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Is Bruising And Swelling In The Vein In Arm Normal After IV Drug?
Question: I stupidly tried to inject about 10 lines of ice into the underside of my wrist. It immediately started to swell and bruise. In my panic, I squeezed it (like a pimple) to try and get out the blood. That was around 4:30pm yesterday. It's gone down and no longer hurts unless I strain (light strain though..like opening a soft drink bottle). My hand has been feeling tingly but not asleep. The stupid thing is I used to use heroin over a decade ago. Smoking though, never via IV. I know you hear this daily but I don't do this anymore. It's just my luck that the one time I do, I'm still so out of practice that I'm scared I've created a 2com blood clot just waiting for me to fall asleep and travel towards my aorta. I really hope you can help. I've got pictures that I took within 5 minutes of it happening. It's probably a good idea to mention I ran it under cold water for as long as I could stand, then I'd do it over again until it felt almost surreal. I'd use the word numb but the pain wasn't anywhere close to being nonexistent. I settled for bearable.
Brief Answer:
blood clot least of issues
Detailed Answer:
clots OUTSIDE of the vessels can't go very far. Then... let us assume the very worst.....blood clot in a vein in the hand.. goes to the lung (it cannot get to the aorta) and kills off a portion of the lung ! ... Considering the clot is... slightly larger than a BB, the size of lung it could affect is...not going to be noticeable. You might get a mild cough for a few minutes. And that's being extremely pessimistic.
OK... here are the real risks... first, there is the question of the cleanliness of the injection. Hepatitis and HIV are risks if they are and not if there was no other blood or secretions from anyone else. Bacterial infection is a real risk. And that can actually go into any vessel including the aorta and the valves of the heart. That I've seen commonly.... blood clots to the lung from IV injection, never.
THen......there is local infection which could really be there and can injure any of the structures there including nerves and circulation to the hand.
Then there is compression of structures in the wrist from the blood clot. Not common but can cause compromise of circulation or nerve damage. (hot compresses can be helpful in resorbing fluid; cannot say in this particular case, however).
THen, there's the entire addiction thing.
blood clot least of issues
Detailed Answer:
clots OUTSIDE of the vessels can't go very far. Then... let us assume the very worst.....blood clot in a vein in the hand.. goes to the lung (it cannot get to the aorta) and kills off a portion of the lung ! ... Considering the clot is... slightly larger than a BB, the size of lung it could affect is...not going to be noticeable. You might get a mild cough for a few minutes. And that's being extremely pessimistic.
OK... here are the real risks... first, there is the question of the cleanliness of the injection. Hepatitis and HIV are risks if they are and not if there was no other blood or secretions from anyone else. Bacterial infection is a real risk. And that can actually go into any vessel including the aorta and the valves of the heart. That I've seen commonly.... blood clots to the lung from IV injection, never.
THen......there is local infection which could really be there and can injure any of the structures there including nerves and circulation to the hand.
Then there is compression of structures in the wrist from the blood clot. Not common but can cause compromise of circulation or nerve damage. (hot compresses can be helpful in resorbing fluid; cannot say in this particular case, however).
THen, there's the entire addiction thing.
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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