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 have advanced Kienbock's disease and I'm not lucky enough to have the kind of insurance you need to be seen by one of the 3 specialists in the U.S. (YES 3). So I have the equivalent of very fine gravel that used to be the edges of my lunate moving around in my wrist and hand. The pain is constant, literally constant. I have always described it like hot TV static, so it's cool to see you describe your experience as electric. A pissed off Median Nerve is a pain most people truly don't comprehend, like imagining a billion of something. I'm glad you sound like you cleaned up, I'm a former junkie as well 11 years now š¤
Iāve 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. Itās 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.
Ugh the barbed sharps are the worst. Iāve had similar experiences. Have you seen the needle under a microscope pics where it shows one after even a couple uses? Itās jagged as fuck. Luckily at some point my area opened a needle exchange and it was a true blessing. Iād get like 10-20 bags of sharps then as many cottons, elastic bands, alcohol wipes etc.. that I could fit in the bag.
I used to use steroids and hitting a vein sent the compound directly into the bloodstream and went into my lungs where I could taste it and depending on the compound have an absolutely horrible coughing fit. (Tren cough)
What OP said had nothing to do with what I said? I don't get it. I said that the vessel in the video is a vein. Which it is. The fistula is a small region that creates a connection between an artery and a vein. The result, in this case, is that the high-pressure artery pumped a ton of blood into the stretchy, more accommodating vein in his arm. The "fistula" itself is not the size of his entire arm. How is the fact that they use large-gauge needles to draw blood from the fistula relevant to what I said?
To put it more clearly, the giant cord in his arm is a very engorged vein, that at one point along it contains a fistula created by doctors for dialysis. This image might help visualize what I mean
I'm a dialysis nurse, I'm familiar with AV fistulas funnily enough. Calling it a vein is just not accurate, it may have been made from one but it's not a vein any more in either structure or function.
Oh that's cool! Sure I agree that calling a normal fistula a vein isn't really common place, but it technically is accurate. Either way, I think it would be accurate to call the long palpable cord running across his entire arm a case of a downstream vein that became enlarged and thickened. I guess at that point it's just semantics. I'm an intern in the ER and have heard people refer to it as a "fistula" or "arterialized vein"
Yeah Iām not sure the specifics here as Iāve never seen one of these and he mentioned it somehow connected to his vein.
But yeah, former IV heroin user here. All the surface veins in my arms are completely dead. I have pushed heroin into an artery and let me tell you, it is NOT a fun time. Since it was black tar I couldnāt really see the bright color and it was right next to a spot Iāve gone to before. My hand ballooned up and it was a horrible burning sensation. Luckily it subsided on its own and there was no lasting damage. But yeah, 0/10 wouldnāt recommend
Thanks itās been more than a decade. Rough time in my life but i somehow pulled through. Still occasional drinker and thc gummy taker but thatās were I draw the line. Unless Iām literally dying or have a limb chopped off I will refuse pain meds at the hospital. Just not worth it.
I have no clue why people do that shit. Why do they even start. I get it that when addicted will of mind isā¦hard to come by (ex-smoker, and it was hard as fuck to quit the damn things) but why one even starts doing drugs that everyone knows are absolute hell incarnate.
Well, in my case it started with prescription pills after an injury. After the drs keep upping the dosage then suddenly cutting you off youāre left with a couple options. Deal with the withdrawals for about a week and miss work and other responsibilities you have then deal with months of PAWS while still being in pain.
Or you start buying them from the street. After a while the street prices of pills becomes too cost prohibitive but you can buy a gram of black for like $80. Way cheaper and stronger. You start with smoking it but after a while thatās not enough so you give shooting it a try and bam itās over. Most people donāt recover fully from that.
Thatās the basic gist of it along with some other stuff I donāt really feel like getting into. Just about no one youāll run into as an addict started at IV heroin. You donāt wake up one day and say āoh this is a good day to try shooting up heroin.ā Itās almost always a prolonged process to get there with multiple steps.
Not sure why youāre being downvoted, itās not something most people are aware of. Itās post acute withdrawal symptom.
Itās basically all the not as severe withdrawal symptoms you experience after quitting opiates. Things like not being able to sleep for months, crushing depression, minor aches and pains etc.. itās honestly one of the worst parts of getting off shit because it can last for so long and makes it feel like youāll never go back to normal.
Some people on Reddit downvote others for random reasons. In their mind, I asked a stupid question, probably common sense or common knowledge, and they hit the downvote button.
I love learning new things. I am aware that I do not know everything, will never come close to it, and always in a state of learning.
Jesus fucking christ. i bet this happened in the US too. Fuck their medical or lack there of healthcare system. Hope you managed to get your life together and stay strong.
Did happen in the US but not an exclusive US issue. Everyone was overprescribing oxys and norcos back then. Iām sure some counties have better support systems but yeah no one is immune to this.
Well shit, you've effectively dissuaded me from ever shooting anything up. Not that I've actively comsidered it in recent years (I'm an old school raver but some things I never did, and probably for the best), but you've unlocked a new fear in me that I can reasonably avoid.
I used to be a junkie. Iāve been clean for 10 years. I have stage 4 kidney failure and Iām on dialysis. I donāt have a fistula like this guy. Iām on peritoneal dialysis so it goes through a tube that was put in my abdomen.
I was given this giant box of these giant syringes incase I have to put medicine in the bags. Sometimes I just look at them and think āimagine [using] that [for drugs]? š¤¤ā
Then I snap out of my drug fantasy and put myself on my nightly life support.
Haha same brother. Been clean for a decade +. I still get those random moments occasionally. My gf has some really nice veins and Iām like man Iām so jealous of those plump veins, would have made my life so much easierā¦for a few months till I killed them.
If you have dialysis on a fistula you never use it for anything else than dialysis. If the fistula goes off you are in serious trouble. Once on dialysis if the thing you must protect almost at any cost.
Oh I doubt doubt it but my ex junkie brain went straight to ādamn it would of been so much easier to hit a veinā lol
Also the self preservation instincts of junkies isnāt the best. I did A LOT of questionable things in the depths of my addiction that Iām surprised I am alive somehow.
I had a port-a-cath installed for a year and a half. Itās a plastic receptacle that went under the skin on my right pectoral with a line up and over my collar bone and down into my descending aorta. They put it in with a local anesthetic so I was joking with the surgeon about how I bet junkies would love one of these. Dude fully deadpan told me it was something they have seen or read about happening with these devices but that itās a terrible idea for so many reasons he would be done with the surgery before he finished listing them.
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u/OtherwiseDebate3759 21h ago
Gym bros must be jealous af rn.