Harm Reduction Is this a Vein or an Artery?

Ok so I like to hit this one spot above my elbow on the inside of my arm, kinda runs round where the bicep and bone meet, could follow i up to my armpit almost if I wanted to. So anyways I found it by tying off high and feeling around. I felt this huge blood tube and my pulse thru it. It seems to connect to the vein that goes diagonally across the forearm from the inside to the outside as it goes towards the hand. Anyways my friend said it was an artery. He hits his too. This spot is easy to flag but the blood doesnt push itself in. Its tender area, but it was tender when I got that part of my arm tattooed. That being said it doesnt hurt to hit it, but it smarts alot if the dope is hot. Thats the other thing is that I cannot see a visible vein as I am heavily tattoed. My veins are deep and people that know me often think I am missing when they see me fix. Im not sure why veins are so deep cuz Im not fat or puny. This spot can handle all the dope I wanna dump in it and its the only spot I can seem to consistenly get a 25 gauge/ 3ml rig shot off in. So anyways if it was an artery I definetly would stop. What are yalls though on whether this is a vein or artery?

if you can feel a pulse in it then it is definitely an artery do not shoot there under any circumstances.

Is the damage already done or is it cumulative or risk of something bad each time done?

You are taking a huge risk every time you inject if you're not sure if it's a vein or an artery.

I have terrible veins, and my arms are covered with scars and tattoos so I can't hit by seeing a vein at this point. I tie off and feel around, after looking online at vein maps and the like. It's not hard to feel for a vein if you know where to look. Good luck!

Since this is an injection HR question I'm going to move it over to Other Drugs.

Basic Drug Discussion --> Other Drugs

Well I had been sure it was a vein until a friend said otherwise. The main reason was because this is one long scar from my hand near the thumb across the radius, diagonally across my forearm toards my body and after the crook its near the bicep bone area. But it connects. Im just wondering is this a common vein? I want to do whatever hurts my body the least. SAMEOLD I used the same method as you to intially find this. I tied off at the top of my arm looked at a chart and started poking with my finger and found it. The only thing that bothered me was how convinced my friend was that it was an artery. Now hes not the brightest guy in the world or praticy good HR and that should be taken into acount. So yeah I thought it was a vein until my friend said it was not. I had come across an artery before and I KNEW as right then because it pushed blood in to my rig on its own and I took it out immediatly. I have also read that there is not an immediate rush with an artery, but that is not scientific evidence. The other thing I noticed about this vein (Ill just call it a vein until Im convinced otherwise) is that well it gives me a stronger rush than other veins. Im not sure if its cuz I fucked up other veins early on and this one is a virgin or what. It should also be noted this vein seems to be quite larger. So basically it shows up on the vein chart and seems to be connectd to my forearm vein. It works with surprising efficency and I was just fine with it until my friend said otherwise. If dude had not said that I would not have even thought that it may not be a vein and Im still pretty sure it is a vein. What would any signs be that it is not a vein?

Injecting into an artery is normally extremely painful. If you can feel a pulse it doesn't guarantee it's an artery, it could just be close to an artery. If I even press on my main vein in the crook of my arm I can feel a pulse from the artery below it (I accidentally pierced through and hit that artery once before, however, and upon injecting the first unit it was excruciating and my entire arm swelled up huge).

I don't really understand your description of "where the bicep and bone meet"

Check out this map:

It's rather easy to tell by the color of the blood, as oxygenated blood will come into the syringe bright red, while venous blood is dark red. As a general rule, arterial blood will also shoot into the syringe, red and frothy. Am I missing something here, or are all the junkies and nurses wrong to provide this information?

Morphling said:

It's rather easy to tell by the color of the blood, as oxygenated blood will come into the syringe bright red, while venous blood is dark red. As a general rule, arterial blood will also shoot into the syringe, red and frothy. Am I missing something here, or are all the junkies and nurses wrong to provide this information?

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It's only a generalization, it's not always that easy to tell. When I have accidentally hit arteries I didn't notice the blood pushing into the syringe or any frothiness, and quite a number of other people have reported the same thing.

So it's true that you should not proceed if you draw blood that enters the syringe forcefully, is way brighter red than usual, or is frothy, however the absence of those signs does not guarantee that you haven't hit an artery. Venous blood can vary in colour from very dark red to bright red, (and can also vary in consistency/thickness/ease of registering) so it's not always that easy to tell from arterial blood by colour either. And some dope is not clear (the liquid can be yellow or brown) so that further complicates things as far as seeing the colour of the blood. However I don't think it's very likely the OP is injecting into an artery. It would seem very unusual for it to not hurt a lot upon injection from what I know.

