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how long does it take a vein to come back?

d-loc

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 21, 2003
Messages
35
in william burroughs' "junkie", he talks about his freind who alternates from arm to foot to hand and states a vein will come back in time. i'm not like some of you lucky ones who have many veins. i actually only have one visible vein that pops out in my arm (obviously the one that stretches across the back of your elbow) and i could always hit it from my biscep down to my forearm. after a real heavy habbit this summer, injecting around five times a day, it became almost imposable for me to hit a vein in my arm come mid-august. i had a number of missed shots because of this, which i'm sure didnt help. my veins became very scared and since then i have been shootin in the many veins in the top of my hands. i've heard and read that this is bad but they are doing fine so far. i've noticed the scarring in my arm veins starting to go away but i tried the other night and still couldnt get a vein to pop out in either arm. will they come back eventually? im sure the veins in my hand won't last long and i cant hit in my leg so im worried what will happen when my hands get fucked. anyone with experience or knowledge on the subject, please reply. thanks.

p.s. i don't want to shoot into my dick vein like renton in Trainspotting, the novel and i dont want to stop mainlining smack so those are not options.
 
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blahblahblah said:


Whatever you do use sharp needles as you can lessen the damage significantly. If it comes down to it re-sharpen it on a matchbook striker rather than ripping thru your skin and gouging up your vein.

be safe, not sorry...

good advice. sending 1000's of metal particles into his bloodstream sounds awesome.
 
This is a problem i face. I used to have huge, throbbing veins, all over my forearms, inner arm and even bicep. Many of these have collapsed from injecting oxycontin, using dull syringes, missed shot and other things. Some will probably never grow back, and the ones that do, grow very slowly. Yet, I have found a sort of solution that helps grow veins and regrow collapsed ones: weight lifting. This has helped me quite a bit in re-establishing old and creating new veins.

Still the outlook is grim. Ive done a shit load of damage. I still have problems finding good veins. The ones ive collapsed in my hands wont seem to come back, and the circulation to my arms in general is not too great. I still inject with some frequency, but probably 1/10th of what i used to. If i inject pills now, i use micron filtration, but i try to stay away from pills (besides dilaudid). Nowadays i mainly shoot fentanyl patches, ampules (sodium pentothal, versed) and micron filtered heroin. I honestly dont know when and/or if some of these veins will grow back. Its sort of like a girl who has been fucked too many times, it never seems quite right, and never goes back to its original pristine state. Using a 20g needle is like a girl getting fucked by a black guy. Yes, ive used a 20g needle before, when i needed to get high, and my friend only had some 20g IM steroid syringes. Jesus christ i had good veins. Had......
 
Great advice so far :)

Veins collapse from a build up of scar tissue. Most of the time they won't come back, but things like excercise (especially weight lifting) can definately help.

veincollapse.jpeg


The "new" veins that appear after the main ones collapse are really smaller veins expanding from the increased blood flow. The walls of these veins are thin and easily damaged. Over time and with good care, these can strengthen and become like normal veins.

Preventing Unnecessary Vein Damage goes into detail about keeping your veins in good working order.

:)
 
Sharpening a needle will not result in metal particles being dislodged into your blood stream, at least if you have half a brain. Match striking paper works, but extra-extra fine sandpaper from a hardware store works better. Sharping syringes this way should be a last option, but an option nonetheless. Make sure you wash it off very well before inserting it back into a vein. Again, if you can get a new syringe, this is by far preferable, but if you only have what you have, and its really dull, sharpening may be a way to lessen damage to your veins.
 
blahblahblah, burroughs uses that homeade syringe in naked lunch. i wasn't sure whether that was true, as much of the stuff in naked lunch is petty out there and not likely to be turthful.

i remember when my grandma had cancer she had a port in her chest so that they would not have to continue giving her shots in her arm. i wonder if i could get them to do this for me? imagine that? no puncture necessary, the hold about an inch away from yuor heart. that's be the perfect shot.

yo blahblahblah, ive read lots of your posts. i got two questions, just curious: where do you live and do you still use?

EDIT by NK:

Do NOT ask someone to do drugs with you in a public forum. Feel free to PM blah if you wish, but you are giving away too much information. Be careful about what you say!
 
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Tape down a butterfly and cap it, and you can shoot things all day without penetrating a vein more than once. Only thing that sucks, is butterflies are usually 25g-27g, so it hurts a little more than a standard B&D 30g.
 
I don't understand why people won't just go and get fresh syringes? Its not that hard.
For fuck sake, save yourself all the drama and get thee to a chemist/pharmacy/needle exchange clinic and get some cleanies.
 
