I, also cannot stand another person injecting or drawing blood from me. IME they've all sucked, except for one lady at a methadone clinic I attended. She was the most amazing phlebotomist I've ever seen. I guess dealing with tens of thousands of I.V. drug users over the years has really given her an advantage over the ones that only deal with people who have fresh pipes. Though, you would think if your career is ONLY tapping veins you would be quite good. I told her, "there is no way you'll find a vein, and if you do, it's going to take you many, many tries". I had to get an I.V. in my chest/shoulder area when I went to the hospital for a seizure I had from shooting coke a few weeks before this, and at the time she took my blood I had been injecting heroin for a few years, regularly, and injecting cocaine close to everyday for six months. Needles to say my arms, hands, ankles, and feet were fucked up. She hit me in my hand with a 25g (I think... Def bigger then 27g, which is the biggest I've used for I.V.) the first time trying. It was amazing. I almost always become nauseous, shaky, dizzy, and sometimes vomit from others taking my blood or giving an injection.
I really just want to find out if others who hit themselves can't stand other people touching them with a needle? I saw a few of you write about it above, and I've actually asked a nurse before if I could just do it myself. Saving lots of time, pain, and anxiety. Of course the response was an immediate, "not going to happen".
I have no regrets from using the needle, other than the irresponsible, and unsafe manner in which I used to inject "things". Therefore, I can not hate the needle, no more than I could hate a knife if I cut myself. It's merely a tool used to administer substances directly to the bloodstream. And, if you think about some of the greatest inventions, it has the be one of the greatest things that has ever been made, without a doubt the greatest in the field of medicine. Saving countless lives for every few that decide to destroy there life with this invaluable tool.
I'm not surprised others have not talked about the health consequences they've incurred due to there I.V. use, but I'm very curious as to the amount of us that have blood-borne diseases. I consider the majority of the members of BL to be well above average when it comes to harm reduction, but I also know that some of us didn't discover resources of harm-reduction information until it was too late, and others, though they read the harm reducing techniques, choose not to use them. If anyone cares to share, I'd love to hear what kind of difference having a site like BL has on there drug use, if any. If I would've had BL 5 years ago, I know I would have been much more careful with how I go about my use of drugs.
Sorry for rambling on, just got my order of ethylphenidate and... well you know where this is going.
this made my day
