Technical I.V. Shooting Question

[Voyager]

Okay, this is the first time I'm opening a topic in "Heroin" section, and the first time I'm asking something about I.V. shooting.
But I need to kinow this !

When I fill my gun, and when I'm ready to shoot.
A lotta times it happens to me that I cannot find a vein, or I find it, poke it, but somehow the needle gets out of it, and I loose it, and a tiny ammount of blood enters my syringe.
After 30 minutes of trying to "find myself" (that's how we here in Serbia say for "finding a vein"), I end up whole messed up in blood, but that's not the problem, I clean it with the toilet papper.
The main problem I have after 30 minutes of trying to find a vein is that my syringe with my drug get's 1/4 filled with my blood after round 7 unsuccessful pokes.
And after round 10 minutes that blood hardens, it's not liquid anymore.
So I basically then have a syringe filled with my drug and with my blood which hardened.
I then become afraid of shooting that, because I'm afraid of what will happen if those particles of my hardened blood get into my blood stream.
So, then, I just plug it.

My main dilemma here is what to do in those shitty situations in which I, after 45 minutes, cannot find a vein, and then I find it at last, but my syringe is filled with my hardened blood ?
I once actually did it.
I made a gun, and I couldn't find my vein for 30 minutes, but then I found it, but at that time the blood which went into my syringe during all those unsuccessful pokes already started going hard.
So, it wasn't completly hard, but I could see that it's almost completly hard.
But anyway, I decided to go for it and started injecting it.
Immediately when that almost hardened blood hit my bloodstream, I felt pins and needles in my hand fingers, and in my toes...like waves of pins and needles in those areas, as I pushed on the syringe line by line. As I slowly pushed and passed each line at the syringe, I could feel a wave of pins and needles with each line, like "woow ! woow ! woow !".
And in the end, I decided not to inject the rest thinking "this pins and needles is some really bad shit going on with me", I was left with more 5 lines (0.5ml) so I stopped, pulled the needle out, and I just plugged the rest.

I once saw one of my friends who is very old Opiophile, he is 44 years old, and once we shooted at his room, and he does not have veins anymore (I mean all of his veins are ruined), but he was struggling to find one, and after 30 minutes of unsuccessful pokes, his syringe was filled with his blood and that blood hardened.
Then, when he saw that the collected blood in his syringe hardened, he took the syringe, and pressed out the whole content of it into his little metal "can" in which he always prepaired and coocked his dope. So, he pressed out that dope liquid mixed with his hardened blood from his syringe into his can, then again added a few tiny granules of limuntus...(here in Serbia, when we prepair our dope, we put it in our cookcing can, then add a few tiny granules of limuntus, then add some water, then heat it, and it starts boiling in 15 seconds, and after 5 seconds of boiling it's ready, then we just put a small part of a cigarette filter in the can with the prepaired dope liquid, put a syringe on it, and just pull, the liquid dope goes trough the cigarette filter, thus getting very well filtered, and goes straight into the syringe, and that's it). So, in that mixture of his hardened blood and dope which looked like a red gel, he have put a few tiny granules of limuntus, then added a little water, and then started heating all that again, like he was prepairing a new shoot.
It started boiling in 15 seconds, and he got the completly liquid stuff which contained his blood, but it didn't go hard anymore, it just stayed in a liquid state, then he filtered it trough the cigarette filter as I already explained, while filling his syringe.
And then he I.V.ed it (actually, he didn't, it was I who found him, because he continued to torture himself not being successful in finding a vein, and then I asked him can I try to find him, and I choosed a frontal area of his leg, and found his vein with the first poke, then injected, it was a pure luck I guess), and he was fine, and got high as ussual.

Was that okay what he done ?
From what he have done that evening, I assume that it isn't good to shoot the syringe filled with your blood which got hardened.

So, is that proccess by which he again recoocked his dope mixed with his hardened blood okay ?
What do you experienced Opiophiles do when the content of your syringe becomes a red jelly mass ?

This has really buggin' me for a long time.
Because I always knew, if I don't find a vein within 30 minutes, the blood which got collected in my syringe will go hard and my fix will be ruined.

So, what to do in that situation ?

