About My Final Days of Injecting ...

[nick]

I have a friend who's been a heavy injector since the early seventies and he still uses the same vein,in the same spot he started with-fucking sickening,huh.

From someone else who's raging against the dying of his circulatory system. 

[Chip (OP)]

good point, Z - I have been reusing old sharps as I have about 500 in my room.

those fuckers have got to go - that IS a huge part of the problem.

I shall get rid of them. good call.

[_Enduser]

Chippie I've been on some metaphysical spiritual awakening trip, and I read that post title as "my final days of injecting" as in, foreshadowing your death.......

Please stop injecting, if it's getting nearly impossible take that as a sign?  I'm not trying to be grim my mind is just all scrambled up lately and I got alarmed because of how I just, read that post title.  Be careful plz. 

[Shelley]

I often look at the one vein that visibly came back and think "I could hit that". I never could have quit shooting without quitting opis and stims tho- too tempting.

If there's interest I can post pics of how wicked my tracks still look after two years away. Shit is silly.

[Chip (OP)]

Chippie I've been on some metaphysical spiritual awakening trip, and I read that post title as "my final days of injecting" as in, foreshadowing your death.......

Please stop injecting, if it's getting nearly impossible take that as a sign?  I'm not trying to be grim my mind is just all scrambled up lately and I got alarmed because of how I just, read that post title.  Be careful plz.

i am careful and my tolerance is now my friend. i only shoot methadone if i see a decent prospect - and that's not often.
 
i don't use Heroin these days, preferring the quiet life of a lone tweaker. I do have my mates to smoke with and TBH, i like it this way.

if anything's going to get me it will be the bloody cigarettes !

your concern is misdirected but i am flattered, regardless.

[nick]

I often look at the one vein that visibly came back and think "I could hit that". I never could have quit shooting without quitting opis and stims tho- too tempting.

If there's interest I can post pics of how wicked my tracks still look after two years away. Shit is silly.

Have your tracks changed if not improved?

[Shelley]

They aren't open any more. Just pitted and scarred. I can have blood drawn now, but exit only. Any IV going in needs to be in my neck BC my shit leaks, which leads to abcesses

[makita]

Some of ya'll know I have huge (like 8"x3") feather-shaped scars on both forearms from an infection I got while shooting speedballs about 12 years ago.  When they first healed enough to stop bandaging them I was super embarrassed about them and tried to wear long sleeves everywhere; I especially thought they had to be covered up in professional settings.  As the years went by and they faded somewhat I stopped feeling that way and now I don't let them bother me.  Hardly anyone ever asks what they are anymore--in the beginning everyone used to, including cashiers at grocery stores, etc. 

Then I have various smaller ones along the veins in my inner arms, not inside the elbow but everywhere else practically.  Maybe its a blessing my veins never lasted very long because I dont have tracks, just isolated single scars from healed abscesses.  They probably look more like self harming scars (cigarette burns) than anything else.


Granted its a bit different since my scars don't scream "IVDU!" but they do look like I was in a fire or something...and TO ME they felt like they were advertising my drug use at first since I knew that's where they came from.  That was a lot of why I felt the need to hide them; I felt like they betrayed some kind of untrustworthiness or vulnerability that would make me less respectable or hire-able.

I think part of our insecurity about our scars is knowing where they came from, its like you feel like you're wearing a big needle sign on your face.  But that isn't always something that other people who don't know you, who aren't doctors or other junkies, will be able to see.

LOL I also used to use my scars as "proof" of true junkie status when trying to get on with a new dealer in a new city.

[corlene]

I have a few scars the sizes range from a nickel or almost a Kennedy half dolla. They are located right above veinw. I've never been asked how I got em.

Plus side is since I'm so white, the scars are lighter and you have to be blind to not see the veins bow

Thank god I don't have to search em out anymore. Ports and piccs  for the win!!

Anyhow, just waiting on infectious disease, GI surgeon,  and my pm doc to see me this morning.

