Got all the stuff now - ampoules, syringes, wipes, sharps bin .. and I've just had my first subcutaneous injection at the surgery with the nurse.
It bl**dy well stings, by the way. She said it always stings because of the nature of the stuff - how the f ... heck am I going to do that to me? And I slept for 2 1/2 hours this afternoon, being unable to process stress hormones too well and having a flump-reaction. Or from being a wuss - take your pick.
I've tried to find on youtube how to give myself a subcut, but only found this Dutchman showing how to give IM B12, and he started by showing all you needed to gather up in order to perform the trick including ... Tah Dah! A big pad to mop up the blood - lots of blood, he said!
Snapping the ampoule and inserting the big fat syringe into it to suck up the liquid was as far as I got. so my question is this - can anyone give me a link to a video on how to self inject subcutaneously please? Because i need to get my head round this for Saturday. Aaaargh!
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Schenks
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How slowly did they do the injection? Doing it too quickly can cause pain and i find not many people inject as slowly as you should. I am doing subcutaneous injections on my self and most of the time they are pretty much painless. I am using insulin syringes with attached needles, which I got from a local needle exchange, as they are very fine and very sharp resulting in less pain. Currently I am injecting around the stomach. Try searching for insulin injection videos (not ones with the auto pen system).
Yes, it does! Why would anyone want to have injections?! We don't. That's why I find it so ridiculous that people treat sufferers of B12 deficiency the way they do. Placebo nonsense etc. It is a pretty awful condition and the treatment isn't a treat as it stings but it works and works well.
So stick at it. I am not brave enough to self-inject but am getting enough from GP to keep me going along with sublinguals. Good luck! It will be worth it.
the actual injection method will be the same whatever you are injecting (though please only use medications that have been properly prepared for injection - did have someone recently who was trying to inject the contents of a vitamin capsule).
I have had the same nurse the last two times I've had my IM NHS shots and both times hurt unbelievably - much more than they should have done but it was quick and ... I suspect that she was using the phial straight from the fridge and it was a jab and go job - both of which are things that are known to cause the injection to be very painful. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it will be that painful unless you repeat the same two mistakes.
Another thing to bear in mind is the need to vary the injection site.
Thanks, Gambit. I specifically asked for it to be done subcutaneously and i think that they know enough about me by now as to have a wee bit of respect! Having ME and fibromyalgia I was really afraid that IM would be even more painful and when the nurse asked why I wanted it subcut and I explained, she was happy to do so. I remember now that you mention, to warm the ampoule to blood heat under my arm before injecting - timely. I will vary the site too.
Thank you Gambit for your personal opinion on jabs, now and in the past - knowing that you self treated was my first inspiration which saved my life!
While I strongly believe that the NHS should treat us and I make sure I pay my taxes to support this view, I have had to accept the reality that sees often horrible suffering in many cases without self treatment.
My 80 year old Dad who is a lovely man that will do anything for anyone is yet another victim of inadequate NHS treatment and bad advice.
I have used the inspiration of you helping your Mum to gently and respectfully help him too.
Hi Gambit, sorry to intervene on another person's thread but curious. All my injections hurt like hell but are muscular and normally give me a numb hand feeling. They always go into the same spot so have a dimple in my upper right arm, and i watch the nurse take the vial from the fridge before the injection. Is this not the normal way?
Depends on what you mean by normal. Think it happens a lot but ...
They really shouldn't be using the same spot every time - at the least they should be using different arms, though with a 3 month/2 month interval the probably isn't going to have any effect on the area where you are injecting but it can with more frequent injections, particularly if subQ.
Hydroxocobalamin is unstable on exposure to light and temperatures above the low 20s. This means that it usually gets stored in a fridge though a cool cupboard would actually be just as good and in fact preferable. It does not need to be injected at low temperature - a fridge will be keeping it below 5C - and good practice would be to warm it in the hands just prior to injection to get it nearer to body temperateure - injecting something at low temperature can be very painful and sting a lot.
Ask to get them in your buttock for one, more space and bigger muscle. Second ask that they inject veeery slowly, take at least 30 seconds. And third, it should be at room temperature, the B12, never straight from the fridge! Oh, and check that they use two needles, one for getting the B12 out of the ampoule and one for injecting.
IM should not hurt at all. If it does, they're probably doing something wrong.
Thanks, I've learnt a lot. I've been getting straight from the fridge into the same site, one needle and it takes seconds....I now know what to ask them not to do!
Hi Schenks I too am wondering why the nurse gave you a subcutaneous injection. I've had over 600 inter-muscular injections of B12 mostly in my right arm during the 45 years I've had P.A. and on only one or two occasions did it sting and then mostly if the nurse caught a nerve.
Another question is why are you buying and planning on injecting yourself and not your surgery? Are you in the U.K.?
I am in the UK but my doctors do not take cognizance of neurological symptoms unless they are death's door jobs. I didn't know this but my B12 levels before I started orally supplementing were just above 300 - this was a long time before i started supplementing and nothing was said to me.
My arms and shoulders and hips have really painful pressure points - as the nurse discovered when she pressed the muscle of my upper arm as she explained where it normally is given!
Not fully answered - so because of the neurological protocol, the once a month for three months won't cut it and i want to continue the protocol myself, as advised by a doctor on another B12 site.
I do IM (over 400 jabs now). If it hurts when I put the needle on my skin (and occasionly you find a spot that hurts like ###!) I move it to somewhere else until I can't feel it. (Be careful not to blunt the needle with too much poking - it usually either feels OK or it doesn't).
