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Harm Reduction Another terrifying brush with accidental arterial injection

Colonel Contin

Colonel Contin

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 10, 2014
Messages
260
Location
a house of slow decay, Tennessee
While attempting to inject a shot of tar into one of the palmar arches of the cephalic vein on my left hand, I accidentally released 10 or so units into what must have been the radial artery. It took roughly 1 second for the sensation to reach my brain, but when it did it felt like I had exposed my hand to a blast of 1000 degree steam. This sensation was followed by a severe histamine reaction, leaving my entire hand/wrist area a bright red color with white splotches all over. After about a minute, my fingers began to swell and, in a panicked state, I submerged the entire affected area in ice water (all the while applying pressure to the injection site). At this point, I had lost full motility in my fingers but was able to wiggle them with some range. This lasted roughly 5-10 minutes, at which point the swelling had subsided and motility had been almost fully restored (I say 5-10 minutes because I'm guessing that's roughly how long I spent in the shower trying to distract myself). The next morning I saw some evidence of bruising in my palms and around the injection site, but this cleared up after another day passed.

I am posting this because a massive portion of the advice given in response to reports of accidental arterial injection advise an immediate trip to the hospital. In more than one case, this advice was accompanied by a photographic resource detailing the experiences of some patients for whom arterial injection (the intentional injection of suboxone tablets in these cases) led to amputation. Maybe mine was a special case, but it seems that accidentally discharging a bit of fluid into an artery, though massively painful, may not immanently lead to losing fingers (though it does seem that injecting suboxone into an artery can seemingly/commonly lead to serious complications sometimes terminating in amputation). I spent the better part of 24 hours (despite the abatement of any troubling symptoms) panic-stricken because of the horrifying cautionary tales I'd read regarding accidental arterial injection, and, after doing some follow-up research on bluelight and other forums, found vastly more of these warnings than stories confirming the 'myth' that shooting into an artery immanently leads to amputation.

My intent here really isn't to diminish any level of urgency behind precautionary practices following an accidental artery shot, but I thought it might bring somebody a little bit of comfort to know that, if your symptoms don't point to the complete suffocation of your extremities, you may be fine. I know that, had I read a similar report that night, I would have likely slept better :\.
 
Glad I never had that happen. I killed all those veins in my last days of using(was scared of this exact thing)
 
Yeah, it's pretty horrifying. I think I could have managed the discomfort with a bit less whimpering if I hadn't been so scared of losing a finger. Either way, I think I'll avoid that area where the palm meets the wrist... yikes!
 
Can you not tell you're in an artery just by how the blood flashes back? Or does using a tourniquet make it appear similar to a vein?
 
You were extremely close to losing fingers to gangrene, Jesus Christ. It is a major risk but the particulate may have been disperse enough not to completely block blood flow to any specific finger. You likely have crap lodged permanently in your hand's capillaries however.
 
BlueIV said:
Can you not tell you're in an artery just by how the blood flashes back? Or does using a tourniquet make it appear similar to a vein?
Click to expand...

The blood from an artery appears almost pink and it 'flashes back' into the syringe with a lot greater pressure, but i didn't notice because my solution was already so dark.

_DankOpiAmp_ said:
You were extremely close to losing fingers to gangrene, Jesus Christ. It is a major risk but the particulate may have been disperse enough not to completely block blood flow to any specific finger. You likely have crap lodged permanently in your hand's capillaries however.
Click to expand...

Yeah, putting that shit through backwards was never god's plan. whoops.
 
Colonel Contin said:
The blood from an artery appears almost pink and it 'flashes back' into the syringe with a lot greater pressure, but i didn't notice because my solution was already so dark.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Sometimes I think I need to stay away from reading the what can go bad - it scares me! Once my stuff is mixed and in the syringe, I can't tell it apart from saline by looking at it. No problem seeing the blood! I forget that some of the solutions you guys shoot looks very different!
 
Glad to hear you're ok man, you're lucky it wasn't worse. When I was young and stupid I did a few shots in that area when I didn't know any better, I feel a little sick every time I hear someone hitting an artery in that area. I don't wanna know how close I was to fucking my shit up on those occasions.
 
^ Out of curiosity when did this happen? Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it looked like you were talking about something that happened a day or two ago. If so, it's a bit early to assume that everything is completely fine. There have been a couple of topics here about people who had similar experiences and came back saying they panicked for no reason and everything was fine, only for them to be in hospital a couple of days later, and soon having part of their body operated on or even amputated.

Although people hate going to get checked out when it might not be absolutely necessary, because it seems a waste of time, leads to the awkward moment of having to explain to a doctor what happened and what you were doing etc - and this is something I can understand since I tend to have the same feeling, but.. if it's only been a few days, I'd seriously consider getting it checked out, your reaction sounds incredibly like several reactions that did lead to lost limbs, only after appearing okay at first, and if it is okay - you lose an hour or two getting a check up, but if it isn't okay, that time saved getting it checked out immediately could be the difference between losing a limb or not.

I don't mean to scare you or in any way suggest that you're actually necessarily at any risk now that time has passed but I've seen this kind of thing happen an incredible amount of times and the % of times it actually does end horribly isn't that low, and in every case it's always someone who thinks they're fine, avoids getting help they made need, only for things to accelerate out of control.
 
I waited a few days before reporting. It was last week sometime (long enough, at least, that I felt confident there wasn't going to be a flare-up). This, of course, doesn't mean that longer-term circulatory issues couldn't arise at some point, but as of yet normalcy seems to have been restored.

I would certainly hate for the thing to go gangrenous all of the sudden with no warning, but at this point I have no symptoms. How long can an issue like that lie dormant?
 
