Heroin Small red swollen vein?

[Twiztidd]

I recently did a shot in the main vein that many people use that runs down your bicep to the under side of your elbow where the skin is the thinnest. I did it further up along the vein closer to the bicep than my elbow. I inserted the needle in the direction of my shoulder so the injection would be going with the current of blood, and the shot went perfectly fine, no missing, drew blood just fine both before and after emptying the syringe.

However about 10 min after, I noticed that I had a small red line on my arm. It was located on the underside of my forearm towards the left side, maybe about 2 inches away from where I did my shot. The red line was in the shape of a T, did not hurt at all, but was slightly raised to the touch. It resembled what your skin would look like if you got scratched by a cat or something. It stayed like that for about 10 min, and then disappeared.

Now at first I wasn't able to tell that it was even a vein, but after the redness/slight swelling disappeared, I was able to see that it was one of those little tiny veins that you have to really look for to see, in different areas of your body. On darker skinned people you can't even see them, but I am very white so it is very easy to see those little veins on me.

I should also mention that I've been using cocaine for the past 3-4 days, and I happened to have done a couple lines about 15 min before doing this shot.

Any ideas what this could have been? why did one of my little veins, that's not even directly connected to my main vein, get red and swell up for 10 min? It wasn't like the whole vein swelled up either, just roughly an inch long section of it. The rest of the little vein on all other sides of this red "T" looked completely normal.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, as I am rather curious what happened here, and why it happened.

Thanks!

 

[tekkiebean]

sounds like irritation. your veins are probably constricted due to the cocaine. if it went away pretty directly and you have no residual pain or swelling then i think you are in the clear take care btw i am a rn

 

[missmeyet?]

Yep..as a nurse for 20 years and as an IV heroin user I can tell you that it probably didnt have as much to do with the cocaine as some of the heroin made its way into the other veins (as it does..thats why sometimes you can feel itching even away from the actual injection site) and for some reason it just irritated that smaller vein as it went through. It happens. As was said above, as long as you had no lasting effects from it and it is not painful you will be fine. Just that irritation or histamine reaction...10 mins is about how long that lasts for me.