I have a friend who is an IV methamphetamine user. He favor one area, his left forearm. He tries to keep hydrated,take vitamins and eat somewhat healthy. He has hard spots around the areas he favors. And he has a hard red lump from a miss and the tourniquet being too tight. The area is a little sore from using a syringe.
He doesn'tt use often. But when he has a difficult time he gets stuck mentally. He won't stick himself a lot but he has been known to "fish around". That basically means he moves the needle in his skin until he finds a vein. He has been steady injecting meth for about 8 months. The lump from the miss is about 2 weeks old. I think all of his hard spots on his injection sites are from missing the vein.
Hospitals label users by forever stamping their medical records with a scarlet letter. They punish us by forbidding us certain medications,like pain medicine,when we need it.
At least that is what I've heard. And I don't want to take the chance to find out. But I worry about his arm. I don't want to go to the doctor and I'm assuming he would feel a lot more pain if it's were an abscess or some sort of infection. I'd like to know what to look for as far as immediately going to the doctor. I'd like to know what the hard spots are exactly. Is it scar tissue?. And I'd like to know what I can do at home to remedy. It's a lot of questions.