Good day,
I'm a long-time lurker, but just resurrected my account on here in order to ask a question I am, as of yet, failing to find an answer to.
I got into heroin about a year ago, and started IV'ing it around 6 weeks ago. I've had enormous trouble finding veins in that time, and pretty much only managed to use veins in the crook of my arm and the back of my hand (leading me to try injecting into my feet and ankle veins, neither of which worked).
So, i'm a pretty useless injector, and usually would stab myself between 20 and 50 times before either eventually getting a hit or just giving up and plugging/snorting the liquid solution or throwing it away because congealed blood has ruined it. I have developed several hard, painless lumps that seem exactly like cysts on some of the spots that I repeatedly pierced with a needle. I was successful in 'registering' and shooting in all of these sites, but I may have punctured the site 20 or so times unsuccessfully before eventually scoring one successful "hit", and I am mainly looking to see if people agree with the conclusion I have drawn about the lumps: that they are caused by scarring/collapsed veins from repeatedly stabbing the same site trying to register.
So, bearing in mind the fact that I would commonly attempt to register repeatedly without success, probably leading to the vein being pierced several times from many different directions, and the needle probably poking through the other side of the vein when I went too deep, i'd like to ask for some information from more experienced people about these hard, painless lumps I have developed, and what to do about them (I have not sought medical attention as of ye, and am experiencing no problems, but I want to make sure i'm not making a huge mistake by not acting upon this). I'll describe them below:
The first one (which is more of a collection) is under the skin in the crook of my left elbow. The two veins I had visible there are now not visible, and instead there are two notably sized lumps (roughly the size of half a brazil nut/ a large peanut each) around the point where the needle would have been going in. One of the veins has one smaller, softer lump (that is still painless and relatively hard) and one more pronounced, round, harder lump a bit further up the arm where the needle has not pierced, but only about 1cm from the actual injection site. These lumps have not changed in size or consistency for about 10-14 days, but have perhaps gotten harder gradually in that time. I do not remember missing notably in this site, except for perhaps a tiny drop of heroin solution a couple of times. I certainly did not miss enough for it to sting for more than a millisecond.
The second one is on my right forearm, on the underside. A homeless man hit me with a 1ml syringe as I couldn't find a vein, but missed approx 20 units of the fluid and shot it right into my arm. It burned at first, but now it is just very faintly blue from bruising and has turned into a hard lump that has not changed in size for approximately 7 days. This one confuses me less as I know it was caused by a miss, but I still don't understand why it would have gone hard and not changed for so long when all my other misses are red, watery and painful and vanish within 48 hrs, whereas this one is not red, solid and painless, and has been there without budging for 7 days.
To make things more confusing for me, I missed a whole shot near the vein that runs down the inside of your leg over your ankle bone into your feet, the main one that sticks out in a warm shower. I missed an entire syringe (70 units) of heroin solution here but it was totally painless which made me think I had registered (also the blood in the syringe etc), but I certainly didn't as I felt nothing from the shot and it formed a huge lump. This one went down and was totally gone within hours, unlike the smaller misses (1 unit and 20 units respectively) mentioned above which have now formed rock hard, immovable cyst-like painless lumps where the needles went in.
Okay, so the point of this scattered thread (sorry, I feel like i'm having trouble being coherent), is that I couldn't understand how missing a whole shot could produce no lumps but missing tiny amounts could produce such extensive hard lumps.
I also wanted to ask if solid, hard lumps are caused by scar tissue or collapsed veins (which is my assumption), or by something else entirely. Also, I wanted to see if anyone had a theory on why these lumps have been produced when under similar conditions, other misses have not produced any lumps at all and have dissipated very quickly. Finally, I wanted to try to gather enough information to be able to make an informed decision about whether to go to seek medical assistance or not.
Thanks so much for your replies, and as I have seen before I know no-one can diagnose or give medical advice on here, and I am aware that any discussion that happens as a result of this post will all be opinion, and there's no replacement for a medical evaluation. I'm just looking to hear opinions on the cause of these lumps, and some stories perhaps of people who have developed similar lumps, as I can't actually find anything about hard lumps through the search engine, only threads about painful lumps, squishy lumps, abscesses and infections.