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Hitting an artery has always scared me, especially when I was using a lot in the hand(it's sooo freakin' hard for me to get find a vein in the arm, don't know why, had one that I stupidly used repeatlely over and over and over, so it just look like this red sore on the crook of my arm constantly, so one day outta the blue after being on Subs, I really wanted to shoot something, and try to get some high, so shot a 8mg strip filtered once and ruined that vein..small pieces of subs are okay but never shoot a whole damn pill/strip like that,so stupid) anyway, my point was I know the blood is suppose to be dark but there have been many times where I did it and the blood was a lighter color than the dark red..nothing bad ever happened and i always got a rush, but just always wondered cuz that blood was never dark red...anyway
 
Can someone, or a few people, chime in on this question I have about arterial injections. Please answer only if you have first hand experience (sorry for the bad pun) and/or have injected for someone else and hit an artery. Some amount of the syringe contents must have been ejected to answer my question.

Q: Did you feel any effects of the drug? Is it amplified or diminished - factoring in the amount ejected from the rig. I suspect that's nearly impossible to gauge unless you plunged down past the mark you loaded to, and I doubt that's easy, and even more difficult to remember to look at in the maddens that ensues? Is it impossible to plunge it when you get in an artery (too high pressure, too much pain that you pull out immediately and uncontrollably? Has anyone actually gotten a whole shot into an artery, maybe by doing it super quickly and maybe while already high so that the pain was diminished?

I'm curious if anyone has "felt" the drug effects after an arterial injection.

I'd like this anecdotal feedback for my personal knowledge and to consider when counseling participants at the syringe access center I work with, I talk directly to everyone coming in, about 350/week to exchange. I'm a long term IVDU, in recovery, but over my ten + years of vein injecting many substances using an array of needle sizes (from 21G 1 1/2" to 31g 5/16") and fortunately never hit one. Nerves yes, but never an artery.

I would never take just the info I get here to my participants at the exchange, but it gives me data points to consider when developing our "safer injection technique protocols"

Thank you.
 
Screaming_Skull said:
Hitting an artery has always scared me, especially when I was using a lot in the hand(it's sooo freakin' hard for me to get find a vein in the arm, don't know why, had one that I stupidly used repeatlely over and over and over, so it just look like this red sore on the crook of my arm constantly, so one day outta the blue after being on Subs, I really wanted to shoot something, and try to get some high, so shot a 8mg strip filtered once and ruined that vein..small pieces of subs are okay but never shoot a whole damn pill/strip like that,so stupid) anyway, my point was I know the blood is suppose to be dark but there have been many times where I did it and the blood was a lighter color than the dark red..nothing bad ever happened and i always got a rush, but just always wondered cuz that blood was never dark red...anyway
Click to expand...
The blood I see from my hands is always lighter than the blood I see from my arms.
 
speedballs_over said:
Q: Did you feel any effects of the drug? Is it amplified or diminished
Click to expand...

A: I feel like the portion of the shot that ended up in the artery did indeed recirculate back out of my hand and directly across the BBB (joking, of course, but I felt the shot as though I'd hit a vein). The blood may travel away from the heart, but it turns around quickly. I think the biggest blow to your high when you hit an artery is the heavy distraction you'll experience as a result of suffering severe pain and acute panic.

BlueIV said:
The blood I see from my hands is always lighter than the blood I see from my arms.
Click to expand...

Even if that's the case, I think the blood you'd find in one of your arteries unmistakably light. It's almost like neon pink space juice. I always wondered why the blood you see when you register isn't blue (because as everybody knows, blood, prior to being oxygenated, is blue... ;))
 
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this sound EXACTLY like what happened to me. i never saw a doctor but it scared the fuck outa me and i sort of still feel weird sensations in the forearm even tho the injection sight was on the top of my left hand in the middle right in the big vien. i had the needle facing my finger... i shot b4 i took off the tourny and when i took it off i felt shit SLAM my heart, it hurt but i really dont remember my hand hurting the heart thing distracted me. immediatly itchy all over my hand, and swelling right away. it was swelled for about a day and was 95% down after 24hours. scared the shit outa me. first time i ever tried to shot and last time. ill stick to my nose. i hope u feel better and dont get an abcess, those suboxone pictures and some replys to threads on google are definitly scary..but for a reason. i never went to see adivce, its about a month last and i still feel weird sensations.

to answer SPEEDBALLS question
not sure if it was an artery im a noob with needles, but i remeber it being fairly light color red.

to be honest the mentaly scaredness distracts u from feeling anything. i can tell u i didnt really get sick as soon as i would have if i didnt shoot up. so i would say i felt it but it was dimished or felted it over a longer period of time instead of at once.
 
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^ if the swelling was directly around the injection site and not mostly in the fingers, it's likely you had a bad missed shot which would cause a severe histamine reaction, irritation, swelling, bruising, and general discomfort as the solution worked its way through the tissue around the injection site. The first shot I ever missed caused the back of my hand to puff up like I had been stung by a hornet and I couldn't make a fist for two days. I thought I'd fucked up big-time, but I quickly realized that's just what it feels like when you've got a mildly caustic solution permeating the subdermal tissue. I'm not sure if the body builds up some sort of immunity to this type of thing, but I've never had that severe a reaction since (though missed shots still always suck).
 
^ I've never used the back of my hand but one time a nurse was hooking me up to an IV in that area and missed my vein and put a couple cc's of saline under my skin... Definitely was not a fun experience, I can't imagine how much worse that would have been with a syringe full of dope.
 
I've done this before but I pulled out very quick because right away I felt this numbing tingling sensation shooting down my arm. It sure didn't feel like something I would want to recreate so I stuck with the veins I knew were good and today I don't use needles I take Suboxone as prescribed so no more worries about this kind of thing hopefully:)
 
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