[simfromstoke]

Hiya mate!
from what i read..
when you were getting pins and needles it sounds like you were in an artiery

and if ,when you push your pin in, you keep getting just a little spot of blood then nothing, its more than likely that you have gone all the way through the vein and out the other side.(the little shots of blood in the pin are showing you that you've hit the vein and the blood is stopping because your pin has gone through the wall of other side of the vein and out the other side)

try and push your pin in at a shallower angle to your arm. (me, my pin is normally 10 to 15 degrees angle between the pin and my arm) doing it that way, the pin is far less likely to keep going through your vein and out the other side.

and what your friend does when he re-cooks his gear is exactly what i do too.
if it gets too thick i squirt it back onto the spoon, add some (a little) citric acid (to help break it down and thin the solution out) and add 60 - 70 units of water and re-cook it
doing it this way, you have to have your shot in two goes but once you have gotten yourself the first time, the second shot is loads easier to do because your body soon warms up with some heroin inside it and your veins will come up a lot better for your second shot

and to minimise the risk of getting a blood clot, i always push my gear in slowly so that the lumpy blood has got time to thin out as it goes up your vein

hope this helps a little mate
its allways worked for me
and in 7 years of injecting i've only had to throw about 4 shots away over the whole 7 years due to it going too hard in the pin

take care,

-sim

[Poppylvr]

It sounds like whatever your friend is recooking with is causing the hardened (clotted) blood to un clot. Should you inject that? NO! Injected blood that has clotted is giving yourself a blood clot, and depending on where it stops in your cardiovascular system, it can cause terrible problems, up to & including death. If you get clots in your rig, just plug the drug. Even if you have chemically undone the clot, you are still injected micro clots into your circulation. Those can be the basis for a larger clot to form, off the micro clot which acts kinda like a seed.
Are you tying off to get your veins as round and plump as you can? If not, do so. Then, use a shallow angle to enter the vein. As soon as you get the blood flash, untie your tourniquet and gently inject your blood. If you get good blood return, untie and slowy inject so that you don't go through the vein wall.
Search here in harm reduction "how to get off right" - there are great tips there.
Good luck and be careful.

[Voyager]

Hummm, no way, I wasn't in an artery, because if I were in an artery, I wouldn't be here now typing this.
And I know that, because I use the veins on top of my hand, because that's the only place I can easily find them. Okay, I can also find them very well on my feet, but that's only if I don't make it on the top of my hands.
Sometimes they pop up, sometimes they don't, but I ussually have 3 veins on the top of my hand that I used to always shoot at.
And when I injected my smack with my hardened blood that time, and when I got those pins and needles sensation in my fingers and in my toes, I was in one of those very well familiar veins of mine on the top of my hand.
I'm pretty sure that I got those pins and needles because I injected that hardened blood.
It's dangerous.

Yes, punching trough a vein completly happens to me a lotta times, and then I have a big dark blue spot around that punched vein and my mother sees it and wents crazy. That's because the blood from it goes in between my flesh and my skin, it takes 2 weeks to compleately be gone.
But yeah, I punched trough the vein completly a lotta times, but only trough the veins that are on the side top of my hand. Those that are on the side of my hand are a little wierd positioned, so I guess I angle my gear too much and punch the vein on both sides.
I wish that I could find a vein on the standard place on my arm, but I'm a little fatty and I cannot see them.
Only nurses are the real masters when they are taking my blood for analysis, they always find a vein on that standard place on my arm even if they don't see them because of my fat.
I could never do it.

When I inject, I always push really slowly on my gear.
I always make my mixture with 2ml of water.
And when I inject, I firstly inject 5 lines (0.5ml), then I stop for 10 seconds, and if everything's allright, I continue very slowly till I finish.
And I have one 5ml syringe which I always use, and the small needles I use each for 3 times at most, after which I throw it away and take a new one.
But after every fix I firstly rinse my syringe very well, and then fill it with water, put a used needle back on it, then with all power under really strong preassure, while holding a needle with my other hand not to fly away, push the water out of the syringe trough my small needle. And I do that 3 or 4 times. Then I wash all my gear in grain alcohol very well. And after all that my gear is completely clean and ready for another shoot.
But as I said, I never use the same needle more than 3 times, because I noticed that after 3 usages, it doesn't poke trough skin and vein very well, which means that it has done its job and is ready to fly to the trashcan.