It depends on where you are Bella...where I am a lot of pharmacies are starting to crack down on selling syringes. I know someone who's diabetic, so I have an excuse to be in there often, i can claim I was in the area so they asked me to pick up their syringes. (half the family's diabetic, so they have a reason to go through them like water)

But my area also doesn't have an exchange. The nearest one is in a really bad spot that most people with half a brain wouldn't want to go.

And if you miss, most dont want to have to transfer the shot to a new syringe, they just pull out and re jab.

Transfer your shots often...learn to shoot with both hands, and if you're not addicted, just stop for a while...or take to snorting it. same "rush" without the vein damage.
 
im in jersey and there are no exchanges and pharmaciez do not sell them. the onlt way i can get them is to go to new york by train and by 10 for 2.50$ at cvs which is cheap but the train ticket can be 15$ which a junikie can not always spare. if i lived in nyc id get a new bag of needles every week
 
Syringes require prescription here in california, so a needle exchange or online sources are the only options. Some online places are hesitant to send to california, as they would technically be breaking the law. Still, there are some that dont care. So, i get most of my needles from an exchange, which isnt in too great of a neighborhood. If i miss a shot, I dont transfer to a new syringe, I just finish the job as quick as possible, unless the blood in the syringe is coagulating and forming clots. If your in a pinch, tattoo places always have 1cc syringes, and if you offer them excessive prices they may sell you some.
 
negrogesic said:
Tape down a butterfly and cap it, and you can shoot things all day without penetrating a vein more than once. Only thing that sucks, is butterflies are usually 25g-27g, so it hurts a little more than a standard B&D 30g.
Shit I use terumo 27's almost all of the time, that's what you get here at the exchanges. You can get B&D 29's too, but I havent seen 30g needles around before.
I find 29's can be a bit of a hassle though, they can be fairly stiff and take a while to press if you've got it over half full, as you sometimes need to with meth. 30's must be a fuck unless your doing smack or something else that dissolves in a small amount of water, but I know 30's would do wonders for my arms..
 
Yes 27g terumo's are the most commonly dispersed syringes at exchanges around here, but they do also carry the b&d 30g/1cc, which i think are a little to flimsy. These b&d's are the most desirable to most people around here, opposed to the terumo's, so to get the b&d's you have to get there early. Ive even seen some 31g 1/3cc syringes at an exchange, i dont know what the hell you could shoot with that (pure meth maybe?) because i know the tar heroin around here isnt potent enough to fit in 1/3cc.
 
it can become a cyclic problem, the less veins you can see to hit - the more you try and hit em, when you end up searching the needle gets damaged. I lot of damage can be avoided by correct injection technique - hitting first time and using drugs that arent hard on the veins, eg if u shoot pills they will tend to go quicker (u can also encounter danger like thrombosis and embolisms doing this). Having said that i started iving 7 years ago. I stopped some months back and can see quite a few stong veins that i couldnt see before. I must admit stopping iv use was the best choice i made, after seeing people around me get endocarditis, DVT, plebitis, and of course o'ding. Funny thing is although i was doing this 6 tiimes a day with pure H, (pharm grade or injectible methadone) i dont really miss it. Ok now and again i wont to but the feeling subsides. Anyway after a while i could never really feel much when my habit was at its highest so it seemed pointless.

For those of you who cannot get access to free syringes i am sure there is somewhere on the net that sells them cheaply. I found that veins lasted longer if you treat em better - one shot, one syringe, i know its easier said than done though.
 
So true. Needles are so hard to get nowadays. If you can't lay off the dope totally wait a while before you IV again...snort...smoke...dont iv though.
 
Can all of you PLEASE watch the movie or READ the book requiem for a Dream...Maybe you wont have to go searching for needles after that....8(
 
Why do so many people cite that movie as a sort of magic bullet for needle fixation... it's a movie and not too realistic at that. Jared Leto is a pretty ripped guy, with a shitload of big surface veins... yet he chooses to shoot over and over again in the same spot!?!?! All serious junkies I know look like they have stitch-marks riding along their veins.
 
must admit i havent seen anything like that. but have seen my m8 get plebitis, zillions of abcesses, and cellulitis. Also know someone who lost 3 fingers from iv'ing pills, and one who lost half his leg, another with endocarditis, another who died of the latter and various other poor sods who along the way just died cuz they misjudged the dose. So although its dramatic it gets its point that these things happen, and if it scares some ppl off IMO all the better.
 
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