They need to take out my feeding tube and physically move it to a new spot. They've been going title for tat as to when and where it gets done. Bleh

[Snout]

Great thread. I stopped IVing dope only when I ran out of veins. I can't hit my neck , just can't do it, but I've fucked my feet and groin good and proper. Every shot in the foot, even if injected perfectly with no miss and hitting on the first Attempt would make my feet swell up like when you hit your hands, the dreaded "gorilla paw" as its called in Seattle. I had to resort to IM and skin popping tar, which is stupid, but it works and I'm a junky. My close friend has been skin popping tar for years and has never got an infection. I've had MRSA, countless absecces (sp?), and like mAkita said, my arms and legs look like those of a burn victim. Ugh.
     I had to get a blood draw like 2 years ago and they had 4 nurses going over me with a light, can't find a vein to hit. The one nurse says "call Jose", and this phillipino phlebotomist shows up, and he's like a water witch. He stuck a needle in a spot in my arm where I couldn't see or feel any vein, and hit a gusher! I was like " I love you, come home with me!"
     I'm happy to say I haven't shot any dope since August !!!!!

[ceaser]

Hi Chipper. Ya I sure do remember you from Opiophile. Good to see you here.

I have no idea if we ever interacted on a post or not before. But I am 35, and as far as the mental aspect of injecting, I think I'm about where you are.

I have used my feet extensively. It's a painful place to use. Don't ever use between your toes, unless you have no fear of mortality and digits falling off. Using in the legs sucks. I won't do the groin either, or ever the neck. I was, not long ago, thee worst person at shooting up. My arms are gross. But now, there are these two spots, south of the bend of the elbow on the right, and south of the bend of the elbow on the left. The backs of my hands are also just not a good place for me and if I hit the wrong place on the forearm I get some nasty cramping. Fuck wrists too. I won't hit my wrists; just a personal preference (of many people.)

I'm a guy with a bigger build. So my arms are thick enough. I was able to quit heroin in September 2015. The first time I quit, more of a various opiate addiction in the mid 2000's, I needed methadone. I got up to 280mg's (liquid Minnesota (I know how it's distributed varies state to state. Minnesota clinics all use the varying colors of Purdue Pharma brand methadone)) This time I did something else. I guess if you can't get Ibogaine then grab a bunch of coke till your brain forgets what heroin is... No joke: did a ton of coke and no heroin in September, and after about 3 weeks, my body just stopped craving H. My point: when I do buy coke, which isn't often enough since I'm quite poor, I am not kind to my arms in the areas where those veins are dependable. If I miss by an inch because I forgot which mark was the one that had the awesome gusher under it, I show no patience in finding the spot a millimeter away. Then when the drugs are gone, I have these routines where all the empty bags and all the cottons are stored, just to cause me more pain. Because we all know boiling and shooting cottons sucks, and that hazy look of a used dope or coke bag that is not drugs. So there's days I shoot up and I don't even have any drugs. And no, it's not just so thrilling either. So, I'm, in essence self-mutilating. There's nothing like taking a hit that you scraped off a bag of coke from 5 years ago only to find it's dust and mannitol. I've shot a lot of lint up in my day.

I just want you to know I am the same in regards to shooting up. I dream of a world with a steady supply of coke, heroin, methamphetamine, mdma etc. Man it's been since 2005 since I had Dilaudid. It's been since 2005 since I've had a clean pharmacutical opiate high. And that's just sad. You know what I think your problem is? I think your problem is that we all pay too much for drugs. And a lot of people who come to a place like Opiophile's successor all wish there was just a way we could do our stuff in peace, and that the economy in the USA was setup for people to make money without having to get extremely lucky.

When it comes to quitting heroin: I've always tried to make certain when I'm really going to go CT - (which for me means drinking tons after the initial stages of withdrawl, smoking tons of weed, hopefully doing coke, because coke takes my mind off H, doing my benzos and whatever else doctors give me) - that I've just gotten some truly primo dope. I'll tell you why I think I can get off dope, coke, any drug (dope is the hardest though other than benzos for me,) especially after I get the best grade. My mind is satiated. I found some amazing heroin during one of my travels. When that heroin became unavailable, I stopped doing heroin till it came back months later. I keep a couple Suboxone around for dopesickness. My dad used to work for a hospital and I used to have Narcan, but my ex-girlfriend panicked when I seriously OD'ed in September of 2014, and she shot it onto the floor instead of into my veins. It's too bad, because I really liked to think of myself as a guy who planned for contingency. But the young lady couldn't handle reviving me with the Narcan.

