Yeah, so.. my pipes are shot too

[DreamerOnTheRun (OP)]

I know this happens to so many of us IV users, but my veins are completely fucked.  Mine were garbage even before I started using IV.  Now they're just non-existent.  Aside from the obvious, almost certainly most important remedy of time and letting them heal, is there anything you guys do yourself to further promote/encourage better or faster vein and circulatory health?  Not like a magic fix, but it wouldn't surprise me if a particular vitamin or something helped assist. 

[Tainted]

use clean rigs that is the MOST important thing, use them once or twice throw them out. but you prolly already know that.

I'm in the same boat as you. my veins never really bulged out they always sucked but I used shitty dull spikes forever and pills that prolly weren't good for my veins so I got nothin left that's usable.

what I did for a couple of years was do all my shots in the bathroom, id run my arm or hands under hot water for 90 seconds then id look for a vein. if I couldn't find one quickly, id do it again. eventually it kinda stopped helping but there was a good long period that it made all the difference between finding a vein and not finding one. also make sure your drinking plenty of water before doing a shot. ive had labs tell me to drink water cause being dehydrated causes your veins not to stick out

I dunno if theres really much you can do to help your veins not die though. rotate spots, use clean spikes, get a wheel filter maybe, and if your doin H (especially black tar) you don't wanna be injecting really acidic dope, theres other ppl on the forum that can tell you how to adjust the ph so it is not as hard on your veins

[SmaCkEd Up]

^^ this guy's right. I always use fresh rigs and not a single vein has collapsed in the past five yrs. That and I have four to six large veins in both arms. Hell, I've never had to shoot anywhere else. Staying hydrated at all times will promote vascularity.

[Chip]

I feel your pain. Some go to their femoral but I gave it away altogether.

All of the above advice is great and I also suggest to anyone starting out to use the finest guage they can and rotate.

[6-mam]

Personally I think IM is a good alternative if you can't find a vein. Just be extra careful about filtering and sterilize everything. It depends on what you're IVing so make sure you try as hard as possible to remove any small particles when going IM. We all should be doing that anyway but it doesn't always happen. 

Sorry I don't have any answers to the actual question you asked.....

Actually maybe I do.... https://jonbarron.org/article/proteolytic-enzyme-formulaic

have no idea about that stuff, I'm just posting what I read here https://jonbarron.org/anti-aging/arteries-and-veins as a way to help make your Cir Sys healthier. Could help.

Now I want to try and keep them healthy myself after that article.  I just read about why these dang things are so important and why people are dying and unhealthy because of these systems and what they do.

A blood clot dislodged from a damaged vein finding itself stuck in the artery of the lungs or brain doesn't sound like a fun night. But it's actually pretty common. Probably why IV users get embolisms and thrombosis. I'm pretty sure but I'm not certain needles cause blood clots at injection sites. Anyone know? I am guessing that particles are what causes most of the complications, besides infection, from using the needle. They have to go somewhere. From our arm veins it goes to the lungs, then to the heart, then through the arteries, capillaries then back to the vein. 

Interesting how the PH of our body causes lactic acid to build up and that helps plaque form which clogs our arteries and kills us. Heavy metals, free radicals and low vitamin c and nitric acid production because of damage done cause the muscles around our arteries to not function properly. Which I'm guessing effects our veins as well. But indirectly, as there is very little muscle tissue on our veins.

[Esoteric Anhydride]

^^ you forgot brain. (vein) > H > L (smoked) > H > B

At one point when I was hanging out wif Bryan he had to go into the hospital for a few days cos he had so man bloodclots. Not sure what triggered the initial visit, but once they looked at him close, they were kinda surprised.

I'm sure these are much more common than people realize, but they can happen for lots of reasons, not just IVDU.

[Effect]

Creams with topical vitamin E (I like Neosporin; not only does it have vitamin E, but offers other benefits as well) have been a great help for maintaining my veins and is used by injection drug users and other people simply looking to soften scar tissue alike. Local needle exchanges in my area give out capsules with vitamin E inside that you swueeze open for this purpose. Fortunately I've always been lucky and have never had difficulty locating and hitting my veins.

[traplord69]

6-mam I definitely wonder about vein damage and blot clots as well for iv users.  It kind of freaks me out because I feel like addicts, even when they've been clean for years often just drop dead in their 40s or 50s from a massive heart attack, stroke or something similar 

[Effect]

6-mam I definitely wonder about vein damage and blot clots as well for iv users.  It kind of freaks me out because I feel like addicts, even when they've been clean for years often just drop dead in their 40s or 50s from a massive heart attack, stroke or something similar 

I experienced clots in my lungs while I was in the hospital for just under 3 months with endocarditis that was caused due to a bacterial vegetation that got on my tricuspid valve. That whole ordeal was beyond scary to go through as a young minded 22 year old and I'm incredibly lucky that I didn't end up needing to have open heart surgery.

Anyway, the whole reason I brought that experience up was because the vegetation that was on my valve ended up breaking off little pieces of itself and the valve itself would "flick" these pieces into my blood stream in the direction of my lungs where they would ultimately land and at first would become clots which are known as emboli (singular being embolism). This in itself made each breath I would take painful. Eventually these vegetation induced clots were so big and my body could not fight them off and these emboli would turn into what's called an infarction which is just a technical medical term for a little piece of dead lung that made breathing even more painful.

At that point, despite the doctors knowing that I was in the whole situation I was in due to IV drug abuse, the clots that killed the pieces of my lungs caused my medical team to become sympathetic to the pain and I was prescribed hydromorphone for the remainder of the stay.

