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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Injecting in hands

J

John_Burrows

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
1,007
Hi gang

So last night i tried injecting for the first time (dilaudid). I knew my biggest problem would be injecting since finding veins in my arms has always been a challenge as they are not clearly visible (even nurses often have to poke me 2 or 3 times before having any luck) so i thought I'd try the top of my hand, where lots of veins are really visible. But i had some problems...

First, how the hell do you pull back the plunger with one hand?? It's already so far extended since the syringe is almost full, and of course i want to keep the needle still as possible so I'm not damaging my vein by having a sharp spike flipping around back and forth! I guess if im confident im in a vein I don't need to pull back first and see blood come into the syringe, but everyone says that's what you should do (using 29g, by the way).

Next, after I finally managed (with great pains) to pull back the plunger a bit with my teeth, i saw blood so i began to press down on the plunger. And it hurt. On top of that, i could swear i saw a bubble forming about the size of a finger nail where i was injecting, like a slight swelling. Between that and the pain i was scared i was screwing something up so I pulled out and didn't inject very much.

Anyway, any tips you guys can give me on hand injecting would be really appreciated, I'll probably try again tonight.
 
sometimes you can see blood go in the syringe without having to pull back, but i still usually like to check, but ya it can be a bitch trying to reach the end of that plunger to check sometimes.
 
Maybe try using less water, you should only need 40-50 units of water. You can also try the top of your arm, that may be easier. If you are in a vein, it should go in very easily without creating a bubble under the skin.
The way I pull back, sometimes, is by holding the tip of the syringe (not the needle) between my thumb and index finger, and I wrap my pinky and ring finger around the plunger, with the middle finger holding the whole thing steady. I'll use my pinky finger to slowly pull back the plunger. It's kind of awkward, but you only need to get the tiny amount of blood in there, just to see that you're in the right place, so it doesn't have to move that far. You can try practicing this without actually sticking yourself,just to get the movement down with an empty rig a few times before you take the plunge.
 
If you plan in using your hands you should use the smallest gauge possible. Also you can definitely use less water. Depends on what your injecting but normally you don't need more than 30 cc's of water. And practice holding it. If it swelled it was a miss. Even if you saw blood, of you have difficult veins like you said. I do too, sometimes I swear it should go it but it misses. :(
 
I always had to use my teeth. Make sure you push the plunger down slowly. The veins in your hands are tender without much room to expand, so pushing it in as fast as you do your arm can hurt not to mention freak you out that you a losing your shot.
 
If you are indeed in a vein blood should flow nicely into the syringe, but not too much blood. I always used my pointer finger to drop the plunger, holding with my thumb and middle fingers. Some people do this differently though.

Injecting in the hand can be very painful. If you cant find a vein in the normal injection area in the crease between your arm, try your upper arm above your hand. This is where I almost always injected when I was using heroin. You can also inject in your feet, but this is also painful. Tie your arm up tight with a tourniquet, then see if you can get a vein in your upper arm.

Also, using less water is usually a good idea. It makes your dose more potent when injected, so make sure you know your tolerance when you do this. Cook the solution VERY lightly to burn away impurities. Dont bring it to a full bubble.

I'm assuming your injecting dilaudid pills, which can be very unsafe without proper filtration through a wheel filter. Keep that in mind if they are indeed pills.

If you miss your injection into the arm this could be very painful and possibly cause an abscess(you described this as a bubble in your arm, meaning you missed).
 
Ok guys thanks for the tips. Yes these are dilaudid pills. For all the talk of wheel filters, there seem to be plenty of people I've talked to here who say cotton works fine for them. I guess I could draw the solution through cotton and then squirt that into a cooker and heat it up a bit to remove further impurities.

In regards to hitting a vein, could it be a miss if I pull back on the syringe and see blood? Or is that a sure sign I hit it right? Because I did see blood when I finally did pull back the plunger.

I'll def use less water, just seems like a lot of powder to dissolve in such a small amount of liquid!

I did try an arm before the hand... It was tough but despite the fact that I thought I screwed it up I was successful, since I felt the effects shortly after plunging down... But since the injecting was starting to hurt I stopped about 3/4 of the way down (this was with a full 1cc syringe, before I knew I didn't need that much).

