What does a deep intra muscular injection feel like? I’m facing some for medical reasons fairly soon and they don’t sound nice but I dunno. It’s quite an embarassing thing I can’t ask people I know about in real life.
The procedure I’ve had to follow to get ahold of these injections (all legal and “at the top of the pyramid” it’s prescribed by GP) is utterly bizzare too if anyone is interested. But given no one really cared about my numb finger (still numb but apparently “nothing to worry about” and they dunno why other doctors gave me a cast) I won’t go into it unless anyone interested?
(lol hint hint cause I wanna tell people dunno why; also I could prove it to mods easily)
My wife gives me weekly injections of testosterone to replace mine list to chronic opioid use to control pain. Quite honestly it is something you get used to and after a while it becomes second nature. I am posting only to pass on a little trick she does prior to sticking that damn needle in my hip. She takes her hand and slaps my hip two or the times. She does this quite hard, enough to make it sing. Once she does this I can’t even feel the needle piece the skin and burrow itself into the muscle. It works so well, that often I have to ask her if she gave me the injection. A far as feeling the drug being pushed in, I have never felt anything. The only time I have ever felt uncomfortable during Assn injection is when I was given Demerol via a vein in my arm. The Demerol had a tendency to burn as it went in. Try the pre injection slap, I swear it is amazing how well it works. Good luck to you.
Those are pretty awful, not because they go into the muscle, but because that oil makes it thick and viscous. It takes up a lot of room between your muscle fibers, and doesn’t absorb very quickly. It’s like having a marble in your hip.
Or so I hear. Never done it myself.
Confused dart cum, make sure you understand the instructions, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Some injections require you to draw them up from a vial, and then take off that needle and discard it, before putting a new needle on and doing the injection. It seems like a waste of time, but some medications are really irritating to the skin, and if you inject with tiny droplets of it on the outside of the needle, you aggravate the area or damage the tissue. Plus, doing the injection with a fresh, very sharp needle hurts a bit less than the dulled needle that went through the seal of the vial top.
Sometimes it helps to rub the skin with clean ice just before you swab it with alcohol and do the injection. The cold can numb it a bit.
Try to relax (I know, I know). A relaxed muscle doesn’t hurt as much when you penetrate it.
But mostly, be sure and swift. With the poke, that is. Hold the needle at 90°. Don’t aim for the skin, aim at a target behind the skin. You want the needle to end up fully in. Sliding a needle in hurts, so the more accurate your depth with your 90° jab, the less pain.
Once you’ve got it in though, again, follow your directions. Maybe slow, maybe quick. Some medications need to be given over a certain number of seconds, so as not to overwhelm the system. Go as slow as they say, it’s safest that way.
How do they feel? Assuming they’re not a special form of ouch like progesterone in oil, they feel like a shot. If you’ve had a flu shot, you’ve had an intramuscular shot. Most of the shots most people get, except for diabetics, are intramuscular.
I didn’t know that. Is this true, WhyNot? I always thought (well, assumed) that flu shots were subcutaneous, because they are so quick. Ditto shingles shot and tetanus booster (or nearly so). In contrast to the pneumonia jab, which took about thirty seconds and was even a little bit bloody. (How was that shot different?)
Fighting ignorance and shot phobia.
ETA: And I’ve noticed, in neurology procedure rooms, where they do electromyograms, they keep a supply of ammonia ampules handy.
Quite a few years ago on my return from working overseas I had met up again with an ex girlfriend. We rapidly resumed a very brief but intense affair. Well I took it as an affair but she must have read it as a new start-all-over. When I disabused her of that notion she was a bit outraged and amongst all the name calling suggested I had better get 'checked out" before I returned to work as she had been enjoying a promiscuous lifestyle and had picked up several interesting “gifts”
I didn’t really believe it but thought as I was going to a remote location in the Former Soviet republic of Georgia for 3 months with no easy access to medical attention if required I would just pop by the local clinic in Tblisi and get checked out. Just to be sure.
Well the Georgian Doctor there told me that he could do all the tests but as I was going into the countryside for a while, why not start the treatment also and if the test results meant I needed to return then I had saved a little time. If everything was clear then no harm no foul.
I sussed out that this was really just encouraging me to pay money but I agreed nonetheless.
Every medication these guys give is in the form of an injection!
Most of them were not too painful but as I was laying prone with my pants on my knees I felt an injection that absolutely took my breath away! yes absolutely it was like someone trying to inject a golf ball into my muscle!! And it took about 5 minutes!