Its dark blood and definetly not frothy. Morphling you have put my mind at ease. I was just kinda trying to ballpark the area Swimming. Looking at that chart it is the Brachail vein. Well I feel alot better knowing that its a vein. It is quite a large vein and thats probly why its so easy to use and quick to hit. I also noticed that there is an artery nearby. So thats probly what my friend thought I was hitting. That chart is extremly helpful.

if there's a pulse it's and artery. complications from choosing to inject into an artery can be quite vicious. you can expect to lose at least one finger, possible a hand.

dopemaster said:

Its dark blood and definetly not frothy. Morphling you have put my mind at ease. I was just kinda trying to ballpark the area Swimming. Looking at that chart it is the Brachail vein. Well I feel alot better knowing that its a vein. It is quite a large vein and thats probly why its so easy to use and quick to hit. I also noticed that there is an artery nearby. So thats probly what my friend thought I was hitting. That chart is extremly helpful.

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Good to hear

down508 said:

if there's a pulse it's and artery.

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See my post above about how you can feel a pulse from arteries through veins if there is an artery nearby.

If there's a strong pulse I wouldn't put a needle anywhere near it. sure there could be a vein above the artery, but a pulse indicates there is an artery dangerously close by and therefor it's probably not worth the risk. although there's other ways to tell like sharp or throbbing pain when you hit them, bright red blood under high pressure, excessive bleeding, pressure on the plunger (I've heard of the pressure actually pushing the plunger out of a syringe, yikes) etc, you are better off figuring out if it's an artery or not prior to sticking a needle in it, and the best way to tell is by feeling for a pulse.

to op. injecting should never hurt. if you notice an unusual amount of pain when injecting anywhere you should stop and try again somewhere else.

Down508 I appreciate your concern. It only hurts to hit their if I shoot hot. I usually shoot mostly morphine and I used the ER tablets so I break them down thru heat and I find to get the whole pill whether its one or 4 you need about 3mls of water end product and sometimes you might end up doing a wash that size if you mess up the prep. I did a couple cold shots of oxy in this spot with the 3ml and no pain on insertion or pushing or any part of the process. That being said there is a nerve near it that Im quite aware of if I was to touch it. I use my tattoo as a map so to speak and now its super easy to find the sweet spot. The inside of the arm is tender to go thru regardless as the tissue there is softer. I take HR very seriously after I got cellutis and almost lost my arm. It was a very scary experience. Thats really another story, but it was the result of injecting the new formula opanas and oxycotins.

^That sucks, bro. It's terrible for your body to heat pill solutions before you bang.

If you don't know the difference between a vein and an artery, you have no business IV'ing in my opinion.. that's pretty basic injection 101.

There are hundreds of threads discussing this topic in detail if you use the search engine and we have an entire megathread (linked in my signature) regarding IV.

If you almost lost an arm from injecting the OPs, why would you think ER morphine would be any safer? There are processes to get the morphine out of the pill, but it does not involve just heating the solution. Look around the site for some of these processes, it could save your life. If you insist on continuing to heat ER pills and inject, you REALLy should not inject them hot! For one, you admit it hurts when you do so. Two, you need to let it cool completely and then run it through a filter again. If it can't be cooled without gelling up, do not bang it under any circumstance.

Another thing is the 25g needle. Do you not have access to anything smaller? That is a pretty big gauge for repeated injections. And onnne last thing...if you're going to be injecting such large quantities of water, you need to look into getting 0.9% saline solution to maintain the salinity of your blood.

I agree, it sounds like morphine er's are hardly worth your time any more. If I were you I would find a different opiate to inject, one that doesn't require heat to break down. technically those pills shouldn't, so if you must continue to use them you should look up the right way to inject them.

Thats alot of assumptions. I have only shot a pill hot a few times and it was an accident. Morphine has a bit of wax, other ER pills have cellouse and god knows what else. To seperate morphine I crush the morphine into a fine powder and add a bit of sea salt and benadryl. Sea salt for the saline level and benadryl to control the histamine commonly referred to pins and needles. I then boil some water in a cooker and drop said ingredients in that water and then filter. I then either let it cool or run the rig under cold water with the cap one. I find morphine to be stronger than oxycodone by far.

As far as the infection I had. The new formula Oxycotin and Opana have cellouse and that causes celluitis. So anyways when they came out people where using blowtorches to melt them in cookers and once the whole pill was liquid cold water was added. Shit looked like straight up tar. Well anyways I got an infection and never injected that stuff again.

Im positive the spot Im hitting has no pulse and is indeed a vein. I feel a bit lectured here.

Also unfortunatly I do not have acess to smaller tips for a large guage needle or better drugs than oxycodone or morphine. If I had my way I would have high quality smack, small gauge luer lock rigs, and micron filters.