So I probably only got 1 or 2mg of D into my system. I'll try again tonight, first on my left arm (I had blood taken from that arm yesterday at the docs office so I didn't want to use it again in the same day, but it's been over 24 hours now and it seems healed up enough to try there. My left arm has better veins than the right ).

Is 24 hours between injections enough to use the same vein? Because that's the only one on my body I can find with any sort of ease...
 
with pills you definitely need more than 30cc's of water, to all of yall are claiming that, especially if the OP is shooting a good number of pills. it's not like he's shooting dope where you can get a concentrated shot if you want. with pills if you dont use enough water you're not gonna get the most out of your pills.

and although wheel filters would be optimal, if someone is only going to be doing this off and on using a cotton from a q-tip is fine. some people don't even filter them and just backload them in, so using cotton is pretty sufficient i'd say if this isn't going to be an every day thing.

also, there is no reason to heat the pills. this is a huge misconception, and it amazes me that so many people in this thread are telling him to heat the pills when you should know from being on this forum that heating the pills is just gonna add more insoluble binders in your shot.

and ya man you can hit the same vein just make sure you shoot a little closer to your heart and a little bit away from where you previously injected. like . . . or so between shots.
 
^ Dilaudids are just lactose, coloring and the active ingredient IIRC. All very soluble. Therefore he shouldn't need too much water.
 
pstyles89 said:
Also, using less water is usually a good idea. It makes your dose more potent when injected, so make sure you know your tolerance when you do this. Cook the solution VERY lightly to burn away impurities. Dont bring it to a full bubble.
Click to expand...

Please don't heat solutions for pills.

If you pull back and blood squirts in, if you move the needle too much, it can come out of the vein. Another way to check is by slowly pushing on the plunger. If it hurts, stop and re-register. I usually use my thumb and/or index finger to work the plunger. You might also find that making an air bubble once the needle pierces the skin and seeing it fill with blood upon vein entry can be useful.
 
^^
would you say using your thumb and index finger gives you an advantage? i had been using my middle and index finger. do you think using the thumb is easier? cuz sometimes i have trouble reaching all the way back.

and do you know if that registering trick with the air bubble is ok for the veins? i had read about it and thought that it might be bad, so i never tried this method before.
 
My bad, I have never shot dilaudid pills myself(but have plenty of IV experience), so I probably shouldn't have advised heating. And I forgot you would need more water to dissolve pills than you would dope. Sorry.

On the actual injection part though, if your shaking because your nervous(or for whatever) you may move the needle out of the vein causing you to miss. When you hit a tiny amount of blood should flow into the syringe. As said before drop the plunger slowly and if its very painful you probably popped out. Tighten your tourny and try again.

You can inject in the same vein several times if you want, but its probably not a good idea and will eventually lead to collapsed veins. A few times is probably ok, just make sure you sterilize the area with rubbing alcohol afterwards. If it begins to look infected, seek medical help.
 
Ok I tried again last night, this time using less water and no heat to dissolve the pills. That part was easy.

Hitting a vein was hard. I was using the arm a nurse drew blood from on Friday, and she even showed me how to find the vein (told her I was curious), mostly by touch. So I was sure I had found it, poked, drew back and only got air.

Shit. So I pulled, poked again and got the same thing - air. But I was so sure I was in a vein I started to plunge the drugs in anyway. Very slowly, and it didn't hurt (50 units worth).

I pulled the needle out and very little blood and a bit of solution came out with it. It seemed like I missed. A few seconds later I think I felt a little tingle of drugs but not the huge rush I should have gotten.

What happened? If I missed, I thought it was supposed to hurt. If I hit, I should have seen blood and felt it!
 
^^
remember to always be careful when you're injecting. don't just push the plunger down if you think you're in a vein. u gotta check, especially during these early stages when you're learning on what to "feel" for and all. worse comes to worse, just take out a new syringe and backload your filtered shot into the new one and try again.
 
don't use your teeth to drawback, it probably dislodged the needle.. you need to learn to hold the needle and drawback with the same hand... its not easy

furthermore you don't want to leave traces on your hands, its very visibleµ... so untill you have no veins in your arms go for the arms
 
I know it sounds strange, but my hands seem to heal faster than my arms. The spots on my arms I used on Friday are still visible, but the ones on my hands from Sunday are barely noticeable. Since I only plan to iv on weekends, and my hands have better veins, I might as well use them.
 
