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why can't i hit a vein anymore..?

dopesmoke420

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 16, 2011
Messages
86
alright so ive shot up a good amount of times when i first started i had my friend shoot me up and he usually had no trouble hitting a vein than i started doing it myself and i could usually get it within a few tries , but recently i have not been able to register a shot in soo goddamn long so i've been forced to skin pop the shot which really pisses me off kuz i usually give up after a while n just push the plunger down by a vein.. i do not know why i used to be able to hit and even after not shooting for a little while to let my veins heal and trying different veins that i can see andd feel it just wont register no matter what i do! i really hate skin popping kuz i miss the rush and feel like i am wasting the dope when i do that, has anyone had this problem? any tips or advice please, i get so jealous when im with my friends and they can all get a perfect register the first time i almost forget what that feels like . :'( any advice is helpful thanks


and also i was wondering the difference in bioactivity between a missed shot and a successful one, bassiccallly how much am i wasting of the heroin when i miss
 
You umm... ARE using a needle for every new shot, right? (I understand not switching after every miss, but every dose should be a new needle).

There's a pic around here I recently saw that made me cringe BAD. After like 3-6 uses it was mangled in the worst way (tip of needle).
 
Although this could be answered in BDD, I'm going to send it over to OD (Other Drugs) as there is more experience in this over there.

Skin popping is bad - whatever you have inected just sits under your skin and you are at high risk of developing an abscess. If you get an IM (intramuscular) shot of heroin the bioavailability is about 85% according to this, but a missed shot isn't IM - it is s/c or subcutaneous. IM at least has a good blood supply, but a subcutaneous shot has a very poor supply, so it will have a low bioavailability, be absorbed slowly (so no rush) but most importanty, as I said it is dangerous and you are at high risk of developing an infection/abscess.

Few thoughts:

From your description it sounds like your veins are rolling to one side so you end up skin popping just next to them. Which veins are you going for? Any veins can roll but especially those not at the crook, and those near the surface eg back of hand, wrist. If you are going for hand veins curl your hand up into a ball/fist and flex your wrist down to stretch the skin taut over your veins and hold them in place. If you are not pinning alone, have someone hold the skin/veins in place by pulling downwards on the skin below where you are going to shoot.

Another reason for not entering the vein is a blunt needle - are you using a new one every time, even if you miss a shot once or twice and need to try again? Blunt needles make it a lot harder to hit the vein, so they can slip to one side of it, and if they do register then they do a lot more damage - check this pic (NSFW'd for size) - always use a fresh pin!

NSFW:
2328527271_5e2fd3f25e.jpg


Is yout technique good? Take a look at this thread for some tips (and reasons not to skin-pop..) - I know you said you were hitting them before, but always worth revisiting how to do it properly..

Maybe you have damaged the veins you are using - this can happen even if you rotate sites.. although if you can see a vein and it feels nice and bouncy then it isn't usually thrombosed/collapsed/damaged. Do they seem healthy? If you need new sites, take a look at a vein map (found via google)

Make sure you are well hydrated - if not, you can register but the vein collapses as you have a depleted blood volume so you end up missing your shot even though you initially hit the vein.

Maybe you are entering the vein but going through the other side? This is a common mistake amoungst new shooters, although you say you had the technique down before.. or not quite entering enough, so the bevel is in enough for flashback but not enough to inject intravenously..

Anyway :) those are my thoughts off the top of my head, shall see what the OD lot think!

BDD > OD
 
thanks, yeah the only place ive been able to hit is in the crook of my arm ive never registerd a shot on my wrist hands or feet and ive tried plenty , all my money shots on my arms are scarred over and over used so ive been trying to hit elsewhere with no luck.. when i used my hand i do make a fist and like i've said i've been using for a while i've shot up a good amount i dont get how i was hitting all the time and now can't even once.. and even if i get in the blood never shoooots back into the saringe it will only leak into it.. and the needles i've been using are to small to be going through and through.

also how would one go about an IM shot? i feel as if that would be very painful..

also i never used a needle more than 2 times
 
I highly recommend not doing an IM shot, but if you are going to, you really need to use a micron filter.
Here is some additional purchasing info.

As for the possibility of you veins having collapsed, here is an image that shows what happens when using the same vein too much.
NSFW:
veincollapse.jpeg
 
It's much harder to hit veins that aren't in your crook. Forearm veins are deeper and need a sharper angle, at least initially, where as hand veins are very superficial and need a really shallow angle. Both need a lot more practice and a different technique to the crook, so that could be the issue if your crook veins are collapsed as shown in Tommy's post...

No matter how small the needle it is still possible to go through to the otherside of the vein - veins are a lot smaller than the length of even the smallest needle.

Also, with the smaller veins in your hand (and to a lesser extent forearm) you won't get blood shooting back into the barrel, as they are smaller veins so the blood flow is less. You also need to inject a lot more slowly, especially with hand veins, or they could blow easily.
 
yeah ive found that out hah but i havnt been able to hit in my crook either when i try there anymore.. and yeah i realize that i try to listen for the pop of entering it to make sure imnot goin through and also check the register as i pulling out to make sure im not through.. i cant even hit my money shots in my crook that i used to hit everytime first time. . will collapsed veins fix themselves over time because i have been trying to refrain from shooting in the crook of my arm everytime and havnt there inn a little while.
 