Thanks,
Niksput
I'm a long-time lurker, but just resurrected my account on here in order to ask a question I am, as of yet, failing to find an answer to.
I got into heroin about a year ago, and started IV'ing it around 6 weeks ago. I've had enormous trouble finding veins in that time, and pretty much only managed to use veins in the crook of my arm and the back of my hand (leading me to try injecting into my feet and ankle veins, neither of which worked).
So, i'm a pretty useless injector, and usually would stab myself between 20 and 50 times before either eventually getting a hit or just giving up and plugging/snorting the liquid solution or throwing it away because congealed blood has ruined it. I have developed several hard, painless lumps that seem exactly like cysts on some of the spots that I repeatedly pierced with a needle. I was successful in 'registering' and shooting in all of these sites, but I may have punctured the site 20 or so times unsuccessfully before eventually scoring one successful "hit", and I am mainly looking to see if people agree with the conclusion I have drawn about the lumps: that they are caused by scarring/collapsed veins from repeatedly stabbing the same site trying to register.
So, bearing in mind the fact that I would commonly attempt to register repeatedly without success, probably leading to the vein being pierced several times from many different directions, and the needle probably poking through the other side of the vein when I went too deep, i'd like to ask for some information from more experienced people about these hard, painless lumps I have developed, and what to do about them (I have not sought medical attention as of ye, and am experiencing no problems, but I want to make sure i'm not making a huge mistake by not acting upon this). I'll describe them below:
The first one (which is more of a collection) is under the skin in the crook of my left elbow. The two veins I had visible there are now not visible, and instead there are two notably sized lumps (roughly the size of half a brazil nut/ a large peanut each) around the point where the needle would have been going in. One of the veins has one smaller, softer lump (that is still painless and relatively hard) and one more pronounced, round, harder lump a bit further up the arm where the needle has not pierced, but only about 1cm from the actual injection site. These lumps have not changed in size or consistency for about 10-14 days, but have perhaps gotten harder gradually in that time. I do not remember missing notably in this site, except for perhaps a tiny drop of heroin solution a couple of times. I certainly did not miss enough for it to sting for more than a millisecond.
The second one is on my right forearm, on the underside. A homeless man hit me with a 1ml syringe as I couldn't find a vein, but missed approx 20 units of the fluid and shot it right into my arm. It burned at first, but now it is just very faintly blue from bruising and has turned into a hard lump that has not changed in size for approximately 7 days. This one confuses me less as I know it was caused by a miss, but I still don't understand why it would have gone hard and not changed for so long when all my other misses are red, watery and painful and vanish within 48 hrs, whereas this one is not red, solid and painless, and has been there without budging for 7 days.
To make things more confusing for me, I missed a whole shot near the vein that runs down the inside of your leg over your ankle bone into your feet, the main one that sticks out in a warm shower. I missed an entire syringe (70 units) of heroin solution here but it was totally painless which made me think I had registered (also the blood in the syringe etc), but I certainly didn't as I felt nothing from the shot and it formed a huge lump. This one went down and was totally gone within hours, unlike the smaller misses (1 unit and 20 units respectively) mentioned above which have now formed rock hard, immovable cyst-like painless lumps where the needles went in.
Okay, so the point of this scattered thread (sorry, I feel like i'm having trouble being coherent), is that I couldn't understand how missing a whole shot could produce no lumps but missing tiny amounts could produce such extensive hard lumps.
I also wanted to ask if solid, hard lumps are caused by scar tissue or collapsed veins (which is my assumption), or by something else entirely. Also, I wanted to see if anyone had a theory on why these lumps have been produced when under similar conditions, other misses have not produced any lumps at all and have dissipated very quickly. Finally, I wanted to try to gather enough information to be able to make an informed decision about whether to go to seek medical assistance or not.
Thanks so much for your replies, and as I have seen before I know no-one can diagnose or give medical advice on here, and I am aware that any discussion that happens as a result of this post will all be opinion, and there's no replacement for a medical evaluation. I'm just looking to hear opinions on the cause of these lumps, and some stories perhaps of people who have developed similar lumps, as I can't actually find anything about hard lumps through the search engine, only threads about painful lumps, squishy lumps, abscesses and infections.
Thanks,
Niksput