No one can know if your drugs are causing an adverse reaction unless you had it anylized by a lab. Or at the very least until you are a heroin expert and can shoot properly and know what its supposed to feel like... Which won't happen until you plug first.
Hey Z-NEG, I also don't use a tourniquet AND my veins are really hard to find! The first few times I tried tying off it was such a pain in the ass I figured I'd be better off learning to IV without it.
And the "stick it in a tiny bit then pull back then push in as long as you're pretty sure you're over a vein" is the single best trick on the planet. I figured it out myself a few months ago and started posting it on here everywhere. I'm sure I didnt invent it, but prior to me discovering it I had never seen it mention on Bluelight, and I did A LOT of reading before I started to IV.
In my arms, you literally cannot see a single vein. However, a nurse of all people showed me how to find them by sense of touch - if you start tapping around on your arm where you think a vein might be (it does help to at least make a fist) if the vein is close to the surface you can feel it sort of spring back to your touch, they have a slightly spongey feel and you can def tell something is there under the skin.
Once I located the vein, the trick was always trying to guess how deep it was, but the "create a vacuum then push in" technique made this very easy. After a few days/weeks of successful hits, for better or worse the (hopefully) light track marks left over from previous injections will provide a road map for years to come, making it even easier.
Most people go for crook of the inside elbow, but my best luck is with the vein that starts on the inside of the wrist near the base of the thumb and travels up the inside of the forearm, about halfway to the elbow. In the wrist area where the skin in thinner and there is less body fat it's much easier to find the vein, and from there it travels in pretty much a straight line up the arm (if anyone looks at the vein chart in the first post you'll see it).
That vein gives me about six inches of length to play with, which is essential so I don't have to keep going back to the same spot. For the most part, it IS ok to use the same vein frequently, as long as you're not hitting it in exactly the same spot, but I'd still try to give it at least 24 hours before you go back (that's what I do and my veins are fine).
Also, for many people the tops of the hands are a great place to mine for veins, since generally they are much easier to find and there are at least a few good ones all next to each other. I have a good 3 or 4 places on each hand i can hit and I register on the first go more often than with my arms.
Also, the skin on your hand is tighter; this means you may need to use a little extra force when sliding the needle in, but the upside to this is the skin holds the needle in place much better than the arms do - this means that you're less likely to slip out of the vein while you're injecting, something that happens to everyone now and then.
Having an injection spot that holds the needle more tightly is essential for times when you may be in withdrawals and your hands aren't as steady as you'd like. Even light withdrawals make my hands tremble a bit, so having the needle anchored in a spot of tight skin can really make a difference.
Also, from my point of view, you SHOULD be experiencing at least light withdrawals every time you shoot, since that's your signal that the drugs have worn off and it's time to redose. And i don't know about H, but with dilaudid, the worse your withdrawals are the better the rush is, so I try to NEVER use unless my body is telling me "it's time."
Lucky for me that's usually 3 or 4 times a day
I mean seriously, isn't it a waste of drugs to shoot up if your last shot is still affecting you?
Fuck, I just wrote out a ton of good advice for new IV users and I just realized it's not in the megathread, it's in this crybaby's little personal thread.
Hey mods, time for a merge!
