Extreme pain in hands...

[Phloman]

Alright, check this out...

I have been IV'ing Heroin on and off for the past 6 years or so.

Never really went out and became a full blown junkie, but I've been going for quite a few months at the moment. I've always held down a job, apartment, paid bills, etc, so I don't fit the criteria of "junkie."

Now that I have wasted your time with useless information about myself, here is my dilemma and question at hand:

Recently,(within the past 2 months or so) when I IV any type of Black Tar Heroin (I have used multiple sources, who themselves go through multiple batches quite quickly) I usually get severe 'pins and needles' all over my upper body, specifically in my hands and arms but I also get it on my entire head and neck too.

So this has been a problem for a little while, the funny thing is that it doesn't happen after EVERY shot! Maybe out of 8 shots, 2 of them will go down smooth, while the other 6 will be full of 'pins and needles.'

So... Obviously, I am curious as to what the cause of this may be, but not until part 2 of the issue (which prompted me to create this post) is unleashed upon you:

I just shot up some fantastic, ultra-clean black tar, well it was actually a nice and tan, powdery rock, and it... ok enough talking about the dope. Anyways, I have been using this batch for the past 4 days, and feeling the usual 'pins and needles.' No big deal, right? Well, the shot that I just had was my normal dose and everything went fine. La-di-da. 'Pins and needles' came and then both of my hands started hurting and throbbing like a motherfucker. It felt like they swelled up and wanted to pop! So I just sat here, did some meditative breathing (because I have panic attacks like WHOA... but that'll be another thread) and waited for the symptoms to subside. I knew it would last just as long as the pins and needles do (15-20 seconds), so I wasn't that worried.

SO. If you read that entire post, #1: I owe you a shot. (of dope, not booze.) and #2: What exactly is going on here?

I'm actually trying to quit IV'ing and eventually heavy opiates all together, but I'm doing the extremely slow "wuss" method, by tapering for 3 months with everything you can imagine (oxycodone, hydromorphone, hydrocodone, codeine, tramadol, alprazolam, bromazepam, temazepam, carisoprodol, diazepam, loratadine, clonidine, kratom, etc... ya see where I'm goin' with this?), I just need to complete my taper stash/collection, which is surprisingly filled except for the clonidine which I have absolutely NO idea how to get my hands on!

Comments/Complaints/Questions/Etc is all that I am looking for.

Thanks in advance, everybody.

P.S. I have nothing that even remotely resembles health insurance, nor do I have any money. So doctors and hospitals are out of the question.

[Duckfeet]

Hey Phloman: I just read your post, and wanted to chime in what little I know. This last year I kind of got heavy on the Tar myself, tho I never did like it as much as the powder, got much less of the euphoria...but def. got huge pins and needles whenever I'd fix it. Stuff was *powerful* just didn't give me that overwheming "happy" feeling that powder does. A lot more like banging *codeine* which is a no-no, but I always notice on piss tests, if I've been doing tar, I not only come up positive for morphine--since it's heroin, that what it *should* break down to, but also, *codeine*....every time--4 times this year--I've piss tested when getting off heroin, first day at clinc, I also come up positive for codeine...and I just wondered if there were any Opy chemists--we've got a few--who know if maybe the crappy way they make tar, it turns more of it into *codeine* than the european heroin makers do...that would explain a lot of things: the huge pins and needle thing, which anybody who's ever fixed codeine will recognize immediately....

Up front: I'm no fan of tar. I've been a heroin addict a long time, and think tar is one of the worst things to come along, but since a junky will buy anything if he's sick, tar took over out here, and now we're stuck with it (no stupid pun intended)...but the best source of health info with regards tar is the needle xchanges: they had all kinds of info down here that helped me make my decision: first to start *plugging* tar, which got rid of many of the problems, and finally to go back on the dreaded methadone, since, as you know, tar destroys your veins and surrounding tissue takes it hard too..

Anyway, best wishes to you...once I got off tar, it seems like after a few weeks, the pins and needles, and crap I had all around the injection sites left, as well as the pain from misses...

[Phloman]

Hey Phloman: I just read your post, and wanted to chime in what little I know. This last year I kind of got heavy on the Tar myself, tho I never did like it as much as the powder, got much less of the euphoria...but def. got huge pins and needles whenever I'd fix it. Stuff was *powerful* just didn't give me that overwheming "happy" feeling that powder does. A lot more like banging *codeine* which is a no-no, but I always notice on piss tests, if I've been doing tar, I not only come up positive for morphine--since it's heroin, that what it *should* break down to, but also, *codeine*....every time--4 times this year--I've piss tested when getting off heroin, first day at clinc, I also come up positive for codeine...and I just wondered if there were any Opy chemists--we've got a few--who know if maybe the crappy way they make tar, it turns more of it into *codeine* than the european heroin makers do...that would explain a lot of things: the huge pins and needle thing, which anybody who's ever fixed codeine will recognize immediately....

Up front: I'm no fan of tar. I've been a heroin addict a long time, and think tar is one of the worst things to come along, but since a junky will buy anything if he's sick, tar took over out here, and now we're stuck with it (no stupid pun intended)...but the best source of health info with regards tar is the needle xchanges: they had all kinds of info down here that helped me make my decision: first to start *plugging* tar, which got rid of many of the problems, and finally to go back on the dreaded methadone, since, as you know, tar destroys your veins and surrounding tissue takes it hard too..

Anyway, best wishes to you...once I got off tar, it seems like after a few weeks, the pins and needles, and crap I had all around the injection sites left, as well as the pain from misses...

Thanks for the response. My venture into addiction actually started back in Philadelphia, where I was banging the finest of the fine when it comes to H. I ended up following my dreams out to Los Angeles, rediscovered smack, and am now stuck with this shit.

Now that you mention it, when I was on Methadone out here for a short period of time (that stuff had nastier side effects for me than Black Tar did!), I was testing positive for Codeine too, without taking any type of Codeine based substances for weeks/months prior to the tests.

I've never willingly fixed Codeine, and never will, because we all know that's a terrible idea, but I have heard that there is something along the lines of 'acetyl-codeine' in a lot of tar that has been picked up and analyzed by the DEA. Now whether or not that is the culprit I don't think we will ever know.

My theory as to the pins, needles, and flaming spikes in my hands as of late is due to the Morphine and 6-MAM content of the Black Tar... but who really knows?

Basically what it boils down to is that the pain from the pins and needles completely detracts from the enjoyable rush of hitting off, and that makes me mad. :mad:

As far as the exchange, they know me by name down at the one in the city. :)

[Duckfeet]

Yeah, sounds like you know more than I do about it: I'm an old hand with heroin, but pretty new to tar, and I thought the same thing: if I did enough to get a good rush, I would almost black out, but I never got that creeping euphoria, you know, and for a while I thought, ah, it's just me, I'm just too burntout or something, but then a friend sent me some e.coast dope, and bingo, got that much more mellow and enjoyable high...but of course, I'm no different, I got to do what's around...and now I'm wasting another six months or so, to creep back down on methadone...but I'll be really interested if it's something in the chemical way tar is made that is causing this...well, I hope it works out for you...kind of fucked either way, where I sit, and I've always felt, from E.Texas to here, that the closer to the border, the worse the dope...and I"m way down south...best wishes...