IM vs S.P please help

[surdali124]

is there a difference in skin popping and intramuscular popping i mean obviously there is but is it a major difference as far as efficiency and getting higher

[flipside]

If you are gonna do it, I personally would go with subcutaneous ( skin pop).IM causes many more problems health wise, and unless you are really thin, or have acess to a 1-1/2 inch needle you are not going to hit muscle anyway ( in the arm.even longer for other muscles).

Why are you considering SQ or IM, have you run out of veins..if soo makes sense.

If you are not a IV user..I would snort it..you'll get better results.

Be safe and enjoy!

[surdali124]

if been snorting fora about a year now and it takes about 2 to 3 bags to get a good buzz but i dont want to mainline

[flipside]

The most honest advice I can gfive you is to try and stick with snorting. Mabey add something to potentiate.

Once you start playing with that needle, the idea of mainlining becomes less and less of a " I'll never". but if you are gonna do it..I still say go SQ. Time to get the computer repairs finished but I'll come back to this in a bit and wax a little more philosphical based on personal experience...if you are interested. I'm sure DF, Nick & Candy will weigh in here too, as well as others with years of experience in this area.

[Duckfeet]

I don't have much to add, just reaffirm what Flip said. I can promise u, that once u get the needle in yer hand, and that vein's right there, eventually u'll do it. And with the cut crap they got now, it hurts, and u get infections, whether skinning it, or musclepopping. ur just putting a bunch of god-knows-what in places it don't belong. And if it's tar...they got *books* out at the needle exchanges showing what tar does to u, if u miss...and I don't need to look at the books, anymore...I got the knots and hardened veins right beneath my elbows, when I need entertainment....

So yeah, I'm doing the old opiophile thing, which is probably not going to be heard...but I wouldn't go down this road, if u can avoid it. If snorting don't work, smoke it or something...but shooting it up is a often painful downhill slide, and there'll come a day, you'll wish wish wish u'd listened. Promise.

Best wishes, but think about it a bit...a lot to lose.


The most honest advice I can gfive you is to try and stick with snorting. Mabey add something to potentiate.

Once you start playing with that needle, the idea of mainlining becomes less and less of a " I'll never". but if you are gonna do it..I still say go SQ. Time to get the computer repairs finished but I'll come back to this in a bit and wax a little more philosphical based on personal experience...if you are interested. I'm sure DF, Nick & Candy will weigh in here too, as well as others with years of experience in this area.

[CSiiSEQ]

I would agree with the above and just want to emphasize one part of it. The answer to this question is dramatically different if you're talking about tar instead of powder. There are risks to both, but as Duck said tar is very dangerous sc or im. The only dope I would consider doing either of these ways would be powder that was extensively filtered and as clean as I could get it.

I think they both raised another good point, once you have a needle full of dope, it's very easy to find a vein and do it. Doesn't matter how many times you've said you'd never do it.

[MttJocy]

Right, firstly I will try to warn you against playing around with the needle, but if you want to do so that is your choice, just realize you will regret it in the end.

Now, as for the injection target unless you have access to pharmaceutically pure diamorphine hydrochloride in a sterile ampoule or something along with completely sterile cooking equipment, needles and syringes. You will actually find that SC or IM can in fact be the more dangerous approach basically for the following reasons and probably others.


If you get even a small solid particle into an IM or SC target area it will sit there fester and get infected, you get a small one in a vein and it will dissolve (a large one will harm you but that what filters stop is the large particles they won't stop tiny ones though).
Should the powder or injection preparation not be 100% sterile and you inject outside the vein the bodies immune response will be slower than to the vein itself giving the infection time to take hold in the tissue, in the vein your white blood cells will begin to work immediately (although infection remains a risk where the needle passes through tissue thus how IV users can get abscesses without missing but they are more common with missed, IM or SC shots).Granted there is the fact that injecting into the vein will cause vein damage especially if it is done improperly, but other than that the infection risk tends to be a little lower, not to mention that injecting SC or IM is painful with street heroin at the very least even if the heroin does not happen to be contaminated with bacteria which is unlikely when it has be shoved in some plastic bag in some dealers flat which is hardly a laboratory clean room. Other risks of the three types of injection are basically the same, blood borne diseases etc (you don't have to hit a vein for those).

The best advice I can give is just keep away from the needle, if you wont do that then honestly you are probably better off just going for the vein the risks of the most common forms of injection related complication (abscesses are lowered that way as long as you don't miss, but that would basically be skin popping anyway.) are reduced. If you really insist on injecting and want to ignore my advice about the infection risk completely then I would suggest go for SC, the needle stick is less painful done by SC although the drug solution will most likely still burn tissue some on contact via this route, IM needles need to be long, usually a smaller gauge (bigger needle) as muscle tissue is tough.

Anyway good luck whatever you decide, I hope you make the right choice honestly but its your body so it's up to you at the end of it all.

[Z-man]

While I agree that the IM route has some associated health problems, and should be avoided when the substance in question is tar, the fact remains that the subcutaneous route is for shit. You will feel the dope MUCH better if you IM it. I mean, c'mon folks, the man asked a question and deserves an honest answer. I have no veins left and end up having to IM my shot more often than not. If I IM in my shoulder I feel the dope within 5 minutes and it's almost as strong as IV (much stronger than snorting, BTW). But if I skin pop it, it's just about a total waste.

Bottom line: IV is best for multiple reasons, IM is a close second but has some risks and should be avoided with tar, and skin popping (subcutaneous) is practically worthless.

[Ragdoll]

I don't have much to add, just reaffirm what Flip said. I can promise u, that once u get the needle in yer hand, and that vein's right there, eventually u'll do it. And with the cut crap they got now, it hurts, and u get infections, whether skinning it, or musclepopping. ur just putting a bunch of god-knows-what in places it don't belong. And if it's tar...they got *books* out at the needle exchanges showing what tar does to u, if u miss...and I don't need to look at the books, anymore...I got the knots and hardened veins right beneath my elbows, when I need entertainment....

