“As long as I aspirate and go slow, I’ll avoid a vascular occlusion.”

Let me just light this dumpster fire of a belief real quick.If you’re still doing that dramatic plunger pullback ritual like it’s going to part the Red Sea and save your patient's arterial flow—you’re not practicing safely. You’re performing aesthetic theatre. And the audience? Probably a Complications WhatsApp thread, where injectors go to emotionally process after they’ve turned someone’s lip into beef jerky.Let’s stop pretending aspiration is the golden ticket to complication-free injecting. It’s not. The data proves it. Clinical outcomes prove it. And let’s be honest—you probably already know it, deep down, but it’s more comforting to believe the lie than confront the fact that your needle might be the problem.