I have found that if it does hurt it usually bleeds too - initially I thought I had to be brave and just go for it, but found when I did my leg ached for a bit too so I gave that up and now I go for the easy option of finding a good spot and it is then pain free.
I don't pull the skin or anything fancy, I just do it gently!
I know loads of people who would give me my injections but I now wouldn't want anyone else to do it!!
The best way to take injections is IM, and if you inject too fast it can sting! You'll get used to it, you really will. But ask you Doc about IM vs. SubQ.
Thank you, but I have done quite a bit of asking and from a doctor's advice the main difference between the two is that it takes longer to build up from subQ than IM, but the action of the B12 lasts longer. I'll go slowly though, so thanks for the tip!
When I checked on IM vs SC I found lots of people saying the same as me (and your doc) - Absorption into the blood must be faster from IM because muscle is more highly perfused.
But when I looked into studies that had actually measured it for various drugs I found it was a lot more complicated than that.
In some cases SC meant quicker absorption - especially if you were skinny. Rates of absorption often slowed as BMI increased.
And for IM the site made a large difference. Absorption from the thigh was much faster than from the arm.
So, the correct answer, as is often the case, is - nobody knows.
I think I love you! Thanks, girder - you really do add a note of reason and calm. And I have so much blasted adipose it'll take forever to get through! So I'm content now to keep with the subQ. X
Gawd, this thread is making me feel ill! I do hope I'll never need to self inject for anything! I am seriously needle phobic, although I only faint occasionally since having babies. And I can hold the dogs as long as I don't need to look. But self-infliction would be going a bit too far!
Have you considered training up your OH? Mine does the cats (not mine, customers') and I am sure he would be happy to torture me if the need arose. Not a lot of use when he goes off to Japan, of course, but I am hoping he will eventually retire.
Hi Schenks, so pleased you have managed to get all your first injection at the Drs. It is normal to feel very tired at first - I slept a lot that first week. Make sure you are taking your good B complex and have a banana or similar to get the potassium. I came up in spots and acne to0.....
A good tip I learnt is to put the phial in your bra - it warms it nicely lol! on the phial is a white dot - hold that in front of you and then snap back from it.
There is an area of about 3" all round your belly button - I tend to pinch and then insert - very very slowly, stopping if necessary. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes not. feet up or standing sometimes helps. thigh muscles too. My husband refused to do too - but now i wouldn't want him to - i am the one to judge how to do it. Sometimes i get a dot of blood afterwards - don't worry about it.
Always supportive, BD - thanks so much. Not for telling me about the acne, though! Seriously though, great tips - I'll certainly remember the bra one, the snapping one and the slowly slowly that you have reinforced. People - like you are so supportive, thanks so much. X
I do Sub in the stomach 1x/weekly. If you prep with alcohol and don't let it evaporate fully, it hurts more (true for all injections). Some spots hurt immediately when I touch the needle, others I don't feel anything, so I move the needle a bit if it hurts when I first touch it. Almost always stings slightly when the liquid goes in.
Thank you for this. It goes some way towards normalising it. I'm going to rehearse in my head everything everyone has advised me, and then just quietly get on with it!
I self inject IM weekly and, like you, I was terrified at first. It always hurt when I had it done at the doc's and I've always hated needles.
It took me a couple of tries before I could even force myself to do it. Eventually, I found that pinching the skin and inserting the needle firmly but slowly helps - all the videos tell you to stab it in like a dart which I didn't fancy!
Occasionally, I find it stings a tiny bit but warming it and injecting slowly with a little break half way through if needed really does help with that. Now I know what I'm doing, I barely feel it and don't get nervous at all. My advice would be to just force yourself to do it - it really does get so much easier the more you do it. Good luck!
Hi schenks, I have timed myself and sub cut into the stomach takes me about three minutes just to slowly administer the liquid, it's surprising just how slowly things should be injected. I was trained to administer very very slowly to patients for two reasons, reduce the chance of irritation from medication and reduce pain.
High, Bob - yep! slowly, slowly .. you gave a graphic illustration of how slow so I just took all the time and marveled at how the plunger was going down and I felt absolutely nothing! So thank you too!
Well, folks - what the hell was all that fuss about? Warmed the stuff, touched the lump of fat pinched up with the tip of the thinner-than-a-hair needle, found the numbest bit, slowly inserted it, slowly (albeit clumsily - was a bit of a stretch with the plunger out all the way) injected and barely felt anything other than the slightest, slightest ... can't even describe it as a prick. Thinking about it now I feel squeamish!
I had taken everyone's generous advice. rehearsed it in my head, knew exactly what I was doing and why and just decided to get on with it. Brain went a bit of a walkabout but the rehearsed action took over as almost on autopilot. The area feels a bit sore, on a scale of 0-10 where 0 is nothing and 10 is agony I'd say about 0.25 - in other words I'm aware of it, and it's only the squeamishness that makes me notice it and fret a little. That and disbelief that I actually managed it.
So, my friends, thank you. Got to do it again, next! And then again, and again ...
Well done Schenks, got to say I've been tempted to try it myself but too wimping. Hope it helps
I had two at the docs that stung like hell, but none of my own SI have stung. I warm the ampoules for five mins or so in my bra, so it’s body temp and it’s fine. Also helps if you push the plunger slowly. Some medics are pretty brutal. Hope this helps 🙂
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My brother and I went to see the doctor and he has been given b12 shots...yea!! Please God let it help his M.S?
2nd jab and down hearted 
Injection reactions?
MrJustatip's diagnosis - FINALLY.