But I really quit the heroin this time, from weening off VERY slowly. I mean just fuck it I bought shit and said I was quitting. But I kept cutting down. I could buy serious weight in California, whereas in Minnesota I could buy bags that didn't even weigh .4 or whatever they're supposed to weigh. So the utter humiliation of buying these skimped out Minnesota bags is what really finished off the detox (from heroin.) But you know man... I just wish I was free of all of it. Maybe if people took care of each other we'd do less drugs. Everybody is trying to get something from everyone. I went out on a blind date with my cousin's friend in Cali, and the bitch is asking me where I work in text before we even got something to eat, and even started telling me I should work full-time when I told her I had a part-time IT job...

I hope this was a good read, and not a bad read. And I hope I'm not giving you this crazy long response in vain, and that maybe I said something helpful. I'm responding to your post, because I'll shoot up lint off my floor if I think it has coke in it. I am lucky I have good genes. I do not deserve to be alive after all the drugs I've done. And my main problem isn't my drug problem. My problem is that I wake up feeling like shit, go to bed feeling like shit, have no hopes or dreams... My only fantasies involve waking up to find large amounts of drugs on my nightstand. I have a lot of hobbies, video games and hiking to name a couple. But whatever, they don't help much in the long run for my outlook on life.

Hopefully I didn't just depress the hell out of everyone including Chipper. But there's some deep seated reasons why I will shoot anything. And especially with coke: you look for "the right vein" for a fucking 1/2 hour, maybe longer. All your rigs are dull. The needle exchange and the ghetto pharmacy are closed so you've got noodles instead of needles that can break inside your arm at any time. With H, I can't say "bags a day" because I had grams of China White in California, which the people started to cut after a rash of OD's including mine. One time my dude was supposed to give me 7 grams of coke and 3.5 of H, and he reversed it by accident. Then I think he payed me back another 3.5 of H, which I told him flat out he didn't owe me. But let's just say with "good" dope I was using 3 bags a day. But you're right: when you have your coke rush wear off while you're trying to find a vein, it really makes you question your life. I think I will hunt down an IV for the next time I buy some coke.

Sorry about ranting, because my thoughts are racing and I'm having trouble keeping it together these days, and I hope there was some helpful content in my post. It's just good to have this board back. I hope I never end up back on heroin, especially in a terrible drug market like Minnesota. And I sincerely hope that topics like this are more common. I almost fainted the first time my friend shot me up. It was 8 mg Abbot Laboratories Dilaudid that I first shot up. Never has their been a finer pill. 

Cheers

[ceaser]

(I'm so sorry to bother you.) <---- I was trying to reply to Shelley regarding vein woes. I just am pointing this out because it just posted me again at the end of the thread. Yes. I am in a writing mood today.

 The bursting arms are scary and band-aid brand "flexible fabric" is your friend in those cases. After my abcesses became skin again and sealed back up, I realized that the doctors always seem to draw blood out of some vein that's in the middle of my arm. I never use that one for drugs. One area that can heal up for some people is right of your lower elbow on the right arm, and left of the lower elbow on the left arm. I went years of just simply missing often and all it does it make your arms explode.

There are a lot of caustic materials in, for example, Suboxone. So if I really "know my veins" and get all that garbage right in one, my kidneys are going to dispose of it. It's the same with street drugs. You want to get it all in the vein, because then it has a chance of getting processed.

Be sure to buy clean needles or use needle exchange regularly. I recently did a huge project in my room where I ensured all needles were capped properly, and that all unusable needles were disposed of. I won't tell you where I go but there's only 1 store pharmacy in Minnesota that'll sell you your 10 pack without a script.

Track marks and big bruises are a result of it being too hard to get new needles. And missing veins too, happens because you need a clean sharp rig to hit yourself right.

Best of luck with your vascular health. I am a believer that anything can heal with time.