[traplord69]

Wow Effect, yea thats scary, glad you're ok though.  Have you used much/at all since that complication? And if so have you experienced any other symptoms?  That's definitely one of my biggest fears is to get a really bad abscess or endocarditis or anything like that that required medical intervention or hospitalization and essentially spilling the beans on my IV usage, not to mention any negative consequences of the actual disease or infection.

[Joseph Hopeless]

So can anyone tell me where some good spots on your legs are? arms are pretty spent at this point, but I've never used my legs..any tips/advice re: leg veins? Anyone?

[dizzle]

well folks, for those of you that have been IVing long enough to blow all your "go to" veins, here dizzle's advice, not to be taken lightly, however:



- femoral vein. You can find this monster on the crease between your groin and your leg. Feel around really deeply for the femoral artery, you'll full it pulsing, hard, go one to two fingers (widthwise, not lengthwise) down toward the opposite leg, get a 1" tipped rig and plunge that bitch in STRAIGHT DOWN. if you hit your femoral vein, youll get a register like you've never seen. NOTE: if you hit the femeral artery, it will be BRITGH blood, and will hurt so bad when you push it'll feel like your theighs are on fire.


- armpit vein. Lift your arm above your head, shave your arm hair, again plunge the rig straight in, you'll need to be careful as there are some nerves there, and if you hit one you want to pull back, obviously you don't want to sever it, that'd be bad. You're going for the area where your pectoral muscle meets your armpit, there's a crease there and it's your only shot to hit it, NOTE: the armpit vein is HARD AF to hit, I've only managed to find it a few times, most of the time I end up in the artery, which i just push a tiny bit, then feel the burn, and realize I'm in an artery, so I give up and pull out.



Some notes I've learned on these veins:

They're pretty much impossible to collapse, however, they WILL get covered in scar tissue if you use them all the time (several times a day). The key here is to give them a rest, use vitamin E lotion, and/or neosporin and they will last forever. literally.


also, there's some dangers around blood clots, I have no fucking idea how this happens, I took precautions every time, wipe area down with alcohol, inject, after pull rig out, I lift my leg in the air and put a tissue/cotton on the area I IV'ed till it stops bleeding. I haven't IV'ed in a long while, but that never steered me wrong, even once.


Deep vein thrombosis is serious shit. this isn't something you want to fuck around with, my advice is to NOT take the chances. Frankly, DVT's scare me and I'm thankful I never got one, i'm also very active and workout so there's a chance I didn't get one because of that. But seriously, as I said in the beginning, this isn't something to be taken lightly, this is a serious step and you should do all your research before you make this move...

[Snout]

well folks, for those of you that have been IVing long enough to blow all your "go to" veins, here dizzle's advice, not to be taken lightly, however:



- femoral vein. You can find this monster on the crease between your groin and your leg. Feel around really deeply for the femoral artery, you'll full it pulsing, hard, go one to two fingers (widthwise, not lengthwise) down toward the opposite leg, get a 1" tipped rig and plunge that bitch in STRAIGHT DOWN. if you hit your femoral vein, youll get a register like you've never seen. NOTE: if you hit the femeral artery, it will be BRITGH blood, and will hurt so bad when you push it'll feel like your theighs are on fire.


- armpit vein. Lift your arm above your head, shave your arm hair, again plunge the rig straight in, you'll need to be careful as there are some nerves there, and if you hit one you want to pull back, obviously you don't want to sever it, that'd be bad. You're going for the area where your pectoral muscle meets your armpit, there's a crease there and it's your only shot to hit it, NOTE: the armpit vein is HARD AF to hit, I've only managed to find it a few times, most of the time I end up in the artery, which i just push a tiny bit, then feel the burn, and realize I'm in an artery, so I give up and pull out.



Some notes I've learned on these veins:

They're pretty much impossible to collapse, however, they WILL get covered in scar tissue if you use them all the time (several times a day). The key here is to give them a rest, use vitamin E lotion, and/or neosporin and they will last forever. literally.


also, there's some dangers around blood clots, I have no fucking idea how this happens, I took precautions every time, wipe area down with alcohol, inject, after pull rig out, I lift my leg in the air and put a tissue/cotton on the area I IV'ed till it stops bleeding. I haven't IV'ed in a long while, but that never steered me wrong, even once.


Deep vein thrombosis is serious shit. this isn't something you want to fuck around with, my advice is to NOT take the chances. Frankly, DVT's scare me and I'm thankful I never got one, i'm also very active and workout so there's a chance I didn't get one because of that. But seriously, as I said in the beginning, this isn't something to be taken lightly, this is a serious step and you should do all your research before you make this move...

I just want to echo what dizzle just said " this isn't something to be taken lightly". I personally knew two different people who hit their fems so many times and for so long that the veins ruptured. It happened to both of them while nodding or sleeping, both almost bleed to death. One was fixed with the transplant of a pigs femoral vein. This isn't just an urban legend, I knew these people and I saw the aftermath on one of them. Please be careful, this is dangerous territory.

[Joseph Hopeless]

well I keep finding new spots on my arms but now I feel like I'm gonna have to get used to the femoral now..Can you, in a pinch, use a 30g 12.7mm(1/2 inch) 100cc rig to hit it? Gonna possibly try practicing with just water to get the hang of it, I tried a couple times to find it earlier but only got a little bright(ish) red blood(not much at all) then said fuck it and dug around in my arm for one. And anymore advice from anyone on any other good ways to find it?

[Indy]

Unless you're a naturally small person and very very thin, generally no, you definitely need a longer needle to hit the femoral vein. it's just too deep otherwise. what about your feet? I never shot for more than maybe a month or so at most, it was always just an occasional treat or novelty, but for a while my feet were my go to spots. I have always had difficult veins and tianeptine killed my good ones... well they're still there just useless for IV. no marks or anything, just the veins don't pop out at all. tianeptine is bad for veins, seriously.