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Track mark paranoia

Znegative

Znegative

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
6,015
Location
NYC/Oakland/Columbus OH
Hello all,
this thread is sort of an elaboration of a post I made in the suboxone megathread in OD, so if any of you read that, please forgive me if I sound redundant.

I got on suboxone sometime in late january early february after a bad relapse on heroin in late december. I got on it with the best of intentions, but in the end, my addiction one over, and although I stopped messing around with dope and other opiates, I continued to take amphetamines and shoot coke. After a particularly bad episode of injecting coke, my veins started to show scars (previously, they looked pretty virgin.)

Around two months ago I got into the habit of shooting my suboxone, and have used it this way every day since. I inject about 4x a day. My arms are in pretty decent condition really, considering that I'm not always as safe as I would like to be, and do in desperate times reuse needles. However, there are two rather obvious looking scars on my arm, which I have become increasingly paranoid about, now that it is turning hot outside where I live, and it is becoming weird to keep wearing long sleeves and over shirts.

The whole past week I've gotten away with wearing long sleeves, and since I live at home with my parent's, I consider it lucky that they have not demanded to see my arms so far.
Today I went into the city for job training at a coffee bar. I wore a light, long sleeve shirt to hide my scars/marks. When I got to the cafe, I was told to change into the store t-shirt. This sent me into paranoia mode, big time. I spent about 10 minutes in the bathroom examining my arms, and trying to convince myself that they weren't noticeable at a glance, as well as checking for any smeared blood that I might have somehow missed earlier that morning. When I left the bathroom, I was so scared. I thought I surely would be found out immediately.
When I got back behind the espresso bar, I was ordered to make an ice late, or some shit. I was so paranoid at this point, that my hands were shaking as I poured the shots into the cup of ice. The worker who was training me went on into a lecture about how "this wasn't a job for nervous people, you have to be confident! etc, etc.." At this point, I knew I could either get way more shooken, or I could try and force myself to get a grip, which is what I did.
For the remaining three hours, I managed to keep my fucked up arm out of sight from my coworkers, as well as the public (I hope). However, it was a real pain in the ass. I constantly had my hand on my hip with the left forearm bent inwards, in a perpetual state of sassyness. Whenever I was order to do anything, I would always hold anything I could with the left hand, so that my arm was bent in a way that made the crook unseeable. By the last hour, I realized I had made it, and my paranoia started to calm down. My legs even stopped shaking.
However, tomorrow I have to go back again for more training, and I am already dreading it. What makes the situation worse, is that the girl I'm training with, is someone who's in a recovery group with me, who thinks I'm clean. Not only that, but she is also the one who hooked me up with this job!
I'm really getting sick of having fears like this, but am finding it really hard to switch back to sublingual suboxone. I'm planning to just get off it in general, but it's kind of kicking my ass. I used to be able to put up with withdrawls so much better, but I just can't stand it anymore! After 8 hours without a shot I ALWAYs give in. I have been tapering down slowly, so hopefully I will be able to get off eventually without too much pain. But until then, well, I guess I'll have to move to the north pole.
 
Since my trackmarks were/are look like big scars running down my arms I just tell people i got cut with a knife in the rare chance someone asks... most people dont realise or even look at your arms, we just think they do because we know what they are from, but in reality they dont know shit!

Also when i was working and had to wear short sleeves working as a cook, I would wear a t shirt under my work shirt that had longer sleeves which covered more of my arms down to below the crook of my elbow where I would inject.
 
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Yea i was in the same boat at my fast food job for over 6 months and thankfully 4 months of it i could get by with a jacket. Thankfully I quit shooting just in time for my arms to look better when wearing a jacket was looking awkward. Just like georgie said most people won't know what it really is even if they notice it except the girl you're in counseling with (if she's experienced with a rig). My suggestion is to try and switch back like you said you wanted to do or spend every day putting makeup on your arms to hide the marks. I only do about .5mg of sub a day now intranasal-ly and it gets me through the day. It really does get easier after a week or two of sweating it out, lol. You'll be so glad once your done with it I promise.
 
Trackmark paranoia

Trackmark paranoia - The Dark Side

This is like my third try.

First, stop banging up right now. Second, get herdoid cream and apply a few times a day, thridly don't pick the scaps and lastly almost no one will know what the scars are from. They will heal quickly and give them sunshine when you can.

