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Heroin numbness in hand

R

rymerkk

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
35
Location
Riverside, CA & San Francisco, CA
my girlfriend asked me to make a post about this as she is at work right now:

she has been using heroin for close to a year now. started off smoking (tar) and we switched to IV about 6 months ago.. more like 4.5-5 months for her. anyways, she has been experiencing numbness in her hand for the past few days.. i think she first said something about it 4 or 5 days ago. it started off with a tingling sensation, kind of like when your hand falls asleep, in just her thumb and index finger. today it has been her entire hand getting the tingly sensation. she shoots into one of the veins in the crook of her elbow almost every time. she also has a decent sized lump in that area because she has missed there a few times this week (not whole shots, just partial misses). i have tried telling her to stop using that vein or at least use it a lot less, but she has trouble hitting anywhere else and usually ends up going in there anyways.. i am worried (as is she) that it could be serious.. like losing a limb serious. i'm pretty positive it's some kind of circulation issue from hitting the same part of the vein most of the time (and missing occasionally), but i'm unsure of the severity of it. does anyone have any experience/knowledge of dealing with anything like this? is it serious enough to take her to the ER when she gets off work, or should she just make an appointment to see a doctor? any (knowledgeable) input would be greatly appreciated as i am very worried for her health.
 
go to the doctor, and be honest about the cause. (don't have to say heroin, just be honest about IV needle usage.) i'm no doctor, as I'm sure you are not either. if you feel that it is losing limb serious, then you should treat it as such.
 
rymerkk said:
is it serious enough to take her to the ER when she gets off work, or should she just make an appointment to see a doctor? any (knowledgeable) input would be greatly appreciated as i am very worried for her health.
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I would take her to the ER. Chances are that a doctor would send you to the ER anyway, so I would just skip that step. If this were a few days ago before it got worse, then I would have said to go to the doctor, but since a few days have passed, and it has gotten worse, I think that you should bring her to the ER before more damage is done.
 
she had just informed me a few minutes ago via text (about to make an edit) that it is still usually just the index/thumb going numb and only the whole hand has gone numb just once or twice.. someone told her it could be nerve damage from hitting a nerve, because its not the whole hand just two digits, which happened not too long before the whole numbness thing started so that makes sense, but i'm not going to just write it off as that and still keep all possibilities open. she wants to go to the free clinic tomorrow morning, but should i try to persuade her to go to the ER tonight?
 
rymerkk said:
she had just informed me a few minutes ago via text (about to make an edit) that it is still usually just the index/thumb going numb and only the whole hand has gone numb just once or twice.. someone told her it could be nerve damage from hitting a nerve, because its not the whole hand just two digits, which happened not too long before the whole numbness thing started so that makes sense, but i'm not going to just write it off as that and still keep all possibilities open. she wants to go to the free clinic tomorrow morning, but should i try to persuade her to go to the ER tonight?
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It is her business of course, but going to the ER never hurts. Better safe than sorry I think.
 
Chump said:
It is her business of course, but going to the ER never hurts. Better safe than sorry I think.
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thats what i think too, but i know it's going to be hard to get her to go tonight.. but i'll try my hardest.. i think i'm more paranoid than she is.. could things seriously progress overnight? i'm doubting i can convince her to go to the ER tonight.. i know she wants to see a doc first.
 
rymerkk said:
thats what i think too, but i know it's going to be hard to get her to go tonight.. but i'll try my hardest.. i think i'm more paranoid than she is.. could things seriously progress overnight? i'm doubting i can convince her to go to the ER tonight.. i know she wants to see a doc first.
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I'm pretty sure she won't be getting full blown gangrene overnight, so if she's really against going to the ER then its probably alright to wait and see a doc. Obviously like I said it's her business, but if I were in your shoes I would be feeling the same way haha.

I used to shoot into the vein that runs along the side of your wrist, and after a blown shot one time i had a huge lump there and numbness in my hand as well. Eventually, after massaging the lump a lot and giving it some time it all went back to normal. I never went to the ER or a doctor or anything (back when I was using I didn't give two fucks about that sort of thing really) and I was fine.

Her situation seems a little more serious but as I've said if she won't go to the ER tonight then yeah, for sure go see a doctor tomorrow morning.
 
thanks for the replies guys! if i can't get her to go to the ER tonight when she gets back from work we'll definitely be going to the doctor tomorrow morning. i'll keep posted for future reference if anyone comes to BL seeking answers if they're in the same situation.
 
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