Needles
Not strictly on topic, but recently I've been diagnosed with a condition which requires me to receive regular intramuscular injections and me, being me , decided that I would take it upon myself to administer them.

I arrived at the clinic for the tutorial,
I was met by a nice female doctor who offered to "show me the ropes".

I was shown how to prepare for the injection and fill the needle with the drug.

I was then told that the best place on my body to start learning with is a muscle called the "Vastus lateralis" which is in the thigh.

After sterilising the area, we arrived at the point were I was holding the needle over my leg with one hand, and gripping it (to expose more muscle) with the other.

It was at this stage where the appeal of the procedure was suddenly lost on me as I realised I was at the point where I had to jab myself with a bloody great needle (21g if you are interested) which was an inch long (to penetrate the muscle tissue) and rather thick looking. There was no going back.

"Hold it like a dart" she said, "throw it into your thigh like you would throw a dart, it's all in the wrist".

I must confess I was never good at darts but nonetheless I was under medical supervision and she would be there to take the blame if anything went wrong, right?

Nervously, I threw the needle into my leg, expecting it to be stupidly painful, what I /actually/ felt was far worse.

As it hit the skin , piercing the epidermal and dermal layers and then the (subcutanoeus) fat layer, I must confess I couldn't feel a thing, it was like a knife through butter, this surprised me somewhat.

When it hit the muscle layer however, my astonishment turned to distress, there is nothing quite like the feel of a silicon coated needle inside your muscle tissue, muscles are made of lots of "fibres" and the needle parts them where it can.
I can only describe it as a "weakening" of the muscle tissue, it goes from a solid piece of muscle you can tense and control, to a lump of pathetic jelly.
Now the needle was all the way in (a whole inch of it), the thought of accidentally knocking it and having it move was making me quite sick.

I looked up at the doc and waited for a prompt as to what to do next, she told me that now I was "in", I would have to "aspirate" (I believe the technical term is) which is to pull back on the plunger to look for blood, if I had the end of the needle inside a blood vessel (and there were many in my leg) I couldn't continue and would have to pull out (the drugs are not designed to go direct into the blood like that).

I did this and was surprised to find... nothing.. nothing at all... I was actually pulling back what seemed to be a vacuum, I could feel the resistance on the plunger as it wanted to be pulled back in, there was a vacuum inside my muscle!!

After confirming there was no blood, I continued to press the plunger in, the feeling of jelly became worse as the solution pushed apart my muscle fibres further, there was no going back.

Finally, I'd finished. I removed the needle which felt odder coming out than it did on the way in. Instantly I saw the clear drug leaking out of the hole I just made, trying to attain its freedom, followed closely by blood from the vessels I'd punctured on the way down.

For this I was simply told to apply pressure and it would stop by itself.

The whole experience gave me a funny sensation in the leg all day and still does to this day.




Length? 1 inch and rather deep.
(lochii, Thu 7 Aug 2008, 23:24, 4 replies)

Sounds fckin horrible
I've always thought I'd hate to have to inject myself.

Have a click
(MJPerry was crude but clickable at, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 1:52, closed)

Go back
and ask her how to do a Z track injection. That will stop the med from leaking out.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 1:58, closed)

Go back
Yes, I've learnt about z-track, I find it almost impossible to do myself, I keep worrying that I'll let go of the skin I'm holding back under tension somehow (maybe it will slip?) whilst the needle is in and it will go 'SPROING' + a lot of pain...
(lochii, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 10:37, closed)

So sorry
too bad we aren't neighbors, I'd do you for free- I'm pretty good at it.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sun 10 Aug 2008, 6:51, closed)