Good luck.
 
thanks. I've thought about the make up, but I'm color blind, so I have a feeling it would probably be more conspicuous than if I just went without.
 
start shooting into your vein on the top of your wrist rather than the crook of your elbow. It is alot harder for people to see those tracks, and if they do, they dont think its from shooting up because the average (non injecting) person thinks the only place people shoot up is in the crook of the elbow.

I live with my parents, who know I have had multiple relapses, with the needle, and they are being very strict (only giving me my days dose of suboxone at a time) and I still shoot my subs everyday and have tracks on both arms, but they are clueless as of now.

We all think our tracks are gonna stick out like a sore thumb but the truth is that the average person wont even notice.
 
Chillllll mon. My friend trips out like this too, even when its a tiny mark.

Nobody can fucking fire you for shooting up. Nobody can fire you for having scars. Fuck em. You don't have to explain yourself to nobody. imo you should address the paranoia just as much as the scars...
 
im not sure about new york, but in california you can get fired for no reason at all.

And i agree with everybody saying most people wont know what they are. I used to work with this chick that apparently couldnt hit a vein, and her arms were COVERED completely with abcess scars. She tried to cover them with bracelets and stuff but these two deep ones would always show and i thought she had gotten shot or had some crazy accident. i was also pretty deep into an OC addiction at this point too, i just had no knowledge of needles.
 
The average person is not looking/paying attention and would not recognize what they were looking at even if they did happen to see a track mark... the vast majority of folks are so self absorbed that the condition of the barista's arm is not even on their radar.

on the other hand, i found a pretty good hook up once when i noticed the tracks on the fella behind the counter at a gas station... only junkies (or parents/relatives of known junkies) have any idea what they are looking at, if they look at all.
 
Yeah it's hard for most people to notice track marks. With 31g needles I can't even see my own injection sites half the time.

Triple antibiotic ointment works wonders. It's best just to use it once per day. You only really need a thin layer.

Some veins leave marks more so than other veins, it's better to leave the smaller veins alone - they tend to bruise more.

As someone else said, the cephalic vein is great (the one that runs alongside the wrist), my median cubital and basilic veins are also great (the basilic is the "crook" vein) - the basilic vein works better when you're hitting the part of it that's on top of your forearm than compared to the crook. People don't expect you to inject on the top of the forearm or the sides of the wrist.

Vein map

The best two tips of all time for track marks are to go to the gym (muscular exercises help out your veins a lot) and to use new 31g needle tips every time (along with using the right veins). Good luck!
 
I don't have any track marks but I do have pretty bad self harm scars on my arms. I used to worry about them a lot but the truth is, like a lot of people have said here, that few people will ever notice them and even then they probably wouldn't guess where they came from.

Look at it from your point of view, do you go around examining people's arms? Does anyone? And if you were served coffee by a guy/girl with strange scars on thir arms, and you did notice, what would you do? Nothing, you wouldn't care.

I'm not saying their not ugly, but like any imperfection it's always much more apparent to the person who has them then anyone else. What you see in the mirror is not what the world sees.

Finally, you must know that if you want to avoid drug marks, it's best just to avoid the drugs. Write this down on the list of one more reason to quit.
 
I too agree with the previous posters who say that most people wouldn't know what the scars are from, and that's if they even notice them in the first place. Think about it like this: Say you're someone who has never been around IV drug use and you see a scar on someone's arm. You don't think much--if anything--at all... You more than likely assume it's from some kind of minor injury and move on to other thoughts. I know this is what I would have done before I learned what track mark scars look like. For the VERY rare few who actually know what they're from, chances are they won't say anything about it unless you're severely fucking up at work or something. I know I wouldn't mention anything like this to another co-worker or my boss.

I have two VERY small dots from where I shot heroin with needles covered in a little soot (sp?). If I remember correctly, they had gotten sort of stopped up so I used a lighter to free whatever blockage was in the needle point without cleaning the tips off well enough and it left a layer of soot which got trapped under my skin after shooting up. They're not really noticeable though, at least no one has ever asked what they're from. I used to be really paranoid about them but I finally realized that people really don't know what they're from.
 
if anyone asks, you can always say they're from donating plasma. hell, i've shot up more times than i can remember, reusing rigs when i had to, and been used as a pincushin for venipuncture practice on many occasions, and the only track marks i have are from actually donating plasma.
 
hey tath, yeah i've told that to hospital ER's, in matter affact when i busted my ass a few weeks ago and needed stichs i had tracmarks, and they wre trying to put a IV in to give me a shot of morphine, well sucked because they couldn't get one in. (they gave me it IM, but it wasn't the same :/)