Apparently it was a few million units of penicillin as prophylactic treatment for syphilis!!!
That was the most painful injection ever!
Needless to say all the test results came back clean. and apart from being $700 poorer I was an awful lot wiser!
Testosterone in oil doesn’t sting or burn. However, like progesterone in oil, it’s slow to disperse into the surrounding tissue. It can feel like something is stuck in the muscle, and the muscle can be sore for a while afterward. It also depends on the amount of substance injected - 1/2cc doesn’t produce as much soreness as 1cc.
Agreed, if it is testosterone you are injecting you won’t even notice the fluid enter. I use two needless for my injection. I use an 18 gauge needle to draw the testosterone from the Vidal and then a 25 gauge Nelle to inject. The testosterone substance is very thick and difficult to pull from the Vidal with a small gauge needle, but does seem to push fairly easy. If you are only injecting a 1/2cc as I am, I would suggest you ask your pharmacist for a 1cc syringe. For some reason the smaller syringe seems to push easier than the ones with a larger plunger. I have been receiving the injections for several years now. In the beginning I was quite nervous about the whole thing. A few hundred injections later and I don’t even think about it any longer. It is just pat of my routine, no different than shaving or brushing my teeth.
Don’t be embarrased -I can assume what you are reffering too (and if correct, its low testosterone - welcome to the club, we’ve got t-shirts) - there are topical remedies that are more controllable and don’t require injections - you should ask about that before having to go for the shots.
The shingles/chickenpox vaccines should be subcutaneous, as should the MMR. Every single frickin’ time I’ve held a kid while s/he’s getting the MMR, I’ve had to correct the nurse, though. Luckily, it’s not a lifethreatening error, but I do wonder if it affects immune response.
Assuming you’re not an infant, that would have been the PPSV vaccine - mostly given IM, but like the tetanus one, occasionally subq.
Sounds like someone hit a blood vessel. It happens, unfortunately, but it’s not part of the design. When you do an IM injection, you’re supposed to pull back on the syringe just a teeny bit to see if you see blood. If you do, you’re in a blood vessel and since medication that’s designed to go in muscle will be absorbed very differently if you put it into the bloodstream, you should stop, discard and use a fresh injection in a new site.
Most IM injections are pretty quick. The ones you have to go slow on are in the minority, so you can’t really tell from injection time if it is IM or Subq. Easiest way to tell (well, besides asking) is the site and the angle of the needle going in. Subq should go in at a 45° angle unless the patient is very obese; IM should be straight on 90°. Subq goes where there’s a nice flabby bit of fat under the skin, like the back of the arm or the belly, while IM goes where there’s muscle close to the skin, like your upper arm just below the shoulder, the side of your leg or the hip/butt. Older nurses still use the “upper outer quadrant” of the butt (dorsogluteal), while newer nurses are taught the side of the hip (ventrogluteal) instead.
Besides varicella and MMR vaccines, most peoples’ experiences with subcutaneous injections are limited to insulin and heparin/lovenox.
Yes it is testosterone, specifically Sustanon 250 (at least initially - apparently it’s really hard to source at the moment) which is to be done every three weeks to start with.
My current level is 4.8 and apparently normal is 9.4 to 37 and I “ought” to be at around 20. I don’t know what the units of that are.
I’ve been getting testosterone injections every three weeks since last fall. Although in years past I’ve routinely injected myself (for allergies), my town is so small that it’s quick and easy for me to walk into the office and have the float nurse give me my dose of nut juice.
I was “warned” that the stuff is in oil, requires a fatter needle, and is injected deep, but the injections have been no different from any others I’ve ever had.
It may help that I’ve never been bothered by needles, and injections/blood draws have never been a big deal for me. KNOCK ON WOOD.
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Don’t know about levels. Mine were just above 200 somethings, with normal being around 800. I think.
I had to inject some into myself for a while. Mostly it did not hurt. Occasionally I would hit a nerve and it hurt like a bitch!
The absolute hardest part was psyching myself up enough to do it. The ones under the skin were a piece of cake and I never had a problem. But putting it into my own muscle squicked me out EVERY SINGLE TIME. Once it was over I’d always laugh at myself for being a baby.
I get a testosterone shot every two weeks. Sometimes it hurts, but not very much. Sometimes the area’s a little sore for a day of so, but not very much. Other times, there’s literally no pain whatsoever.