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Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: axy975 on May 22, 2013, 02:37 am

Title: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: axy975 on May 22, 2013, 02:37 am
I have a 12 year hx of IV drug abuse and never have I had this happen.  I was injecting into my antecubital fossa vein I thought but did have to go a little deeper than usual.  Draw was a little lighter red than usual but I didn't think much of it at the time.  After emptying the plunger I untied and waited for that blissful inner radiance to start but instead had an memes pain in my thumb.  My whole hand and forearm then started hurting, my thumb and first finger went numb and my entire forearm started to break out in hives.  I must have hit the radial artery branch where it first comes off the brachial since I first felt it in my thumb.  Holy SHIT was that scary!!!   It took a mere 30 seconds for my hand and forearm to turn beet red, tingle and start to swell. 

I immediately starting pouring cold water on my arm, elevated it above my head and downed some Benadryl.  After 30-45 minutes I have minimal residual swelling and redness but my thumb is still a Lil numb.  I would have went to the ER but since I work in healthcare that would have been career suicide.  Granted, if things had continued to progress the other direction, I'd rather have 2 hands and no job than vice-versa.  I'm very thankful that the dope I was using cooked up very clean so here is my shout out to STM!!! :-).  If it had hella impurities I'm sure I would be in a different scenario right now.  I guess I'm posting to say pay attention and use clean gear since you never know; mistakes can happen.  I also wanted to publicly acknowledge the purity of STM's stuff since I know I got off lucky there.

Stay safe my friends,

Axy
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: Asal88 on May 31, 2013, 10:48 am
Fucking hell, glad to hear you came out ok
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: motek on May 31, 2013, 10:58 am
It sounds like you may have just gone 'through' the vein and pumped the liquid into the other side,  This is quite common and you get all the symptoms you mention.

As long as the shot wasn''t 'dirty' you 'should be' ok, but keep an eye on the injection site for a week or so, and IF it gets in ANYWAY infected get yo arse down to emergency asap and tell them the truth ... people have lost limbs from lying only to fess up when things start falling off!!

Good luck amigo


mmmmmmmm motek :o
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: bodnostrokulum on May 31, 2013, 11:19 am
You pierced the vein as the colegue above expained to you  ;) be carefull next time or better stop IV,
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: hemolyzer on June 01, 2013, 12:47 pm
Dude, I also work in healthcare but I probably would have gone to the ER to get checked out. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere you can always go to another hospital in the same family of hospitals, and if someone looks your shit up it would be them getting fired for violating HIPPA, not you. Glad you still have two arms though.
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: pakchoi23 on June 01, 2013, 05:01 pm
I hit the artery in the crook of my elbow once, it was so painful I barely got half of 0.1cc into my arm before I had to withdraw the needle. Burned like a knife, or fire. Effects were the same as you describe though. Massive pain and rash.

A friend banged up into her femoral artery and pretty much passed out with the pain. Still had the effect of the H but went through similar effect to a dirty hit before they managed to nod out.

Painful and quite scary.

Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: motek on June 02, 2013, 08:29 am
fortunately I've always taken great care with my veins and IV technique ... but these folks who hit up into their femoral arteries ON PURPOSE blow me away!!

Shit! I think hitting up in ones jugular vein to be hardcore!  But I have known quite a few who do, and as far as I recall when with them doing so, no one was complaining about the pain!?
 
AFAIK  although 'missing' is usually quite painful, even if it's plain water!  Add something like an acidic heroin type compound and you will sure know it if you 'miss!' It WILL hurt ...heaps!

 personally I wonder about 'accidentally' hitting an artery! I mean, surely it's not something you can 'easily' do no?  IME missing a vein stings like fuck, hitting an artery 'accidentally' is very rare!

Maybe when using coke this 'might' happen as the coke can leave you with numb arms, but still, it would have to be a fair way off target to miss a vein and hit an artery!

I'm fairly sure this dude just 'popped a vein' nothing serious BUT very scary when you have no idea what's happened!  I did this the very first time I tried to self inject!

Suffice to say I did a lot of research to make sure it didn't happen again!  It did, but rarely (usually with coke) at least I knew what was happening and how to treat it

It blows me out how 'badly' many users treat their veins! 

DONT RUB them after a shot ... hold your arm above your head immediately after the shot, maybe GENTLY pressing  with a tissue or the like and let the blood pressure drop to stop it 'leaking' inder your skin, which causes bruising and scarring.

DO NOT rub it,  as this causes scarring which may later cause veins to collapse (they lose all their 'elasticity' and get squashed flat only to become useless pretty quickly!

Be kind to your veins and they will last a lifetime! he he!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm motek :)
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: mdpro on June 02, 2013, 09:33 am
What the OP experienced was, in fact, a needlestick through the vein rather than into it.  Depending on which vein you go for in that area and your body structure, it is actually quite likely that this would lead to a puncture in the artery.  The brachial artery runs just below the vein on the pinkie side of the AC fossa and travels a pretty similar path to the vein.  As a general rule, the named blood vessels in the body travel in pairs of arteries and veins running right next to each other.  Think about that before you inject.  Seriously, use clean gear and (it may sound totally stupid) plan your injection before you inject.  Take the extra 10 second pause.  It just may stop you from missing a safety step or having a bad situation happen from being hasty.  Take care of yourself and do everything in your power to be safe!
Title: Re: Heroin arterial injection
Post by: DrChong on June 02, 2013, 11:18 am
Another reason to not inject..

Glad OP is good though.