[itsmainline]

I'm in the same boat, mate. My IV days are numbered if not over.  A few years of IV crystal methamphetamine and IV methadone syrup (in 10ml or larger barrels...so lots of liquidl) have killed every vein I once had . The ones I called terrible during heroin use became amazing towards the end bit I will say one thing..... methadone and methamphetamine aren't easy on your veins. Boo.

[DirtyJerzy]

I shot ecp in jersey/philly/nyc for years with little to no problem. Never even had to move from the crook of the elbow and the first/favorite spot.
Then I moved to the west coast, started with the tar, and it was a fast downhill spiral from there on out.
Bth fucked my veins up BAD and fast. I went from being extremely vascular, with road map like veins the diameter of pencils running throughout my forearms/hands, to not being able to see a single vein anywhere, and it happened quickly.

Moved onto my neck veins, which always stuck out, and were the diameter of a sharpie. Those didn't last long either. Hands, feet, legs, shoulders/chest, I shot them all away in about a year of HEAVY bth usage.

Then my boy showed me my femoral, and that's where I've been going ever since. With never a problem either.
I can hit that thing in the dark, from across the room, with a dart if I wanted to.
And the best part is if/when it becomes scar tissue, only people that will ever see it are people you fuck basically.

And even though I shot all those awesome veins away, I can tell you that remarkably I don't really have any track marks/scaring, except where I muscled or missed and abscesses developed.

The secret was the very liberal needle exchanges in frisco. They will literally give you bags full, everyday, all day, multiple times a day.
Pretty much all the junkies I knew there used 2 needles for every shot, that's how easily available rigs are.
Once I was shown, I was like "fuck I wish I would've known about this method sooner".
It comes down to using 2 rigs, one to draw up with, and one to shoot up with.
Draw up with one, and then squirt it into the back of the one you shoot up with.
This way the one you stick into your vein never touches a cotton or a cooker, and thus is never dulled by that.
And while everyone in frisco used 2 new ones each shot, now I have to buy my rigs, so I just reuse my "draw rig" until it's falling apart, and I use my "shooting rig" a couple times before I toss it, or it becomes my new draw rig actually.

You would be very surprised how much simply touching a cotton can dull your needle.
And it's those dull needles that really give you bad tracks.
If you used a new rig for each shot, and you changed locations every so often, you could go YEARS with no tracks, and without loosing veins.

I'm sure a lot of you already use the 2 rig method, but for those that don't, please, for the sake of your veins, and in the name of HR, give it a try. Even if you reuse rigs a hundred times, use a different one to draw up, then the one you use to inject. You will notice a huge difference in how long your rigs last, and now long your veins last.

[Chip (OP)]

I'm in the same boat, mate. My IV days are numbered if not over.  A few years of IV crystal methamphetamine and IV methadone syrup (in 10ml or larger barrels...so lots of liquidl) have killed every vein I once had . The ones I called terrible during heroin use became amazing towards the end bit I will say one thing..... methadone and methamphetamine aren't easy on your veins. Boo.

yep, I have used the Tina and 'Done cocktail shot for years and it's the 'Done with it's larger barrel and fatter sharps that have been the problem.

today I managed to get one away (my hand) but the searching and preparing take up a lot of time, too.

guys, stay away from Methadone and BTH (from what I hear).

with regular dope and finer guage sharps you should be able to IV well into your twilight years.

[miracleshappen]

My DOC is the beloved H. When I moved to a new city and fell in w a tweaker crowd, I started shooting crystal meth for the first time in 10yrs. Within days my track marks were ridiculous, because with crystal I'd start shaking and missing and have to stick myself eighty times to get one shot. When I start to glorify that shot of H I remind myself of the two hours spent tweaking on a shot of crystal. I was in a locked bathroom in a friends hotel room, but I was sure that I was at a nice restaurant, meeting boy friends family for the first time, and outside the door his grandma and aunts were fussing and pleading with me to open the door... I was talking back to them trying desperately to hit through all this new scar tissue, at the end the whole bathroom was bloody an I had to bleach it down . And that's how I convince !myself I don't want to inject...