Say ur donating plasma, they use fucking huge gauge needles, like the big fat ones lol, and yeah they leave marks.
in the mean while get a bottle of "Bio-Oil", the shit works great! hell i just put it on 3-4 times a day and in a few days theres no more marks, plus it brings veins back into the picture that you thought would never come back.
makeup is good for a emergency situation., but that shit is bad for you, and if u dont wash it off and do a shot with it still on, you can get so many different infections man.
 
if your work uniform is short sleeves and you need to cover your arms in the summer you can get a long pair of socks and just cover your arms
 
It's true that MOST people won't know WHAT they are looking at BUT: keep in mind that ex user's/family of ex user's are everywhere AND when dealing with general public there are bound to be ex junkies, friends of, or people in the medical field. If they've drawn blood before, or given injections, which most have (health care/rehab workers) they're gonna know. One time 11 years ago, it was about 6 months after I started shooting up. I was broke, had NO long sleeves, finally located some shirts with long sleeves.

I am light skinned, a real white girl naturally. Not only is there a little dark, discoloration at site of shots, the bruises came along with the territory, which didn't help. I can only say first 8 wks, the bruises, short sleeves, AND the shots...a few times in public people looked at me with disgust, shook their heads, & muttered something like, "damn stupid junkie...."

I got long sleeves, but one day stepping out of apartment to wash clothes, the neighbor across the way saw me. She's a normie, but yells for all to hear, "TJ WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARM?!" Obviously I was totally unprepared for that, as ALL neighbors were looking
at me. Thanks MaryAnn, I'm cursing to myself, then said 1st thing that came to my mind,
"Mosquito bites," I said matter of factly. I BARELY managed to keep a smirk off my face, plus
I sure as HELL didn't expect a fucking nosy normie to believe that lame explanation.

At the time, it was just a straight line of pinpricks down my right arm. This normie also happens to be chatty Kathy with my Mom, & truthfully, although I have no idea what she thought hearing that lame ass answer, thought to myself, what the hell fuck did she expect me to say? I laughed later getting a mental picture of mosqitoes leaving bites in an exact straight line & flying away, haha. I never heard another word of the incident, but later that day I DID go

to store & purchase some half powder/half liquid make up base that best matched the color of my pale complexion, the 2nd lightest kind they had. It made a world of difference. No more dirty looks in public, or even in the company of people I knew, as I made it a point to tell no one other than a couple other junkies themselves.

Toothpaste applied on the site after you're done for the day helps reduce the discoloration. Also, like that one poster said, the more sun tanned your arms the better. I learned how to shoot from a construction worker & as long as he got plenty of sun tan on his arms, even I couldn't tell had I not known for a fact he WAS an IV user.....until the very end that is. One year later he spent $9000 on speed, money he borrowed from his sister to back the 4 months
back rent he owed.

When his sister told me she didn't understand why he was getting evicted, since she gave the money to him to pay the landlady, everything made sense: why he kept insisting little blue men were sneaking in his condo and planting mics under his ceiling lights, the little green shadow people planting cameras....& finally his arms.....looked passable one day, but 6 wks later looked freaken tore up way beyond belief, tan or no tan. His phone was off 2 months later, he was living in his truck, but trying to ditch the repo man & I never heard from him again. So $9000+ worth of meth shots in 4 months.....don't know how much meth that bought him back in summer of 2000 when it was 50% cheaper.......but obviously way too much.

He was the only one had a habit worse than mine, & although I paled in the amount of shots to his by comparison, when I finally got busted summer of 2005, the damn cops took pictures of my damn arm to show proof that I had been using. He saw the bruising (junkies tend towards anemia causing the bruising/malnutrition) combined with a freaken bandaid & my pale skin....

Vitamin E capsules are good for marks. Buy the liquid gel, poke them, get the vitamin E oil liquid out, rub it on the tracks. It's also GREAT for coating the inside of the nose for any snorters reading this. It saved me from a hole in the membranes. I don't suggest you get paranoid about who may or may not see/know with short sleeves....but don't ASSume either that noone can. Had I followed my advice, that cop wouldn't have had a case just based on "what he saw." Otherwise, a tattoo perhaps....

One year I finally said fuck it & had 5 pair of scrubs with long sleeves made for me to wear to work. You could always tell who you're working for you've unattractive old burns or some bullshit, & you just feel self conscience unless you're covered. I became the one and only person I know that wore scrubs with long sleeves & didn't explain a damn thing.
 
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