Yes, with time your veins will heal. It's best to have multiple spots on each arm that you IV in, and rotate these sites each time you IV. If you can hit two different veins in the crook of your arms, then you have 4 sites that you can rotate.

Using a new needle every time will greatly reduce these problems. There are people that never have collapsed veins due to using a new needle every time, and rotating the injection sites.

You may need to take a break in order to let those veins heal, so you should look into taking a maintenance drug like suboxone or methadone so that you don't IV anything.
 
that is exactly what i did tommy boy , i went 13 days without shooting up or using heroin at all with the help of suboxone, i needed to do it for myself and also for my veins to heal. the scarring comming over thoes sites was gettin pretty noticable too.. ( i scar veryy easily and my scars are a noticable purple )
 
I have to chip in on the bioavailability of missed shots or SC shots... I only experience SC shots (with good powdered #4) when I miss an IV shot, and while not a good thing, with 5 minutes of very hot, almost unbearably hot, water under the tap, even a big miss (>.5 ml) will be absorbed rapidly. I've experienced rushes and sedation to the point of nodding out over the sink with my arm running under it. It kicks in fast and seemingly true to dose, so I'm guessing 90%+ bioavailability. If you've only missed with a little bit of a shot and have a punctured vein in the region of the miss, be more careful when applying heat as you don't want a newly punctured vein dilated and able to bleed more easily due to the heat.

A site under the skin near a significant vein has decent circulation compared to the depths of a muscle with its smaller, tighter capillaries. I'd never intentionally SC or IM heroin or any solution I'm not satisfied is sterile or at least totally devoid of insolubles, but if forced, I'd SC long before IMing dope. The chances of an abscess with the latter are just so much higher. Because we don't know what all is in street heroin, even if micron filtered with a very fine filter, we don't know if all insolubles and other nasties are out. It's not like a pill with published ingredients.

Edit: Some other stuff... For rolling veins, exercise a different approach. You normally want to go along a straight length of a vein into the arm at a very shallow angle. With rolling veins, try to go in at an aggressive angle (~45 degrees) with a short needle with a short bevel. Instead of sliding all of the needle in at a shallow angle to ensure you don't go out the other side or fall out, bear down on the vein from a steeper angle of attack in the dead center of a vein with a preferably tourniqueted arm or wrist and go in very slowly till you register in the very center of the vein, being careful not to go deeper to penetrate the bottom wall. The vein can't roll out of the way without the side traction of a shallow angle, but you have to be careful with how deep you go and register perfectly steadily.

Hate to suggest this, but if your veins/skin above them are really that scarred, you may find it easier to register with a 27G or 28G for the worst of the problem areas. I think you'd be better off finding all new sites with 31G needles, though ;) I bet you can find 8 new sites on each arm below your elbow but before your hand. Reusing a needle to penetrate the skin and potentially a vein twice is one time too many, so if you try a new site and fail to register in the first attempt, try again only after back-loading a brand new pin. I can easily tell the difference between the damage done to a vein after a clean first pierce and the damage done to a similar site after I've grown impatient and have taken two stabs trying to register with a 29 or 31G and only succeeded on the second stab. The bruising and swelling isn't normal when everything else with the shot has gone perfectly, but is perfectly avoidable, and at $13/100, anyone can afford to exercise "one needle, one stab."
 
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really??! thank you very much man^ i will try the new technique tonight and let you know if it works and if i ever miss again i will deff try the hot water thing too kuz i hate shooting up but not gettin a rush.. mine as well snort it. thank you for all the info and advice man much appreciated!
 
^ Do you know about the "vacuum method for registering?" Once you get the needle in a little bit, you pull back on the plunger a bit, creating a vacuum that is usually seen by some empty space that is seen in the barrel. This negative pressure will cause blood to fill up in the empty space when you eventually hit a vein. I had heard of this method on here, and actually did it accidentally my first time when I went to register and wasn't in a vein so it looked like air was in the barrel, but once I hit it filled in with blood on its own, so I didn't have to go through with manually registering again.
 
welp.. after 5 different spots and half a shot s.c on the 6th shot i finally got in the back of my hand and injected the other half of the juiice still not under my skin in my crook into it and got a little to mild rush but i have been snortin it all day, about 5 rails so i was alredy pretty high off it but the shot deffinatly boosted the warmth and wonderful feeling in my stumach<3
 
^ Dude, I'm getting sick just reading about you doing subcutaneous shots. Getting an abscess that way isn't a matter of if, but when. You've really gotta just plug it if you can't register a vein.
 
DUDE..i was the same way!!! I think i just sucked at it....and i work out so i have good veins and never shot up more than once a week....i honestly sucked at it cuz my friend would hit it the first time...so i just stopped...havent done it in over a year.....
 
yeahh idk mann i've done in multiple timess before though thats the thing..! and its not like im over weight n have to get thru inches of fat to get a vein i workout too but my veins arent super buldgy and the ones that were i over used and renderd em useless :'(, thats my fault though but i don't get why other spots aren't working for me
 
i just got a successful shot the register wasn't what it used to be it used to rushh in the syringe butt it just dabbled in and was pain free when i pushed in.. :D it was a new spot in my crook that i havn't seen before .. thanks for the tips now i know my veins just don't hate me anymore i was havin bad luck. this thread can be closed if a moderater pleases.. much love to all
 
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