So, re-coocking the mixture is the way it's done ?
And it's safe ?
And when you re-coock it, does it harden again after 10 do 15 minutes, or it stays in the liquid form longer ?

Hey, thank's for your answers !

[Voyager]

Yeah, I use my tie and wrap it round my hand, then pump and my veins pop up.
I know basiclly everything about I.V. ROA, it was just this issue that was bugging me.

And I also thought that what you said, the clot is dangerous and can cause a bigger clot to be created somwhere in my CVS.
I always first tie my hand and pump, then the veins pop up, then I poke, aspirate, and if I get dark coloured blood coming into my syringe I know I'm in the vein, then I untie my hand, then gently...you know the rest...

Anyway, I really know all of the stuff about I.V. ROA, but only this issue with the hardened blood was a question to me.

Thank's again for your answers and for your care !

[metric man]

I don't know what to tell you about the hardened blood, but that has only happened to me once with a wash shot so I just trashed that shot rather than putting it in my vein.

Just one harm reduction thing, from what I've read you should not use a cigarette filter because they are not very sterile and brittle. Because they are brittle small fibers can break off and be sucked up into the syringe and shot into your veins potentially causing problems. So if you can always try to use cotton from a Q-tip or cotton ball. Better yet, order some wheel filters. But if a cigarette filter is all you have, that is better than no filter.

Be safe,
Metric

[upstate_007]

Aside from all the other good advice here I only have a few things to add...

- Hitting an artery. It sounds like you might have done that. Did it swell up and hurt very bad for a while? If so, those are signs of hitting an artery. It could have also been the needle bumping into a nerve. If you stab the nerve, it hurts immediately and quite a bit. If you "brush" against it or just slightly poke it I imagine it would not hurt as much, but still feel somewhat the same. But, I think you know what you are doing as far as IV so I may have just misunderstood.

- Re-cooking the dope. Bad idea. Blood clots are not good at all and can cause lots of problems like poppylvr said. I would take her word on that seeing as how she is a nurse. Best thing to do is plug it.

I had the same kind of situation happen like that a bunch of times where I could not find a vein at all. Eventually the needle got too much blood in it to see if I was registering or not. Luckily it did not get clogged though. Out of frustration I decided to try and squirt the liquid down my throat. At that time I did not know anything about plugging.

So, I leaned my head back, opened my mouth and tried to carefully aim the syringe towards my throat. But, the needle was still on it. I did not think to break it off first. When I started to push the plunger the needle stabbed into the back of my throat and I ended up injecting it all into my throat. It hurt like hell, swelled up real bad and felt real shitty for days. I never tried that again.

[red26]

On the subject of arterial hits, I recall Candy I believe saying that if you did manage to hit one the needle woulda shot out the window and knocked someone over outside.

[simfromstoke]

Voyager, look, im not knocking what all the other people have posted on here -its all good advice
i've been a hardcore IV junky for the last 7 yrs and all of my friends have been at it for 15-20yrs
so while people might say to you "oh you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that", a hardened junky will just turn round and say "yeah thanks for the advice but.."

in the past, when i've been rattling my dick off and i have only have a £10 bag and no-more money, it wouldn't matter how much blood was in that needle, it was going up my arm even if it killed me.

i know that it was wreckless behavior but when has a rattling junky ever thrown their one and only bag away, just because they got a bit of blood in the needle

most of my junky friends would have snatched the needle out of my hand if i ever said i was throwing it away and injected themselves with it.
desperate and dangerous behavior, i know.but its just normal life over here.ask nick or raz or anyone else who has been in the scene in the uk for a long time and they will confirm what i say is true

[simfromstoke]

if you thought the film "trainspotting" was shocking and discusting im telling you, from living in the UK it looked like just another normal day to me..
im lucky in that, living like that for 11 years i have escaped with little scars for all my years of abuse
so Voyager i imagine that junky life in Serbia is pretty much like it is over here in britain. you definately get the same gear and have to do the same things as we do to cook it up
if you are going to inject gear thats got loads of blood in it, add double the ammount of water and cook it up with some citric and i can almost guarantee it wont go hard again unless your gear is cut with sugar (which it is in britain now and again) if it has got sugar in it, you have just got to get it up your arm before it goes cold
if anyone doubts what i say about junky life in britain, like i said, just ask nick or raz or someone else from over here about what *normal* day to day things go on. Ask any nurse from britain and im sure she will also confirm some of the dangerous things us junkies do over here. im not proud of it. i was just desparate -like any other junky over here
so my advice Voyager, just try and be as safe as you can okay
-sim

