Health implications of damaged veins

[shelovesyou]

I would like you to send this over to Healthy Living, if you will.

People who habitually use intravenous drugs eventually destroy their veins. They disappear. What are the health implications of that event in particular?

 

[Rogue Robot]

Anonymous -> HL

 

[addictivepersona]

They don't disappear. They get rerouted. If they disappeared, your limb would fall off as it wouldn't have sufficient blood supply.

 

[Psych0naut]

Like the person before said, other veins take over the bloodflow from the collapsed vein, so in a way it get's re-routed. The body has thousands of veins and there are always veins to take over when some other vein collapses, usually the ones nearby. It's still always better to prevent collapsing your veins though, but at least you know that when you do lose a couple of veins even very large ones like in the crook of your arm that you'll lose a limb.