Heroin addicts who use the needle: Does anyone ACTUALLY "skin pop" their dope?

[eon_blue]

my girl told a doctor it was a brown recluse bite once and he bought it... atleast he gave her pain killers... so i assume he bought it... maybe try that excuse next time?

I wouldn't go with the brown recluse story unless you live in one of the few areas of the US where there actually are brown recluses (east coast I think?). Plus, a brown recluse bite starts to rot away the skin, I dunno how well that resembles an abscess but maybe she just bumped into a nice doctor who was willing to help her out regardless.

I'd just go with a plain ol' spider bite that got infected story. They are known to cause abscesses, then again so are ingrown hairs. Pretty easy to pull of a lie like that if you're a convincing liar (usually comes with the addiction so shouldn't be too difficult).

 

[Shambles]

I just told the nurse that they were infected abcesses from injecting heroin and cocaine. They are not stupid - I suspect they know an infected injection site when they see one. She loaded me up with painkillers and was very friendly and nice about the whole thing. Gotta love the good old NHS :D.

 

[ellua]

i wondered the same thing the last time i read "skin popping", i remember thinking to myself that this is either one of those ignorant drug myths that gets spread by non-users, or it's something that high school kids do now because they hear that it's "not as bad for you."

you should ask the people @ the clinic how often they hear that response from users, wonder what they'd say...

 

[sixpartseven]

Theres also a huge difference between "skin popping" and IMing. Skin popping is sub-cutaneous injection, meaning, its literally injected right underneath the skin. IMing is in the muscle.

From my experience, most addicts refer to IMing as skin popping, which is incorrect. IMing isnt half bad (except for the risk of infection), but skin popping really is a huge waste of dope.

 

['medicine cabinet']

There was a 22 year old kid on the show Intervention addicted to heroin, and he skin-popped throughout the whole show. Said he had no veins left, and was even running out of areas to skin pop on because the tissue was getting rock hard all over. Had a few untreated abscesses too, fucking sick.

ugh yea man, i hate that show but i did see that episode, fucking sad to be that young and be forced to muscle it because you are all out of good veins. I shot everyday for a few years and never had a problem finding a place to hit. sometimes it took a while but i had enough common sense to know IM/skin pop is a bad idea.

If its some kind of drug from a sealed vial, then yeah, no worries, but something off the street like dope or coke, your circulatory system is more capable of dealing with it than your skin/muscle.

 

[ellua]

is there even a way to know what the bioavailability for it would be? or is it not going anywhere specific enough to narrow it down to a good, avg #?

 

[sixpartseven]

check the BA mega thread, Im pretty sure the IM BA for heroin is listed. I cant be bother to search at the moment, but if I get to it before you, Ill post the results

 

[phr]

I've met a couple people that sc/im their dope. They said they did it cause they ran out of veins. One guy I especially remember, he had a chunk of his calf cut off due to an abscess he got there from IM'ing there. He also had a golf ball sized bulge on his neck from missing a jugular shot.


It's rather stupid. There's no rush and you risk a lot, health wise.

 

[i8hooked]

The abscesses ive seen were from missing with black tar.
I have never "skin popped" and Ive never been sick. Been usin hern for little over a year now.

 

[95Land]

I've met a couple people that sc/im their dope. They said they did it cause they ran out of veins. One guy I especially remember, he had a chunk of his calf cut off due to an abscess he got there from IM'ing there. He also had a golf ball sized bulge on his neck from missing a jugular shot.

Similar story, I used to work with a guy who was in his mid forties who, with a very rare exception could never find a vein. He had been shooting dope since his early twenties. He skin popped all of his shots, unless he hit a tiny vein by accident. Like others have said, the goal isn't to shoot it into your muscle, it's to shoot it a little ways under the skin. It's obviously not nearly as effective/satisfying as pushing a shot into a vein. It is done out of perceived necessity by longtime needle users who are seemingly as addicted to the ritual of cooking a shot, drawing up and shooting as they are to the drug itself.
Also, it does seem to leave the user much more susceptible to abscesses. In the time I knew him(two years) the guy I am referring to had 4-6 abscesses. Some where fairly small, but one of them, in particular, was massive. It was on the upper part of his left arm and it was a little larger than a softball. Shortly before he ended up having to be admitted to the ER, it was so red and swollen, it almost made me sick just looking at it. At the hospital they had to lance it. Fucking disgusting.
So yeah, people do do it. It clearly doesn't seem like too good of an idea, but I can see why some end up feeling it's necessary. Take care of your veins.

 

[ellua]

check the BA mega thread, Im pretty sure the IM BA for heroin is listed. I cant be bother to search at the moment, but if I get to it before you, Ill post the results

i mean like specifically a "sub-cutaneous" BA, not IM.

i don't know shit about how everything is packaged under my skin, but if you're not even aiming for a muscle and it's just like, under there, how does it get absorbed into the bloodstream? assuming it's "popped" on the inner forearm.

 

[papa]

I had a friend, back in the day, that would skin pop because he had no other choice. except when I came over, i could hit him in the neck. He would sometimes call me just to come over and fix him up. He died a few years ago

 

[bighooter]

so when you are a heroin addict

do you take heroin just to stop yourself from withdrawling and you dont even get high?
If you get what I mean, or do you always feel the high no matter how addicted you are?

 

[papa]

you can just get well or you can get high.

 

[kadaj]

@ bighooter:
your first question is closer to the usual than your second. heroin addicts (that use daily) are generally looking for 2 things out of a shot: satiation of their psychological desire for a euphoric rush/high and physical relief from withdrawal or "sobriety" (which is generally feeling a level below a non-addict's sober state). after years of banging away 2 things almost always happen: it becomes harder to hit target veins and tolerance skyrockets. after a certain period the addict isn't going to expect the same euphoria even at higher doses. to avoid sickness an addict will skin pop (if they can't register) because it's the only way they figure they will get well enough. an iv user isn't gonna snort when they have rigs, no matter how fucked up their veins are. due to all of this the addict won't nearly get as high as he/she did during the first couple months of use unless they use an exponentially higher dosage.

 

[NW-baltiland]

so when you are a heroin addict

do you take heroin just to stop yourself from withdrawling and you dont even get high?
If you get what I mean, or do you always feel the high no matter how addicted you are?

Both really. But once you have a real big tolerance its really no longer possible to remain "high" all day everyday, due to cost reasons.

 

[bighooter]

geez
harsh times

i would hate to be addicted to it, I wouldnt mind it if it always got you high but its the tolerance thing I suppose.
Im just curious as heroin is one thing I might turn to before I leave this world.

 

[Shambles]

^ I'd wait till you've done everything else you ever plan to do first if I were you. After a few years of addiction I needed £150 worth of smack a day just to function. And by the time I gave up I could barely remember what a heroin rush felt like - it just kept the sickness away long enough to sort my next shot. Heroin addiction is no joke .

 

[papa]

I quit heroin 30 years ago. But, I think I will probably give it one more run before I die. I've been thinking about that for years.

 

[johanneschimpo]

^ Well sure. If you're (for example) 80 years old and have a terminal illness, or something like that, why the hell not? Nothing to lose at that point, may as well bust out the Brompton's cocktail and have a party.