How Many Times Do You Use A Rig Before Tossing It?

i personally only use 1-2 times (usually 2 if the needle itself doesn't get fucked up visibly, though i know the added risks from using one even two times) but i've read about some people who use them over and over until the numbers literally wear off. i'm curious if they're doing this http://www.heroinhelper.com/user/admin/sharpening.shtml,
it's cheap and easy and ostensibly can increase the life of your rigs, but i'm curious what other people's opinion on the subject is. i highly doubt you can re-sharpen a barbed needle to full point like it just came out of the box, but who knows, maybe you can. anyway, how many times for you? do you sharpen? bleach? some other process? as i'm sure you can tell from my posts i'm just a little chipper atm (trying to keep it that way and have done for years) and i don't have anyone i'm close to who shoots who i feel comfortable asking questions.

 

another thing, i know several people with diabetes who are basically skin-popping who use the same gear over and over and over, and i've never seen any of them have complications. god, my heart goes out to any diabetic junkies.

 

well, during the phase of iv drug use that i went through, i can tell you that i would have prabably been qualified to check ALL of the boxes on the survey.

 

and how have your veins recuperated since then? how long were you on and how long have you been off? if you're comfortable sharing that information, that is.

 

i'd also be curious to know what kind of process you used to sharpen the needles. was it just the ol' magnifying glass and matchbook, or something more sophisticated? thanks.

 

well, lol, i haven't banged anything in something like a year. i was never a heavy injector, or did it for very long, at least compared to some people out there. i can say that my veins are still okay, never lost any veins, though there's a couple places where there's like a knot, or a bulge in the vein. i think some of that is from missing a shot, and another one is because the vein was way too tiny. using a crappy rig definitely will make your veins very angry, and they may tend to resist being injected into for a while afterwards. i've seen people with horrible veins from using a crappy rig over and over, at least they looked pretty bad when i saw them. they were mostly hitting the exact same place on the vein, over and over which is stupid anyway. in my experience a rig that was too fucked up just wouldn't register anymore, even though i knew that it had to definitely be in the vein it just wouldn't work, not sure what causes that but some people will poke around in their arms for a long time trying.

 

it's funny you should mention the not registering even when you KNOW it's in, that happened to me like a minute ago. i'm trying to finish this post before the nod comes on lol. but yeah, because of that effect that you mentioned, i ended up switching spots from my upper arm/wrist area (top side) to the big fat vein in the middle of my hand, which is sort of my go-to for when i'm having difficulty with my arms. anyway, because i had to move up and re-register with a half shot of dope just starting to hit my brain, i accidentally put a little under the skin. not much at all, but enough to leave a nice little pea-shaped lump i'm gonna have to run warm water over to diffuse. but then, mmm... all the remaining dope in the flesh returning home to your brain while you're already flying, like a reward from the dope buddha for being such an adherent student.

 

i never really resorted to sharpening needles, the few times i did it i used fine grit sandpaper and swiped it very lightly against the paper, holding the syringe facing away from me and pulling towards myself, obviously with the bevel pointing towards the paper.

i figured that most of the time this probably just made it worse, i found that swiping the BACK of the beveled side of the point against anything even regular paper can help get rid of the barb that forms.

shit, now i kinda wanna go stick a needle in my arm for some reason ...

 

uggh no i see enough relapses here in the real world, i don't need to be causing them on the net.