I got your back dude. i really hope you read this. by the way be carefula bout posting like this on THIS website a lot of people will flame yoiu for injecting into extremities such as your hands and feet because its a harm reduction policy and apparently all the people who have osmething to say have PERFECT veins...while mine are torched to the definition of the word. I have hit ALL of the veins ontop of my hands including my knuckles and palms if you'd believe it...it is very easy once you know what your doing. Injecting in the hand is one of those places where you have to MAKE SURE you anchor the syringe properly, as in REST the plastic of the barrel where the plastic turns into the metal needle, on your skin as you attempt to register, keeping the syringe as parallel to your arm as possible horizontel etc. Thus preventing the syringe from moving or the needle going through the other side or popping out of the vein. A lot of the veins on your hands are notoriously bad "rollers" meaning they move when you penetrate the skin with the needle...this can be avoided by 1) "darting" or pushing the needle in quickly so it doesnt have time to move (only can be done with a new syringe with a sharp point) 2) using a finger to hold the vein in place so it doesn't roll ( a lot easier with a friend to help)...as to your serious issue of using the plunger with one hand I picked up a trick in the midwest a few years ago and haven't done it any other way since....you take a keyring....not big and not small obviously big enough for your thumb and run the back of the plunger through the ring effectively securing it to the top..if you look at pictures of original/old hypodermic syringes they have a metal ring on the top...this makes it much easier to pull back/push forward with one hand/one finger...try it out : ) it saved my ass. Anyways.....just be careful....make sure your registered well and don't miss and if you do apply cold water immediately and over time do warm compresses to help your blood/tissue absorb the material. sometimes you have to leave the tourniquet on in order not to lose the veins....for example if you hit your old faithful main vein on your crook of your elbow you register the shot pull the turni and then inject....sometimes with small veins if you remove the tourniquet before injecting you lose the vein/register so atleast with my fucked up veins I have to inject quickly before removing the tourniquet and then just undo it before I remove the needle from my spot. Good luck and happy hunting.....DON"T get into this HARDCORE I have been shooting dope for 2 almost 3 years and started with pills just like dilaudid and oxycontin like you opiates are a slippery slope and its damn easy to go over and never get back up the hill....I inject into the bottoms of my feet and palms of my hand because they are LITERALLY the only veins I have left that are hittable occasiionally...imagine it....being a heroin addict is tough enough that when you have stuff you can get high/well/get rid of sickness....imagine being like that and having it...but you cant get it in....I muscle all the time out of desperation/frustration....dont let it get this far bro trust me.

Peace and good vibrations
K
 
Thanks for the detailed reply, Castout. I'm slowly getting better at the one handed draw-back. Resting the other end of the needle on something does help a lot.

I'm curious, does anyone else have trouble injecting more than 50 or 60 units into their hands? Maybe it's my imagination but once I get that far it just feels like my vein is telling me it's had enough, so I stop.

Also, is there any chance my dose is going to be less potent because I'm using an extremity? I'm wondering if there are any really good reasons to stop using my hands, because they do seem to work best for me; the needle marks heal overnight but take several days with my arms (not to mention that finding veins in my arm has been really hard).

I plan to shoot 3 times a week total.
 
Ok it looks like I finally solved my own problem, thanks to the suggestions of a few fellow bluelighters!

I was still having trouble making a hit on my hands - twice this week I had to stab myself 4 times before registering, and it looks like i actually went through the vein a few times, eeesh.

Well there is a pair of veins that start at the base of the thumb and index finger and join up into one, larger vein near the wrist, which then travels up the inner side of the wrist/forearm. Well, this vein is really easy to find (at least on me) and is much larger than most of the hand veins. Last night i tried hitting it on both hands and scored on the first try, really really easy (although technically i injected more in the wrist area than hand, where the vein is larger).

And 12 hours later there is no trace of a mark!

So, if you're like me and have a hard time finding veins in your arms, take a look for is one.
 
Wow ok this sounds alot like the way i got started IVing. I shot up 8mg's of dilaudid into my arm. Ialso used my hands and became a pro at hitting anywhere in my arms. The veins in my hand i never bother with anymore because they roll too much.

I would say lay off injecting dilaudid man. I used to chase that rush from dilaudid all day. Then i got into shooting every morphine pill i could. So yeah if you keep at it youl become a pro at hitting veins :|
 
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