So yeah, I'm doing the old opiophile thing, which is probably not going to be heard...but I wouldn't go down this road, if u can avoid it. If snorting don't work, smoke it or something...but shooting it up is a often painful downhill slide, and there'll come a day, you'll wish wish wish u'd listened. Promise.

Best wishes, but think about it a bit...a lot to lose.

Ducky, when I arrived on this forum way back last September I told folks I was ready to start IVing and was here to find support for how to's, etc. Right off, Nick and Dorje told me what you've told the OP of this thread. I stuck around and made some amazing connections here. Of course, Dorje died and I saw what Nick - among other fine human beings - was going through. Decided that no matter how much I felt pulled toward the IV route, it is not a wise choice - actually, it's a damned stupid choice...you guys and gals here who know are the first to tell the truth.

What I'm saying is, I heard, so I feel sure that others will hear, too. And it ain't easy - there are plenty of times I still think just once... then I get on here and well, you know how it goes. So I would add - OP, don't IV - get on here instead and tell us about how you want to. Every one of us understands.

[Duckfeet]

Thanks Rags...that's probably the nicest thing I've read all day. I know what site this is, and hell, I just came off one more heroin run, myself, so I know, u know, life being what it is, people are going to do what they are going to do...

There used to be, a million years ago, some country song, and one of the verses was: "Sugar took more than she gave..." I think...and that's always how I've thought of IVing...that it takes more than it gives...

I I.V.ed one night, because I knew I *wasn't* like most people. I would not get strungout, I was just curious...I had a lot of other dreams, more important, I wanted to sail around the world, and I wanted to go to Europe, and write books and stuff. I had traveled all over south america, spoke spanish, and just u know, knew I had a little more snap than most junkies....

And first shot proved me right: I *didn't* like it all that much, saw that I could take it or leave it, like I suspected. People who had warned me against it were too dramatic...trying to act all noble and caring: I can see right thru *that*...

So since I *wasn't* one of those, there wasn't any problem with me doing more, now and then...

it was all bullshit...a few years after first fix, I was going to jail all over Orange County, had lost my Harley, and prettty much trashed one vein..not much longer prison..and on and on...just a huge price, and *nobody* seems to think it will happen to them...I *knew* it wouldn't happpen to me...but when it comes to junky world...I'm just run-of-the-mill....I'm cheerful enough, life o.k. now, but I've lost everything I ever gave a shit about, my girl, motorcycles, jobs, u name it...gone....oh well

I had sailboats, and sailed away...but didn't want to get too far from the methadone clinic....and it's kind of hard to write books when yer nodded out...but u *think* about writing lots...and I didn't totally loose Teresa...when she was in prison, I got to see her *every* Sunday...


Ducky, when I arrived on this forum way back last September I told folks I was ready to start IVing and was here to find support for how to's, etc. Right off, Nick and Dorje told me what you've told the OP of this thread. I stuck around and made some amazing connections here. Of course, Dorje died and I saw what Nick - among other fine human beings - was going through. Decided that no matter how much I felt pulled toward the IV route, it is not a wise choice - actually, it's a damned stupid choice...you guys and gals here who know are the first to tell the truth.

What I'm saying is, I heard, so I feel sure that others will hear, too. And it ain't easy - there are plenty of times I still think just once... then I get on here and well, you know how it goes. So I would add - OP, don't IV - get on here instead and tell us about how you want to. Every one of us understands.

[Ragdoll]

I understand. I was "fortunate" enough to watch my older sister's life go straight to hell because of addiction. God, I loved her...she was fifteen when I was born and she was my everything...my fun, my laughs, my love, my beautiful rock and roll sis. Then one day when I was about ten she told me I couldn't come to her house anymore; it wasn't safe. Once I tried to go, anyway...that was back in 1976, before I was in high school. She opened her front door and told me to go away and she was a different person than the one I had known and adored. My life felt shattered. It took many, many years and a bout with cancer for her to come back to the world I was living in and now her drug days are in her past. All that time, though, I wanted to use, be just like her, but the route I did end up taking was slightly different than the one she'd taken. I had seen what happened to her. I knew that I couldn't live like she was living...she was a living, breathing example for me and I thank creation for that.

When I meet someone like you, I want to ask, "Do you really know how many lives you've saved, how many souls you've touched?" Ducky, you are writing your book - right here, you know? You're....beautiful!

[nick]

Sorry,I'm a little late here,which is the story of my life,but listen to Flip and DF and try and forget about needles.in the end you'll end up IV'ing and ALL that it intails.

Try SMOKING it.

Always amazes me that you guys would rather snort than smoke.Smoking is a FAR better buzz.

[Woowoo]

Can't you see what you're doing? You're creating this fictional boundary between what you're willing to do, and what you refuse to do, and as time goes by you keep moving that boundary further and further back.

Let me speculate--there was probably a time in your life when you said "I will do opiates but never heroin!" Then later you said "OK, I will do heroin but I will never use a needle!" And now you're thinking, OK, forget about the no-needles rule, the new rule is "No needles in veins!" Soon the "No needles in veins" rule turns into "No needles in veins except on weekends" and then pretty soon it becomes "No needles in veins except on days that end in Y", and voila, you're a full fledged junky.

My opinion is that IM and subcutaneous are very dangerous in themselves, and if you dive into that level of risk you might as well go IV. I'm not advocating you to go the IV route, but once you've gone so far as to cook it up, draw it through cotton, and stick that sharpened catheter in your skin, you might as well tap a vein and let your liver do what livers do.