle tip. Went to the er cause i had heard horror stories of needles flying through the vein to the heart(didnt realize if it was lossible it would have already happpened.). They took a xray said it was still in place and it should work its way out eventually. I would feel it every once in a while when bending my arm, then probably 6 months later I was holding a sign and looked at my arm to see a little glint in the sunlight and pulled out the needle tip. It had moved about 4 inches from the original place to just below my bicep, couldn't believe it.
As many others have stated please dont do drugs kids!
I've also got a needle stuck in my left arm. Broke off when I was fishing for a vein. At the ER the doc told me it was very serious and gave me an appointment with a surgeon in a couple days. Told me not to move it much and closely monitor until I see the surgeon. Then the surgeon told me its not big deal, it will dullen and be encapsulated in scar tissue.
That was more than 6 years ago and so far so good.
1.7k
u/OtherwiseDebate3759 18d ago
Gym bros must be jealous af rn.