[Voyager]

No no no, no way I have hit an artery, that was my well known vein on the top of my hand, I have shoot in it a lotta times.
The blood which was coming into my syringe while I was aspirating was very dark coloured, and I can differentiate between the artery blood and the vein blood.
And if I have hit the artery and injected that stuff in it, I would probably be dead.
It didn't hurt, nor anything, nor did I hit any nerves, I only had the pins and needles sensation in my fingers and in my toes as I pushed each line on the syringe and as my smack, mixed with my hardened blood, entered my bloodstream. When I would stop pushing, the sensation would cease. As soon as I would push a little again, it goes "woow !" again, like in a wave.
Really never happened to me before. I got really scared and freaked out and stopped and just plugged the shit.
It was that clotted blood that made those pins and needles sensation, I'm sure, there's nothing else that could've caused it.
The dope was 1st quality, I already done it that day, and the other day.

You said that you squirted the already coocked stuff down your throat.
I did that with unsuccessful fixes a lotta times before I learned that you can plug the shit and that it's very effective that way.
But I'm interested, does it have any effects when you drink already prepaired smack for I.V. ?

Oh my, how could you forget to get the needle off !
Really nasty !

Yeah, I read here that using a cigarette filter is not a good idea, but the whole Serbia and the surrounding countries uses cigarette filter since the beginning of the dope show here on Balkan.
But okay, the next time when it happens that I get some smack, I'll use clean sterile cotton bought at a pharmacy. But if it happens that I don't have any, I'll use cig filter.
Well...after I filter my smack trough a cig filter, and when I look at the liquid within the syringe (a couple of times I even used a strong magnifying glass), and I always very carefully look at the final product within the syringe before I bang it, and it's perfectly clear, I mean perfectly.
If there are any leavings from the cig filter, those must be extreamly small, since I couldn't see any even at 10x magnification.
It's a perfectly translucent liquid I get...

Anyway, the final conclusion here is NOT TO BANG THE SMACK IF THERE IS SOME HARDENED BLOOD WITHIN THE SYRINGE !
AND EVEN RE-COOCKING THE GELLED STUFF WITH YOUR SMACK AND BLOOD AND BANGING IT IS A PRETTY BAD IDEA !

I'm sure and hope that this topic will be usseful to any I.V. newbies.

[Voyager]

Thank's simfromstoke.
Yeah, I know what yer saying.
I witnessed one of such situations.
It were 3 of us.
Each of us prepaired a fix. I banged it succesfully, the other guy also, but the third (who we know has Hep-C) just couldn't find himself. And after an hour, he just gave up and wanted to throw his gear in the trash.
But the other guy just grabbed that gear full of his hardened blood and banged it with no thoughts !

I was amazed.
Yet, at that time I was just an I.V. beginner.

That's the reason Harm Reduction exists.

[simfromstoke]

oh yeah and Voyager, dont worry about using cigarette filters
they hand them out in needle exchanges and chemists here FOR filtering your gear
ask nick
if they hand them out at the needle exchange, they can't be that dangerous
i've been using ciggie filters for the entire time ive been injecting smack and NOT ONCE have i ever had cotton fever or whatever else they say that you can catch

so dont worry mate..
okay
-sim

[simfromstoke]

yeah and ONE more thing V.
i dont think you did hit a artiery.
ive had it myself -those pins and needles and your fingers going numb.
all it was -i had gone through a nerve ending in my hand (i inject in my hand too. and have done for the last three years)
when i get a wierd pain in my hand when injecting, i normally just pull out and try somewhere else.
if my hand is hurting still when i go to bed, i say to myself -if i wake up in the morning and its still hurting, i'll go the hospital.
i've never woken up the next day though with pains in my hand, so ive never had to go to the hospital
yeah it can hurt a bit and if you didn't know what it was you might be a bit frightened, but just leave it overnight and if it still hurts the next day then its time to go the hospital/doctor

-sim

[Voyager]

Yeah, after I have some unsuccessful bangs, I'm always a little freaked out about is everything gonna be allright.